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Afghan officials say 36 ISIS fighters killed by MOAB; National security adviser to head to Afghanistan soon; Trump administration to keep White House visitor logs private; Nikki Haley emerges as strong voice on Trump foreign policy. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired April 14, 2017 - 13:30   ET

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


REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Under the Constitution, Congress has the limited -- has the authority and the only authority to wage war. The issue in Syria back in 2013 and President Obama at the time, I think, correctly said he did not have the power to wage war against the Syrian government. He asked Congress for that power.

Now, this recent issue of the Tomahawk missiles, the president cloaked all of that in the War Powers Act, where he specifically said that this was a -- that the chemical weapons were a threat to the United States. That's a bit of a stretch.

But let's let that go. Nonetheless --

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: But Congressman Garamendi, we have -- we've seen a number of military actions where Congress has not inserted itself under the Obama administration as well.

GARAMENDI: That's correct.

KEILAR: And you said the president can't wage war without Congress' input. Well, reality would challenge that.

GARAMENDI: That's correct. And that's the problem. Now, what we need to do, we do have a new president. We have a new president that told, his very first days in office, the military to develop a plan to wipe ISIS off the face of the Earth.

Well, what is that plan? Where will we be fighting? And what will be needed to carry out those fights? That is critical information that must be given to Congress, so that we can decide whether we want to pursue it or not, just as Mr. Zeldin said a moment ago.

We do have the authorization. We do have the appropriations authority, but in what context. This is a new presidency. This is a new administration. What is their plan? And what we've seen on the meal media thus far is multiple plans on any given subject.

We've seen four different viewpoints on North Korea. We've seen four different viewpoints on Syria from the administration itself. So, what is the plan?

KEILAR: I do want to get Congressman Zeldin -- I want to get Congressman Zeldin in there.

GARAMENDI: Sure.

REP. LEE ZELDIN (R), FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: And John has -- he has some great insight there. And what we've seen over the course of the last few days is an execution of a new administration's policy.

I was in Afghanistan not too long ago, met with Gen. Nicholson, met with both diplomatic and military leadership. And in Afghanistan, where you have, in the in the past when Gen. Nicholson and others would be meeting with President Obama, he was being asked what do you need in order to not lose -- a low risk, medium risk, high risk? How do we increase our chances of not losing?

And as we're going into a new administration, what we need is a shift in strategy where we are telling Gen. Nicholson, our CENTCOM commanders, Secretary Mattis, what do you need in order to win.

And this is just the first few weeks of the new administration. But as we see in Syria, a limited, targeted -- targeting of infrastructure, not people, in response to a clear red line being crossed, I think, was an appropriate use of force on the part of this president.

The use of the MOAB in Afghanistan, which is cutting off access to tunnels and caves, for ISIS fighters is an important execution on that front. And we should be having that debate in Congress and working with the administration because the key is that we need to win and we don't want to have a political --

KEILAR: But what does a win look like Congressman Zeldin? When you're talking about Syria or, let's say, Afghanistan, what does a win look like?

ZELDIN: In Afghanistan, you have -- so you have a president in Ghani who won an election, Mohammad Mohammad was the appointed -- signed off on as the chief executive. They're going through an issue with their vice president and a criminal investigation is taking place.

So, it's the stability politically of the Afghan government. Secondly, it's the training of Afghan forces to be able to gain control over additional territory over their country. Right now, they have a little bit less control over geographic territory than what we would like to see.

Thirdly is you have a number of terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan where the Afghan government is trying to bring in some of these individuals and some of these groups into their government. And some extent, that means defeating some of the terrorist threats; and with other terrorist groups, they're actually negotiating where possible to try to bring them into the fold.

A win in Afghanistan is one where the government becomes more stable, they are able to control more of their land, and they are able to defeat those terrorists that are operating within their own government. That is a lot closer to what a win looks like than where we have been over the course of last few years. I'm trying to feel it out as far as where the direction goes. I believe there is a clear victory in sights. It's not easy, but I think we know what a win looks like.

KEILAR: I'm going to have to leave it there. It is a very complicated question. I do realize that that I was posing there. Congressman Garamendi, we'll have you on again soon. We'll talk more about it. Congressman Lee Zeldin, thank you so much to both of you.

[13:35:06] Now, the White House is charting a new course in Afghanistan. It's looking for input. We know that the National Security Advisor HR McMaster is going to be heading to Afghanistan. Donald Trump said that.

Next strategy in that war and whether the Mother of All Bombs makes a difference in the fight against ISIS.

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KEILAR: When the US dropped the Mother of All Bombs on an ISIS complex in Afghanistan, residents living nearby said it was a sound unlike anything that they had ever heard before. Residents telling CNN that in the wake of the blast, roads and homes were covered in dust and they could only see a few feet in front of them.

[13:40:00] CNN's senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is following this story. He's joining me now live. And, Nick, the Ministry of Defence says that this bombing killed 36 ISIS fighters. ISIS says, no, that's not true. What are you hearing?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: (INAUDIBLE), obviously, characteristically tell great falsities. I think in this stage, they are not denying that there was a training facility here. They are just sort of miraculously suggesting that this 2100 pound bomb didn't leave any of their members dead.

Now, the Afghan defense ministry is saying 36 died and there was three tunnels destroyed by this. I have to say, I'm sure the body count will slowly rise. You have to imagine the US aren't going to drop something that's thought to have a unit cost of $16 million on a target that seems comparatively, relatively small.

But then, you also have to bear in mind too, there probably was some degree, a message being sent here by the intensity of that firepower being used. ISIS are very much on the front foot in Afghanistan after some setbacks when they first emerged couple of years ago.

They're certainly riding relatively high on disenfranchisement, disillusionment with the Taliban, particularly for younger generation who've seen the Taliban, frankly, as a decades-old insurgency and it hasn't really regained control of the country.

But ISIS is a new threat that has always attracted US airstrikes and drone attention, but clearly one now that was considered adequately important. They deployed this GBU-43. Brianna?

KEILAR: Nick, one Republican lawmaker told CNN that they seem to be getting their ducks in a row over at the White House when it comes to their policy on ISIS. And it makes you wonder, is what we saw yesterday in Afghanistan part of that?

WALSH: As a complete outsider, to be honest, watching Donald Trump flounder in domestic policy and immigration policy and then a failure to overhaul healthcare, it appears possibly -- he feels it's slightly more easy to head towards international affairs. And you see that with the strike inside of Syria, acting on a redline being crossed that Barack Obama set in place himself.

He has incredibly competent and experienced secretary of defense and national security advisor. They're surely giving him a lot of relatively simple-to-pursue options.

But, yes, the bigger question on how does he possibly bring in new thinking or policy that may influence the reality of complex problems like Afghanistan. That is something that the US has invested vast amounts of blood and treasure over 16 years, its longest war.

They're sending Gen. McMaster there in the coming days apparently to talk options with President Ashraf Ghani and other military leaders. But this is something that hasn't presented an easy solution.

They certainly can't flub this on again with tens, hundreds of thousands of US troops, but maybe they can add more trainers to try and bolster the Afghan security forces. But this isn't something they can fix overnight.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Certainly isn't. It's taken so many years. The longest war, as you point out. Nick Paton Walsh in Erbil. Thank you.

Up next, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has emerged as one of the president's most outspoken foreign policy figures. She's telling CNN why she's not afraid to speak her mind and what Donald Trump thinks about it. Next.

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[13:46:53] KEILAR: This just into CNN. The Trump administration is going to keep White House visitor logs private. This is breaking with precedent set by the Obama administration.

And the White House is saying in a statement, "Given the great national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, the White House office will disclose Secret Service logs as outlined under the Freedom of Information Act, a position the Obama White House successfully defended in federal court.

Well, she was once a critic of President Trump. She has no prior national security experience. But Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has become a prominent face of the Trump administration in its first 100 days and one of the most outspoken foreign policy figures, defending his worldview.

CNN's Jamie Gangel is joining me now. And you just sat down for a one-on-one interview with Nikki Haley. Fascinating. What did she tell you?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So, we talked about a lot of things. We talked about how she grew up in a very small town in Bamberg, South Carolina. We talked about her relationship with Donald Trump, how much they talk to each other -- more than you would expect -- and about her relationship with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson since she has taken on such a big part of the spotlight.

But I think where we really started is that no one expected her to really be the star of this cabinet.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GANGEL: From condemning the chemical attacks in Syria --

NIKKI HALEY, US AMBASSADOR TO THE UN: Look at those pictures.

GANGEL: -- to her aggressive stance on regime change --

HALEY: Strengthening Assad will only lead to more murders.

GANGEL: -- UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has taken center stage as the leading voice of foreign policy in the Trump administration. Not afraid to speak her mind --

HALEY: For those that don't have our back, we're taking names.

GANGEL: -- or contradict her boss.

HALEY: Russia is trying to show their muscle. I don't think that we can trust them.

GANGEL: Has he ever said to you, you shouldn't have said something?

HALEY: No, he has not.

GANGEL: Are you surprised that he's never?

HALEY: I'm not surprised because he knew that when he hired me that I made it clear I didn't want to be a wallflower or a talking head. I'm very passionate by nature and he's fine with it.

GANGEL: How much of it is coordinated with the White House and the State Department?

HALEY: Well, it's always coordinated with the White House. I'm very --

GANGEL: You're not going rogue? HALEY: No, I would never go rogue because I'm very aware of who I work for. And -- but what I'll tell you is, it's a sign of how this president works. It's not uncommon for him to pick up the phone and tell me what he feels on an issue.

It's not uncommon for him to say make sure you say this -- don't be afraid to say this. He has given me a lot of leeway to just say what I think and interpret what he thinks. I'm a strong voice by nature. I'm sometimes a bull in a china shop and, you know, he allows me to do that.

GANGEL: Friends say that same strength and independence served Haley well growing up in Bamberg, South Carolina. The daughter of Sikh immigrants from India, her father was a professor, her mother a lawyer, but the family suffered constant discrimination.

[13:50:08] HALEY: They had never seen anybody in a turban, they had never seen anybody in a sari, so they didn't know who we were, what we were, or what we were about. And so, growing up was -- you always knew you were different. You felt it.

GANGEL: One such memorable moment, when she and her sister were disqualified from the Little Miss Bamberg beauty pageant, which crowned one white winner and one black winner. The judges said they were neither.

HALEY: My mom said, well, Nikki's been practicing this song. Will you at least just let her do her song? And it was the "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land".

GANGEL: There's the irony --

HALEY: It is.

GANGEL: -- of the story.

HALEY: But my mom would never let us complain and she'd always say your job is not to show them how you're different. Your job is to show them how you're similar.

GANGEL: Haley went on to get her accounting degree at Clemson, married her husband Michael, who's a captain in the South Carolina Army National Guard, and raised two children. Her daughter, Rena, now a freshman in college and her son, Nalin, who's 15. Along the way, she credits two women with her interest in politics.

Your role model, you frequently say, is Margaret Thatcher.

HALEY: Yes. If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman. I love that.

GANGEL: But the woman who inspired you to go into politics -- to run -- was a Democrat --

HALEY: Yes.

GANGEL: -- named?

HALEY: Hillary Clinton.

GANGEL: One day, she went to hear her speak.

HALEY: And she said, for every reason people tell you not to do it, that's for every reason that you should. And that was it, I was done. I didn't know you weren't supposed to run against a -- a 30- year incumbent in a primary, but ignorance is bliss.

GANGEL: She won that race, served in the State House, then went on to break two barriers -- becoming the first Indian-American and first woman governor of South Carolina.

HALEY: So help me, God.

GANGEL: Overnight, she was a rising star in the Republican Party, thrust on the national stage after the horrific mass shooting at Charleston's Mother Emanuel AME Church.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone just wanted to hug her. There's this image of Nikki crying.

GANGEL: And then she won praise for her successful campaign to remove the Confederate flag from the State House.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nikki Haley did something that many people thought was impossible. A female who ran for governor and she beat all the boys. She's always persevered.

GANGEL: Her star power and clout were never more apparent than during the president campaign when she endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio and many thought this could be the GOP ticket.

Donald Trump did not take it well and he went on Twitter. "The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!" And not 20 minutes later you responded, "@realDonaldTrump bless your heart." What does bless your heart mean when you're from South Carolina?

HALEY: It's a southern polite way of saying read between the lines.

GANGEL: Trump didn't hold it against her, naming Haley his UN ambassador and it appears he's pleased with her high public profile.

Is there any tension with Secretary of State Tillerson? He has been so quiet. He's kept such a low profile and you've been out there. Any awkwardness?

HALEY: I think it's just the personalities. He's very much an executive. He's thoughtful in his approach and how he moves forward. I'm one that's not afraid to say anything. I'm not easily intimidated and so I can go out and say things. I think we actually complement each other very well.

GANGEL: It has, however, led to speculation that someday Haley might like his job or higher office. Everybody I talked to said, does she want to be Secretary of State?

HALEY: No.

GANGEL: Do you want to be senator?

HALEY: No.

GANGEL: Are you going to run for the White House?

HALEY: No.

GANGEL: You're not going to run for the White House? Everyone thinks you are.

HALEY: You know what's amazing, and this has happened my entire work career, is everyone thinks that I'm ambitious and everybody thinks I'm trying to run for something and everybody thinks I want more, and the truth of it is I'm just passionate.

GANGEL: But you wouldn't rule out that someday you might run for the White House?

HALEY: I can't imagine running for the White House.

GANGEL: You really can't?

HALEY: I really can't.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GANGEL: She is the only one, Brianna, who can't imagine her running for the White House. Ask anyone in Republican politics, Democratic politics, anywhere, they do think that one day she's going to be running for the White House.

Brianna?

KEILAR: There may be a chance, of course. So, what is the dynamic like between Nikki Haley and Donald Trump? Did you get a sense of that?

GANGEL: So, I thought it was interesting. We sat down with her on Tuesday. She had already spoken to him on the phone three times that week by Tuesday. So, they talk a lot.

[13:55:08] That said, I've spoken to people who work with her and they say she trusts her instincts a lot. And you heard her say that Trump gives her a lot of leeway. I think he does. I think a lot of what we've seen when she came out about the chemical weapons in Syria, that was one day she made that very passionate speech at the UN.

Then the next day, the White House came out and said it. So, she trusts her instincts. And thus far, Donald Trump likes her instincts.

KEILAR: And maybe he's the delegator-in-chief. Jamie Gangel, thank you so much for that great report. And that is it for me. I'm going to be back by at 5 Eastern on the Situation Room.

For our international viewers, Amanpour is next. And for our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right after this.

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