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NEW DAY

Netanyahu Declares Victory; GOP Candidates Face off in Straw Poll; Dick Cheney Weighs in on Ferguson; Air Force Veteran Allegedly Tries to Join ISIS; Fraternities in Hot Water Over Separate Incidents. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 18, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[05:58:17] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Netanyahu wasted no time declaring victory.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A surprising margin for the prime minister.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right up until the final minutes here, it looked like it was neck and neck.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Indicted for allegedly trying to join ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A U.S. Air Force veteran stopped in Turkey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His experience in the private aviation sector disturbs me the most.

BERMAN: Three more fraternities in hot water.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Photos of women appearing to be passed out. Partially naked.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Students have been pretty disgusted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dolce and Gabbana said same-sex couples should not raise children. Synthetic children. Rented uterus.

DOLCE: I believe in the tradition of family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY, it is Wednesday, March 18th, 6:00 in the East. Chris Cuomo is off and John Berman is here. Great to have you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: All right, we begin with breaking news. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring victory, pulling off a stunning turn-around, giving him a fourth term and putting him on track to become Israel's longest serving prime minister.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Netanyahu has not officially won yet; final results aren't expected until next week, but his rival is conceding defeat. We have the story covered from every angle.

We'll begin with Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem. Good morning to you.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN REPORTER: Good morning, Michaela. And one of the questions we'll have to answer is how are the polls so wrong? How did they show such a tight race, Netanyahu even trailing, and then Netanyahu comes with a resounding victory here? A very big margin, more than we've seen in any of the polls. He's ahead by five seats. According to these unofficial numbers, but these are numbers from the ballot boxes, as opposed to polling or surveys, Netanyahu's Likud Party won 29 seats, whereas his main rival, Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union, won 24 seats, a larger margin of victory than anyone expected here.

[06:00:08] Netanyahu declared victory last night. It looks like today he can celebrate that victory. Isaac Herzog calling him to congratulate him as the next prime minister. It will be six years -- this is six years now that Benjamin Netanyahu has had the premiership. And it looks like he'll have another few years here.

Part of his job now is to create a coalition government and, because of such a wide margin of victory, it looks like he has a lot of options there. A lot of parties on the right and in the center that he can work with. That's up to him. He's a master politician, a master deal-maker, and now, Michaela, he'll put those tools to work to create the coalition government that he wants. Today he'll be celebrating that margin of victory and that call from Herzog congratulating him.

PEREIRA: All right, Oren. Thank you for that.

Meanwhile as relations between the U.S. and Israel are near rock- bottom in recent months, it's no secret the Israeli prime minister and President Obama don't care much for each other. So what can we expect during the next two years, if Netanyahu remains in power?

Let's turn to CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski with that part of the story, the intriguing part for us here at home.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Given that Netanyahu vowed to stand up to Washington, well, his rival was saying that his goal was to repair relations with the U.S. You can pretty much see where things stand there. I mean, that's part of the rhetoric of campaigning. But it shows you that it mattered.

You look at Netanyahu's campaign. I mean, coming here to the U.S., giving this fiery speech before Congress, criticizing the administration's negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program; saying that, if he were in power, there would never be a Palestinian state, which is one of the key U.S. goals for peace in that region. And also, the differences of opinion between the U.S. and Netanyahu over Israeli settlements. It is clear that Washington would have welcomed with open arms someone

else in that position. But what this administration has been saying publicly is that they were willing to work with anyone. Whoever would win, the U.S. Would work closely with. And that close relationship, the shared values between the U.S. and Israel, will remain strong -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Michelle, thanks for all of that. Let's talk about it more. We want to bring in CNN political analyst and editor in chief for the "Daily Beast," John Avlon; and CNN political commentator, Republican consultant and Sirius XM host, Margaret Hoover. Great to see you guys.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning, guys.

CAMEROTA: OK, John, this was a surprise victory for Benjamin Netanyahu. The polls did not suggest it was going to happen. So what does this mean for the already-strained relations between the White House and him?

AVLON: Well, it's unlikely they're going to get better on a personal level. But the relationship between America and Israel, it is important to emphasize on a day like today, is much deeper than the personality of a president and prime minister. That said, you know, with the implications, if there is a deal with Iran, this gets more difficult. It gets more difficult on some fundamental level.

BERMAN: I think it's a major pain in the neck for this White House. I think this White House and a lot of the world was expecting this election, if not to go the other way, at least to be a lot closer. To me, this feels like the shellacking that the Obama team received in 2010 in the midterms. It didn't happen to him, what happened last night to Obama. He's got to deal with it now. It's not just Iran. It's what happens to the whole idea of peace negotiations in the Middle East with a two-state solution which affects the relationship with Europe. It's a big deal.

HOOVER: And it hinders what would have been -- I think President Obama desperately wants a deal with Iran, and he wants to be able to use it as a political victory lap.

And if he gets a deal with Iran, there's no way Bibi Netanyahu is going to be OK with it. There's no way, frankly, the American Congress is going to be OK with it, as the American Congress doesn't have a chance to weigh in. So it does make things more difficult for President Obama's legacy pieces.

CAMEROTA: Does the government in Israel, very quickly, change? Do they cobble together a different coalition now?

AVLON: That could take some time to actually cobble it together. But it does look like Bibi Netanyahu is in the pole position on that.

But again, I think also some of the tactics in the last couple of days will also make coalition building both at home and abroad more difficult. You know, coming out against the two-state solution, saying you know, that Arab-Israelis are voting, using that as a turn- out. Those are tactics that go beyond pragmatic towards something a little bit different, and that's going to increase the difficulty.

BERMAN: Can we talk about elections here? Because we have a presidential election, what, like, 18 months from now, but we have an awesome new CNN/ORC poll which takes a look at the Republicans in this race right now and the crowded field of Republicans right here. This is the favorability numbers we have to look at right now. This is how the Republicans are doing with voters. And you can see Mike Huckabee, most favorable.

CAMEROTA: Why are you laughing, Margaret?

BERMAN: Jeb Bush at 45 percent. Chris Christie way down there. Can we have horse race numbers here? Jeb Bush is in the lead among the horse race numbers by a little bit. But the field is all bunched together.

HOOVER: Yes. It's 15 percent, 14 percent, 13 percent, I think. Jeb Bush, Walker, OK, 16, 13, 12 Walker. And then Rand Paul a surprise, pulling ahead of Mike Huckabee.

Look, what this shows is a crowded field, and you know, you're exactly right. It's a tight horse race. This is going to be a real election. It's going to be a real competition. It is going to be a real race for voters' hearts and minds.

[06:05:05] CAMEROTA: But what do you think of Mike Huckabee being at the top of the favorability totem pole there?

HOOVER: He spent a lot of time in Iowa. That is early primary -- early caucus-goers, and that is his exact constituency. I mean, Mike Huckabee, he wins Iowa. Remember, he beat Mitt Romney in Iowa in 2008.

AVLON: Yes. I mean, that's high name I.D. That's time on FOX News. That's time, you know, just resonating with evangelicals.

But look, you know, one of the ways you can tell this is a little bit tricky is that -- that Huckabee is the only one above 50 percent fame among Republicans. And right now, Ben Carson's ahead of Christie and Rubio. So, you know, the silly season sauce is still kicking in here.

BERMAN: One thing I like to look at is how they're doing against Hillary Clinton, who I understand who might run for president.

AVLON: I've heard rumors to that effect.

BERMAN: Rand Paul, among all the Republican candidates here, gets the closest to Hillary Clinton in a match-up.

AVLON: I do think that's significant. It's only -- only by a hair. But it does make a more credible general election argument for a candidate who had been considered top tier. Right now still, you know, kind of rounding out the top three. But that's a number to really look at if you're a Republican, if you're paying attention to where the puck is going.

CAMEROTA: Very quickly, let's look at the Democrats' favorability ratings. I believe we have a poll that shows that Hillary Clinton is way out front. That won't be a surprise for anybody, but maybe we have those numbers. OK, Clinton is 62 percent. There's Joe Biden, 15 percent, then Elizabeth Warren and everybody else.

AVLON: That's almost 200 times the lead over -- that Jeb Bush has over the rest of the field. I mean, this is -- this is an unprecedented situation, folks. I mean, the two people who are actually running against Hillary Clinton right now, you know, O'Malley and Webb...

HOOVER: ... mounting campaigns. Getting staff and starting to fundraise. Don't even...

AVLON: One percent, 1 percent. Against 62.

BERMAN: They're saying there's a chance.

AVLON: You're saying there's a chance? But that is stark, man.

BERMAN: Margaret, I want to shift gears now to the last administration which you're quite familiar with.

HOOVER: Right.

BERMAN: Vice President Dick Cheney did an interview with "Playboy" magazine. Read it for the articles.

He did an interview where he talked a lot about the current administration, which the vice president likes to do. He talked about Ferguson. And I want to show you what he said about Ferguson. We're going to put that on the screen right here.

He essentially said, well, there wasn't about Ferguson. He talks about the issue of race and the president and Eric Holder. He says that the president and Eric Holder played the race card. He was suggesting when people criticize the administration, the president and the attorney general say it's because of race.

And then he went on to talk about Ferguson, also. And he said that the focus on Ferguson is misplaced. He thinks that the administration has turned it all over to the burden of race or racial inequality. We haven't talked about the crime itself.

What do you make of the vice president's comments?

HOOVER: First of all, you know, I worked in the Bush administration. I worked for Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and I was proud to work for them.

What I will say is that many white Republican men like Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani really have a paradigm about race in America that is from the 1990s or the late 1980s. And they don't understand that the rising generation of Americans is 40 percent nonwhite, the largest subgroup in that is actually Hispanic, not African-American. They have a very old prism through which they see...

CAMEROTA: Well, what does that mean?

HOOVER: And so they're entirely out of touch. They come from a time where you actually had, you know, the Rainbow Coalition and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton actually, in some cases, undermining race relations. You can mention Tawana Brawley. You can mention -- so I think what they're -- they're entirely out of touch with where America is on race now.

And we -- it hurts the Republican Party in the sense that it doesn't demonstrate the sensitivity of racial issues, and it, frankly, further alienates not just African-American voters or Hispanic voters, but also white suburban voters who we need to vote for us. Because we need to demonstrate that we have a sophisticated understanding of race relations.

AVLON: Which isn't happening here. Look, when white guys in their 70s have -- are more exquisitely sensitive to politicians allegedly playing the race card than they are to race relations and racial history, that's a real problem; and that really came out. This is a fascinating interview. I was surprised, frankly, at the centerfold; didn't expect that from Cheney. But...

CAMEROTA: It's too early, John.

AVLON: Never too early for a good Dick Cheney centerfold joke. But -- but you know -- but really, that is tone-deaf stuff, and he clearly believe it. And that's a problem.

CAMEROTA: John, Margaret, great to see you.

AVLON: OK, thanks.

CAMEROTA: Thanks -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: I'm still trying to remember what time it is this morning; 6:09 is the time. Thanks for that conversation.

Right to this now. The first American military veteran accused of trying to join ISIS. Authorities say the New Jersey man, recently fired from his job as an airline mechanic, is in custody and due in federal court in Brooklyn later this morning.

CNN's Miguel Marquez is covering it all for us. Miguel, this is a very interesting twist.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's fascinating. Tairod Webster Nathan Pugh is his name. He took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. Now authorities saying he was trying to undermine it, saying he tried to cross into Syria from Turkey in January. He was picked up, arrested, sent back to the U.S. He was an Air Force mechanic in the 1990s. More recently, he was a

mechanic for airlines in the Middle East. He was fired from his job recently. A search of computers found ISIS videos. They found searches for border crossings into Syria. They also found thumb drives that had been wiped down and an iPod that had been completely wiped, as well.

[06:10:14] MARQUEZ: They found a -- this statement on one of his computers, saying, "I am mujahedin. I am a sword against the oppressor and a shield of the oppressed. I will use my talents and skills given to me by Allah to establish and defend the Islamic State." Frightening stuff.

He will be arraigned later today in federal court. He's expected to plead not guilty -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Miguel. Thanks so much.

Breaking overnight, a letter intended for the White House has tested positive for cyanide in an off-site mail facility. The envelope now at another facility for further testing. Officials say there were no injuries or exposure concerns. The envelope apparently bears the return address of a man known to the Secret Service dating back to 1985.

CAMEROTA: A dramatic fall for Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock. He's stepping down at the end of the month as new allegations of lavish spending come to light, showing that he may have benefitted from donor projects and received questionable mileage reimbursements.

The attention on his spending began heating up earlier this year after his "Downton Abbey"-inspired office makeover.

PEREIRA: The Presbyterian Church changing its constitution to redefine marriage as between two people. It is now the largest Protestant denomination in the country to embrace same-sex marriage.

Last year the church cleared the way for ministers to preside at gay weddings with approval from their congregation in states where the unions are legal. The church's new marriage definition will take effect in June.

CAMEROTA: This is a sea change.

PEREIRA: It is; it sure is.

CAMEROTA: Major.

PEREIRA: It's a major piece of news there. Sure.

CAMEROTA: All right. We have been telling you about the former airman -- he was an Air Force mechanic from New Jersey -- who was busted trying to travel to Syria through Turkey, becoming the first U.S. military veteran charged with trying to join ISIS. Is this the beginning of a new trend? We'll take a closer look at what's going on. PEREIRA: Yet another college fraternity suspended. This time, Penn

State, a secret Facebook page that triggered a criminal investigation. We'll tell you more, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:09] PEREIRA: He is the first American military veteran charged with trying to join ISIS. A former U.S. Air Force airplane mechanic accused of trying to enter Syria through Turkey, charged now with trying to give material support to the terror group.

Joining us is co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror." He' a columnist for "Foreign Policy." Michael Weiss joins us this morning.

Good morning to you.

MICHAEL WEISS, CO-AUTHOR, "ISIS: INSIDE THE ARMY OF TERROR": Good morning.

PEREIRA: So how significant is this to you? What does it say to you about this American military veteran trying to join ISIS? That's significant, isn't it?

WEISS: I mean, it is, and it isn't.

PEREIRA: OK.

WEISS: In a sense that, look, how many thousands of people are former military veterans? I mean, this guy was a mechanic. He wasn't an Air Force pilot. I don't know that he was recently deployed anywhere.

We don't really know the back story or psychological motivation. It seems that he was definitely radicalized. He had told his wife, his new wife, that he wanted to go off to Palestine to do jihad. Obviously, the authorities have confiscated or retrieved various sort of, you know, radical Islamic imagery on his mobile devices and so on.

But look, everyone wants the perfect, you know, explainer for why people go off to join ISIS. It's different reasons for different people. This guy could have had a psychological breakdown in his life and just decided, you know, committing holy war is the way to go.

You know, I've seen cases of people who are just lured to sort of the ultraviolent totalitarian spectacle of ISIS and think that this is kind of a going ideological concern, and they should cast their lot with this movement, which is now changing history. So, you know, it's easy to read too much into one isolated case like this.

PEREIRA: But you can see, Michael, how we -- because we're so desperately trying to understand this foe...

WEISS: Yes.

PEREIRA: ... we want to understand what it is that's drawing our, you know, western people, our western citizens, teenagers, veterans to this cause that is not our own. WEISS: Well, right. And you know, look, there's something in human

nature. I don't quite pretend to know what it is. You know, what drove people to national socialism? What drove them to Stalinism, to Maoism? I mean, you know, there is some kind of tropism to this sort of totalitarian, ultraviolent ideology. Which pretends to have a perfect explanation for the way the world works, offers a very pat and coherent solution to the world's problems.

I mean, these ISIS guys, you talk to people who do go off and join them, you know, most of them are coming from actually inside the Middle East or the Islamic world already. They're not necessarily even pious Muslims. They don't have a particularly, you know, devotion to -- particular devotion to their faith. ISIS gets their tenterhooks into you. And they sort of break you down psychologically, and they build you back up in their own image. I mean, they brainwash along the lines of a cult, any cult known to man.

So this guy might have been, you know, communicating with them on Skype or some various, you know, platform like that. Or he might not. He might have just looked at their videos and thought, this is the thing for me. This is -- this is the real movement that I want to be part of. And

that's the danger, right?

PEREIRA: Right.

WEISS: Because we don't know what drives every single human being to want to go off and do this.

PEREIRA: So once in -- once in, reprogrammed and ready to be a fighter, let's say he had succeeded in getting there, and being amongst the fighting force, how would they have used him, considering that he was a military veteran and he had this sort of avionics expertise? How would they have used him within the organization?

WEISS: Well, OK, so you know, let's say they decided, "Well, we'd really love to do a spectacular, blow-up a commercial airliner." I think it would have been very difficult, given that -- this guy, if he had crossed from Turkey into a Syria, hypothetically, he would have been on a watch list. If he tried to get out of Syria, and board a plane and do something on a plane, I think that would have been stretching it.

[06:20:03] WEISS: My guess is that they probably would have used him for propaganda value. You know, here comes a guy from the great crusader army, who has -- you know, the scales have fallen from his eyes. He has seen the true path of Islam. He has joined the caliphate.

PEREIRA: A bit like Jihadi John, maybe?

WEISS: Yes. Exactly. I mean, obviously, this guy speaks fluent English. He comes from, what, New Jersey. So right in the heart, the Eastern Seaboard of either the United States, you know, and I think they probably would have -- would have ginned that up as much as they could. But then again, look, westerners... PEREIRA: But let me ask you, then, do you think this is going to be a new trend? You know, I think of Jihadi John. I think of the situation in Brooklyn. We've seen in France, military -- French military personnel leaving to go join the fight. Now we see this happening in the United States. Is this a new thing? Or is it an exception?

WEISS: Not particularly. I mean, we had the Fort Hood massacre a few years ago...

PEREIRA: Sure.

WEISS: ... which actually was a very lethal and successful terror attack, in my view.

The recent case of the Kazakh and Uzbek guys in Brooklyn, who were arrested because they were looking to go off and join ISIS. In one of the transcripts, one of those guys had said, you know, "Maybe what I should do is join the U.S. military and then just shoot up a bunch of soldiers."

PEREIRA: Right. From the inside.

WEISS: In that case you have -- I mean, with Fort Hood, I don't know that he necessarily was a jihadi before he joined the military.

But in this case, you have people who are actively seeking to infiltrate the U.S. defense establishment in order to perpetrate attacks like this.

In this particular case of the U.S. airman or a mechanic in the Air Force, it seems as though it occurred to him after the fact. Although we don't know. Again, you know, I mean, could he have been harboring these views? I've heard and I've read that he exhibited sympathy to Osama bin Laden...

PEREIRA: Back as far as 2001.

WEISS: Right. So -- and the FBI knew about this, and he still was able to be a mechanic. And, you know...

PEREIRA: That raises massive red flags, Michael, 14 years later.

WEISS: That is one thing -- if he was known about, I mean look, let's be honest. American authorities, they're overtaxed. The resources are limited to monitor every single person that comes across their radar.

I mean, if every nut in America had some kind of watch list or was supposed to be kept tabs on 24/7, it would just be impossible (ph), right? But in this particular case, given the sensitivity of his job, I think yes, there was probably some failure and who knows? Somebody might lose their -- lose their job for this.

PEREIRA: Michael Weiss, really appreciate getting some context from you and your insight. WEISS: Sure.

PEREIRA: Keep on doing the great work you're doing, and we'll talk to you again soon, OK?

WEISS: Thanks a lot. OK. Take care. All right -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Michaela. Another college fraternity under fire. A lewd, secret Facebook page triggering a criminal investigation at Penn State. What was on that page that has police so concerned? We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:26:45] BERMAN: Fraternities on campuses across the country under greater scrutiny this morning. The latest, a Penn State fraternity suspended after revelations that members created a private Facebook page with naked photos of young women.

This, of course, comes on the heels of the scandal at the University of Oklahoma, where the fraternity's racist chants. So, begging the question, are American fraternities out of control?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice-over): This morning, three more fraternities in hot water, the latest shocking incidents involving allegations of nude photos of intoxicated women, anti-Semitism and hazing.

The Kappa Delta Rho fraternity at Penn State suspended after allegedly posting graphic photographs on a secret Facebook page of nude women, including some who appear to be asleep or unconscious. Police say the private page included photos of women and screen shots of cell phone text exchanges, including one from a woman who allegedly had no recollection of a sexual encounter and whether protection was used.

The one-year suspension of the frat house comes as police and university officials investigate the fraternity's alleged use of the online page with nearly 150 active members, including current students and alums. The executive director of the fraternity says they are also investigating, and they will be cooperating with law enforcement and the school probe.

At Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, anti-Semitism at the historically Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi. Three swastikas spray-painted inside the house. Vanderbilt's vice chancellor condemned the vandalism as university police investigate the incident as a hate crime.

And the University of Houston punishing the Sigma Ki fraternity because of disturbing allegations of hazing, immediately suspending the house, including five students pending further investigation.

Under Texas law, hazing is a criminal offense punishable by jail time. The suspension in Houston comes about a week after the now-infamous nine-second video surfaced, showing members of a University of Oklahoma fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon singing a racist chant. That chapter was swiftly suspended and two members expelled. That episode and the latest fraternity scandals have earned national headlines and sparked debate about Greek culture on campuses across the country.

CAMEROTA: What is going on? I mean, there needs to be a national conversation about this.

BERMAN: Well, I think the question is -- has this always been going on or are we more just acutely aware of it right now? Or is a -- there a resurgence or a rise in this bad behavior.

PEREIRA: Do not think that maybe social media is exposing certain factions within it? We have access to it.

BERMAN: By the way, I'm not condoning the fact that it's always been going on. I think we're just becoming more aware of this behavior.

PEREIRA: Were you a fraternity guy?

BERMAN: I was not.

PEREIRA: You were not.

Were you a sorority girl?

CAMEROTA: No, I wasn't. But honestly, they also do good things. They do charitable works. Not all Greek life is, you know, unfortunately, represented by these isolated incidents. But it is marring.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: ... really benefitted from life inside the Greek system. Upsetting, that's for sure.

CAMEROTA: Let us know what you think. You can find us all on Twitter.

Let's look at your top stories right now, because breaking overnight, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring victory in the parliament election, insisting that he will act quickly to form a new coalition government. Early results show Netanyahu with a lead over his chief rival, who has already conceded to the prime minister, even though the official results are not expected to be released until next week.