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NEW DAY

11 Members of U.S. Military Missing After Crash; Could Iran Use GOP Letter to Scrap Nuclear Deal?; University of Oklahoma SAE Frat Brothers Apologize for Racist Chant

Aired March 11, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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


ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Can you give us an update on the search and rescue effort?

ANDY BOURLAND, EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE SPOKESMAN (via telephone): Well, actually, I think that the information you just heard was quite accurate. I would stress now that we're still waiting for daylight, probably another 15 to 30 minutes. But what is happening is the team from both the Coast Guard, as well as our county partners, as well as Air Force first responders, are currently forming near the scene.

We have begun to see debris washing ashore on both the north and the south side of the sound. It's an area east of the Navarre Pass, if you're familiar with the Okaloosa Island area. But I will highlight also that the Coast Guard has already secured that waterway. So, that in the event of civilian watercraft that might be going through that area, fishermen for example, that area is secured now so that it will not be disruptive of the rescue and recovery mission.

CAMEROTA: So, is it the thinking that the chopper went down in the water, not on the beach there?

BOURLAND: That is correct. That is my understanding at this time.

CAMEROTA: We understand this was a nighttime training exercise and that dense fog -- we just had a live shot of the panhandle area, and there is still dense fog there this morning. But was -- is the thinking that that's what -- here it is right now. You can see, I mean, it's just soupy down there. Was this the situation last night, as well?

BOURLAND: My understanding is there was -- there were fog conditions all evening. And certainly were -- were there at that time, yes. We won't know until we've actually had a chance to investigate the accident as to whether -- you know, whether weather was a contributing factor to it.

The other helicopter that was part of the training mission recovered safely. All those individuals on board that aircraft were reported safe and sound. There was not a mid-air incident, if you will. I want to make sure I'm clear on that. Whatever the trouble was with the one aircraft, it did not involve the second helicopter that was participating in the exercise.

CAMEROTA: When you say investigate the incident, is there on- board communications that you can listen to?

BOURLAND: To the best of my knowledge, yes. We would have all of the traditional kinds of collection, data collection opportunities that you would find in civilian crash. I probably would have to get back to you on specifics from that particular helicopter.

But we will -- there will be very short -- there will be an immediate investigation board that will be put together and then a longer-term one. Normally those investigations take us a number of months. A lot of that will depend on the debris and what we are able to collect from the accident site itself, particularly since it was over water.

CAMEROTA: Are other planes able right now, with the fog to get up and take a look around?

BOURLAND: We actually have secured the airspace overhead. I don't know that we currently have aircraft that will be part of that rescue effort. I would imagine that, once it is clear, we will be using whatever assets we possibly can to insure we recover remains or individuals or the aircraft as we can.

CAMEROTA: We understand the Coast Guard has one boat already in the water there in that area.

BOURLAND: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Do we know if they have seen any sign of survivors?

BOURLAND: No. I have not spoken with them directly. I really have not gotten any word of survivors there. To the best of my knowledge, as of in the last 30 minutes, I'm not aware of the recovery of any survivors.

CAMEROTA: Were the Marines and the soldiers on the other chopper able to give you any information about what they saw?

BOURLAND: Other than the fact that they lost contact, no. I do not have any other details about how they got separated while they were in the training mission last evening around 8:30.

CAMEROTA: And can you just describe one more time, what the area is that you're dealing with this morning?

BOURLAND: Well, it is still dark. It probably will not be daylight until another half hour at least. We do have foggy conditions here, which are impacting the search-and-recovery efforts. But our team is already forming up and is on scene, simply waiting for the opportunity to really begin a full-blown review of the area.

CAMEROTA: Andrew Bourland, we are sure hoping that daylight can bear some fruit and that you all can find some survivors there.

BOURLAND: Thank you for your thoughts.

CAMEROTA: Thank you so much for the update from there -- Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. So here's a provocative question: Did 47 Republican senators break the law by sending that open letter to Iran? And what impact did the infamous open letter have on the controversial nuclear deal with Iran?

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is live at the White House. Big questions, what are you hearing?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, just as important here in all this controversy, is whose names did not appear on that letter. Seven Republican senators, they were approached to sign on, but they refused to do so. And they're speaking out about that decision, saying it's not that they don't want Congress to have more say, but that they don't think this was the right way to do it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: I did not think it was appropriate for us to write to the ayatollah and try to explain to him our constitutional system of government.

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: I didn't view the letter as helping achieve an outcome that I'd like to see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And the 47 signatories of this letter really doubling down. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican from Florida, he said he has no regrets. He would sign onto a letter again. He said that the threat from Iran is great enough that they have to take this sort of unusual move.

Now meanwhile, while all of this is going on, there's some real legal questions being asked. Did senators break the law in reaching out directly to the government of Iran?

Now the -- there's an arcane law on the books. It's called the Logan Act. And what it is, it basically prohibits any U.S. citizen from communicating with the foreign government without the official capacity of the U.S. government behind it.

So it's an interesting debate. We checked with the Department of Justice and White House officials, and they say there's really no appetite here to pursue any of these legal questions. They say, quote, Chris, "This is a political issue, not a legal one" -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Let's try that out, Sunlen, with Democrat Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia. He's a key member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committee.

Senator, thank you for joining us on NEW DAY. Do you believe the act named after Dr. Logan, all those years ago in the 1700s, do you believe it applies today, that this was seditious, treasonous and really getting in the mix when they should not have? Is this against the law?

SEN. TIM KAINE (D), VIRGINIA: Well, Chris, I don't know the law, but I'll tell you it was foolish. There's a right way, and there's a wrong way to weigh in.

The right way is to let the negotiators do their job. Let them see if they can reach a deal. And then the deal will get put on the table, and Congress will have an opportunity to weigh in.

But these actions were basically seen as an action to undercut negotiations, to say that the United States is not interested in diplomacy, and we should never, never be sending that message.

CUOMO: What does it mean to you that seven Republican senator would not sign on? Most notably Senator Corker, who's obviously the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Foreign Intelligence Committee?

KAINE: Well, Chris, as you point out, that was very notable. Senator Corker and I, together with 14 of our colleagues, introduced a bill, I guess, two weeks ago to set, and bipartisan -- seven Dems, seven Republicans -- to establish a clear process for how Congress would take up a final deal, if and when there is a final deal.

And that's the way we ought to be doing this bipartisan, deliberate. We don't need to declare an opinion or opine before there's a deal on the table to review. And so Senator Corker clearly, you know, thinks that there's a right way to do this. And that's why he wouldn't sign on to a letter trying to tank negotiations before they were done.

CUOMO: And testing the idea of the need for any legislation here, you said yourself, Senator, that once they negotiate a deal, the president, the White House, those involved at the State Department, would send it over to Congress for review.

What do you need any kind of bipartisan congressional deal, laying out a procedure? You know what the procedure is: let them cut a deal, and then they'll show it to you.

KAINE: Well, the reason that I think a procedure helps is this letter of the 47 show that there can be a little bit of a free for all about something like this. So why not establish pretty clear rules of the road?

What our bill does, Chris, is this: It clearly sets out that the president has executive order, without Congress, to lift sanctions that are executive in nature; and there are some, or to encourage international partners to lift international sanctions.

But when any deal touches upon the congressional sanctions that we enacted, at that point that triggers a review period. During that 60-day review period, there can't be congressional sanctions relief. Congress has the opportunity to have hearings and either approve, disapprove or take no action. And we define in our bill the effects of all of those steps that Congress may take. CUOMO: Right.

KAINE: So it gives everybody, including the Iranians -- why would the Iranians make bold concessions on their program, when they want to get out from under congressional sanctions, if they have no knowledge about when or if Congress would ever weigh in?

CUOMO: Let me ask something about the premise of this letter, and then I want to move on to a couple other pressing topics.

KAINE: Yes.

CUOMO: The -- Senator Cotton says, you know, "This is unprecedented, because the president is unilaterally negotiating with a terrorist entity in Iran about nukes and, you know, every other time this has been a treaty." Yes, because a treaty, by definition, has a bargain on both sides. This is unilateral. Iran isn't going to get things from this. They already have the things. It's only about limiting them.

Why is that idea lost on your brothers and sisters down there in Congress? This is not a treaty that's being negotiated; it's a unilateral set of restrictions.

KAINE: Well -- well, Chris, let me explain. You're right; it's not a treaty. If were a treaty, that's clear process...

CUOMO: Right.

KAINE: ... that would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate. It doesn't go before the House. This is not a treaty. But it is a bargain. The president is bargaining away a congressional sanctions regime.

So this isn't unrelated to Congress. The core of the sanctions that have punished the Iranian economy, that have brought them to the negotiating table, is a congressional statute. And the president doesn't have the power to just wave a wand and make that statute go away.

CUOMO: Right.

KAINE: And Iran -- and Iran understands that. So everyone knows. Everyone knows, Congress has got to weigh in at some point on this. The only question is how and when. And again, there's a right way and a wrong way. The letter trying to tank negotiations before they're done is the wrong way.

CUOMO: All right. Fair point on the fact that Congress does have a role, because it's your sanctions. Two other hot-button issues: The impact of the letter. You know, you are supposed to be holding AUMF hearings right now...

KAINE: Today. Today.

CUOMO: ... to figure out whether to authorize force. Very important. War going on, by any other name. How will this affect that?

KAINE: Now that's a great question, Chris. I gave a floor speech yesterday, and what I said was there is now a test about whether the Senate of the United States can entertain tough national security issues in a careful and deliberate way, or whether we're just going to be rushed and partisan. And it is posed very directly.

We have a hearing today about the president's proposed authorization for the war against ISIL. And we're then going to move very promptly into a mark-up of the authorization in a floor vote.

CUOMO: Right.

KAINE: We have got to show the public, but especially the troops who are in harm's way, that we are going to deliberate about this in a careful way and not be rushed and partisan. And that is an unfortunate question that people have in their minds because of this letter and some other recent events.

CUOMO: Not a time for commitment of the U.S. to be questioned, when you have the Iran moving up onto the front lines with their "advisors," in quotes, and being given more and more credit for the gains against ISIS.

KAINE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

CUOMO: So we look forward to seeing what happens on that.

Quick take. If were you Hillary Clinton, OK, would you release your server and say, "Here's everything? This is a non-issue. Look at everything. I have nothing to hide. You're not creating a fake issue on me." Would you do that?

KAINE: You know, what I would do is I would make sure that every official e-mail was released. And whether you have to do that via -- with the server or whether, what she's doing right now is she's saying every official e-mail would be released. I think that's all she needs to do.

She doesn't need to release personal e-mails. Nobody does. But just release all the official e-mails, and that's what she committed to do. The State Department is looking at them, and I think we'll see those promptly.

CUOMO: The concern is the specter of the unknown fuels all the speculation. And we're going to see more of it now. It's just ramping up, I'm afraid.

Senator Kaine, good to have you.

KAINE: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: We look forward to progress on the AUMF.

KAINE: Me, too.

CUOMO: Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right. To another top story. Apologies and expulsions at the University of Oklahoma. The student leading the chant in that racist fraternity video admitting that his actions were wrong. The parents of a second student in the video is also apologizing. Both students have now been kicked out of the school.

CNN's Nick Valencia covering all of these latest developments from Norman, Oklahoma.

Good morning, Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

Seventy-two hours after that video first surfaced, the apologies continue. One of those students identified as Parker Rice, 19 years old, originally from Dallas, Texas, and he issued a statement -- I want to read part of that -- saying, "I am deeply sorry for what I did Saturday night. It was wrong and reckless, a horrible mistake by joining into singing and encouraging others to do the same. For me, this is a devastating lesson, and I am seeking guidance on how I can learn from this and make sure it never happens again."

Now a second student who chose to issue an apology through his parents has not being officially named by the university. But according to the campus daily here, O.U., his name is Levi Petit.

Meanwhile, during all of this, SAE, that chapter fraternity house here at the University of Oklahoma, officially shuttered as of midnight last night. The university president, David Boren, saying so long as he has tenure here, that house, that fraternity will have nothing to do with the university -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Nick Valencia, thanks so much for that.

Well, joint Iraqi forces seizing a large portion of Tikrit from ISIS. This morning they took back control of a Tikrit hospital, and an Iraqi flag is now raised at that site.

Meanwhile, ISIS now attacking the town of Ramadi in Iraq, the terrorists launching rounds of mortars and missiles and detonating cars filled with explosives. There have reportedly been at least ten casualties among Iraqi forces in that area.

CUOMO: A new video released by ISIS appears to show a child shooting and killing an Israeli Arab hostage, making clear their motives are anything but holy. The terrorists claim the victim was working as a spy. Israel refutes that. And the man's family is telling CNN he was recruited by ISIS, and they did all they could to get him home.

PEREIRA: Chilling new video of that mid-air helicopter collision that killed 10 in Argentina, including three beloved French athletes. You can see it happen there. Prosecutors in France have now opened an investigation. The victims were participating in a reality TV show, a survivalist show called "Dropped." Among the dead, two Argentine pilots and the show's host, French Olympic swimmer Camille Moffat, and Olympic boxer Alexis Vastine.

CAMEROTA: Well, Hillary Clinton defending her use of private e- mail when she ran the State Department. So did her press conference yesterday help or hurt her cause? Carl Bernstein here to debate that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: I trust the American people to make their decisions about political and public matters. And I feel that I've taken unprecedented steps to provide these work- related e-mails. They're going to be in the public domain.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Trust and unprecedented steps are certainly in the mix this morning.

CAMEROTA: You got it. Former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, went public yesterday, so did she help or hurt her cause for 2016 and for now?

Back to join us is CNN senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny; and Carl Bernstein, CNN political commentator and author of "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Great to have both of you here.

Carl, let me start with you. Do you believe that she helped or hurt her cause with this press conference?

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that this whole episode has hurt her cause. I also think that it's hurting the cause of her political enemies, as well, in their excess, which usually happens when the Clintons are involved in something in which they're trying to be less than open and transparent.

And we're very much back in the past again with their entourage, with their enemies, with lawyers, with crossing hairs and dotting I's. It's a thoroughly dispiriting episode, and it's not going to go away. And I don't think she accomplished much on her behalf yesterday.

CUOMO: Well, so let's talk about that, Jeff Zeleny. Why didn't she accomplish a lot? Because obviously, Mr. Bernstein is right. It is a blast from the past. But it's because of what happened in the present. It does seem as though she wants to control what is known. "I'm going to release all the e-mails." But all? Is she going to release all? Is she going to release the server? Will it really be open?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: She said she's not going to release the server, and she said that her lawyers have already looked through these. So they have released -- they're going to release some 30,000 e-mails that she said are government-related e- mails. But some 30,000 e-mails are not. She says they're personal. But are they political? What else is in those?

You know, she's in the driver's seat here. The reason that there's still more questions on this. I mean, this controversy has been building for eight days. So it's absurd to think that she could have answered all the questions in 20 minutes. So you know, a bit of a vacuum here.

But I thought out of the gate she answered some of the questions, put more context in this.

And what we're going to see, she's going to go on offense now a little bit more, and some Democrats are going to follow along. She's finally giving them their talking points. She's been silent for so long. So she's cool to criticism on one side. And the real questions remain, and Congress now is hungry on this. They're going to go after some of these e-mails and issue these subpoenas.

CAMEROTA: Well, her answer, her explanation, I should say, to all of this was convenience. She used the word "convenience" at least a half a dozen times to explain why she did this. Does that pass muster with you?

BERNSTEIN: I think it's very obvious that this is about control of her correspondence. And that she does not and did not want when she set this up, to have for others, particularly the press and political enemies, who are really vicious, really wretched in their excess, to have access to her communications in a way that could be hurtful.

It's a little bit like the Whitewater episode in the following way. There was nothing really substantive in Whitewater that mitigated against her legally; perhaps in her judgment or about her personal finances. This is about keeping people from seeing the record. It's a problem that there has been with Hillary Clinton, with Bill Clinton, with their entourage.

But the problem doesn't come out of nowhere, because the Clintons arouse a kind of crazed response from political enemies that makes dealing in a responsible way with public questions very difficult for them. It goes to the heart of the dysfunction of our politics, the ideological and cultural warfare that they're in the crosshairs of.

You listen to Jeb Bush, in a rather hypocritical way, talk about the way he's handled this kind of thing. When we think about what's important, we look about why Bush is running for president, why Hillary Clinton is running for president.

When we heard her at her best yesterday at the beginning of her press conference -- "press conference" in quotes -- when she went after the 47 Republican senators...

CUOMO: Right.

BERNSTEIN: ... and their irresponsibility. That's her at her best. And yet, we're also seeing SOP Clintonian paranoia and the enemies' paranoia here. CUOMO: What about -- let's -- let's test this potential gotcha

that's out there about what she said in the past and how many devices she uses versus the present. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So I want to ask the big question.

CLINTON: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: IPhone or Android?

CLINTON: IPhone. OK. In full disclosure...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: BlackBerry.

CLINTON: And a BlackBerry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The irony, "in full disclosure" there. Zeleny, is that a gotcha?

ZELENY: I don't think it's necessarily a gotcha. It's important to put timing in context here. She's talking about right now. A top Clinton associate told me this morning that she has just recently gotten her iPhone, not that long ago. At the time she was secretary of state, she was only using a BlackBerry.

So you know, this is an instance where we sort of have to take her word for it, if she was using one device or two. So it's not a gotcha necessarily, because that was just a couple of weeks ago, that sound. And in January of '09, she was only using a Blackberry, I'm told.

CAMEROTA: Jeff, I want to stick with you.

BERNSTEIN: Can I interject something?

CUOMO: Yes, Carl. What have you got?

BERNSTEIN: And that's the whole idea about gotcha. That's part of the problem that we're dealing with here, and it's part of the reason the Clintons do some of what they do. Because we, including the press, are looking for, quote, "gotcha moments."

What's important here is the larger picture. Is there methodology of Hillary Clinton? The assumption she makes and the assumptions of the political opposition.

But the idea that we are looking on television, in these press conferences, for a single factoid that is a gotcha is indicative of the problem that she's dealing with and that our political system is being, you know, just undermined by.

CUOMO: But that's a matter -- it's a matter of perspective. Because Carl Bernstein, you are one of the best examples in journalism history of talking what was being put out there by a politician and showing that it was patently false. You know, now that would be called a gotcha. You proved that what was being...

BERNSTEIN: I don't think so.

CUOMO: ... put out there was false. How not?

BERNSTEIN: We took -- we took a whole picture with Richard Nixon and developed the information about the larger pallet about what was being painted by a criminal president in the United States. It was not about a gotcha moment.

In fact, Nixon tried to make it about a gotcha moment by saying there had to be a smoking gun, when in fact, there was armor laying all over the floor that he had had on. So, no, I would dispute what you say there, Chris, with all due respect.

CUOMO: No, you are due the respect, and that's a fair point.

CAMEROTA: And Jeff, you were in the room yesterday during this press conference, so I just want to ask you about the style versus substance question that always comes up with her. Today, analysts think that she was too defensive -- she was overly defensive. What did it seem like in the room?

ZELENY: I thought it seemed like she's finally coming out of her shell. We have not seen her in that setting for so long. She does not like to do press conferences, obviously.

But I thought she could have used a bit more humor, perhaps, in deflecting this. But overall, I think she was not as defensive as we've seen her before. This will not go down in history as a moment that's repeated like some of her press conferences from her time in the White House. This was not that.

I think she was sort of frustrated when the questions were answer -- were being asked over and over. And she was clearly sticking to what her very limited answer was. She had her notes in front of her. This had been carefully planned. That's why it took eight days.

But I think that she, you know, was not as defensive as some old Clinton things. But people are always going to be looking at that. The thing is, you know, she's trying to move onto this. She's not going to have another public event until next week. This is still going to be out there whenever we hear from her again.

CUOMO: Chicken and egg aside, to Carl Bernstein's point, to wrap up this segment, she comes off defensive because she is, because she thinks that the press is out there trying to kill her, as are her political enemies.

CAMEROTA: Right.

CUOMO: And you wind up having the balance of who's more right, who's more wrong in these situations. Carl Bernstein, thank you very much.

Mr. Zeleny, we're going to see plenty of you. Welcome to the team.

All right. So on another story this morning, there are apologies and expulsions after that racist video. And there should be. But are those expulsions legal? Was that speech protected speech, no matter how offensive? We're going to get into it. You may not like the answers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)