Today on CNN Newsroom
At war with a deadly enemy
Republican Congressman, Peter King, joined Carol Costello this morning for a discussion on Presidential powers regarding Syrian airstrikes.
King, an Obama critic in the past, supports the President's decision to strike at Khorasan, a lesser known terrorist group in Syria, despite not being informed beforehand.
King said, "The president has the power as commander-in-chief. If people had known about it, if he had been talking about the Khorasan group or if word had gotten out that would have given them the opportunity to get away, to disappear, to hide, and so no this to me, the President's main job as commander-in-chief is to protect the American people and I believe he has the absolute right to carry this out."
While King wasn't aware of the airstrikes on Khorasan prior to their launch, he was definitely aware of the group's existence, saying "I've known for the last several month about the Khorasan group. I first learned about it I guess 3 or 4 months ago and basically this was kept top secret and classified and the reason for that is basically we didn't want the enemy to know what we knew about them. The Khorasan group is an affiliate of Al Qaeda, extremely dangerous, and they do have bomb maker and other explosive experts so I give the president credit for attacking them without giving them any advance warning at all."
King added towards the end of the interview, "We're at war with a deadly enemy, these people want to kill us, and I’m willing to give the president the power to kill them first."
"We can't be sheriff for the whole world"
Congressman Ruppersberger talks to CNN as demand for action against ISIS grows.
Congresswoman questions Obama's objectives in Syria and Iraq
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) joins Carol to discuss U.S. options against ISIS (referred to as ISIL by Ros-Lehtinen).
Asked why Congress hasn't called an emergency session, Ros-Lehtinen responds "Well, we'll be glad to go back to congress, but the first thing the President as Commander in Chief and as the head of our U.S. government needs to do is to lay out a vision, Carol, of what we're about to accomplish. If we go back to session tomorrow, what is it that we're going to be debating?"
Dancing around a question on what she personally believes the President should suggest, the Congresswoman continues, "Well, I think the president needs to lay out our goals. Why is it in our U.S. national security interest to defeat this cancer? I believe it is. I believe that if we want to ignore the problem and get back to this 9/10 mentality and to think the threat is no longer there it would be a horrible future for the United States and all of our interests throughout that region. We've got to defeat ISIL and I think that we've got allies that are helping us to do it."
Pressed for a more specific answer, Ros-Lehtinen says, "Well, I think that we should have these spy missions over Syria. We've got the technology to know where we're supposed to strike. Now Iraq is a far clearer goal than Syria is, why? Because actually doing these air strikes may end up helping the person who just a few years ago and as of yesterday we said Assad must go, uh, the supposed leader of Syria who has used chemical weapons on his people, who has murdered thousands of individuals, who have forced his own countrymen to flee the country. Now if we do airstrikes and we can do them and I hope the president gets to that point we have to make sure that we don't miss an opportunity again like he did in the past where he didn't work with the Free Syrian army natural allies that we could have had. So many missed opportunities, let's not miss them again."
Later, Ros-Lehtinen is questioned on what she personally believes the President should suggest. She says, "Well, I think that we should have these spy missions over Syria. We've got the technology to know where we're supposed to strike. Now Iraq is a far clearer goal than Syria is, why? Because actually doing these air strikes may end up helping the person who just a few years ago and as of yesterday we said Assad must go, uh, the supposed leader of Syria who has used chemical weapons on his people, who has murdered thousands of individuals, who have forced his own countrymen to flee the country. Now if we do airstrikes and we can do them and I hope the president gets to that point we have to make sure that we don't miss an opportunity again like he did in the past where he didn't work with the Free Syrian army natural allies that we could have had. So many missed opportunities, let's not miss them again."
Fast food controversy
Fast food may be as American as apple pie, but America's second largest burger chain is moving north of the border. Burger king just announced a massive multi-billion dollar merger with Canadian fast food chain, Tim Hortons. It shouldn't impact your ability to get a Whopper anytime soon, but behind the scenes, it'll help BK dodge some taxes here in the US. Carol talks with Christine Romans and Curtis DuBay about the reasoning behind Burger King's move north.
NAACP President condemns violence after Michael Brown's death
NAACP National President, Cornell William Brooks, speaks with Carol about the death of Michael Brown, and the effect it's having on the St. Louis community.
When asked what he would say to potential looters, Mr. Brooks said, "According to Michael Brown's family, this was a young man who never got into a fight, who was non-violent, who had a wonderful sense of humor, and the best way to honor this young man’s memory is by seeking justice non-violently. Let's be clear here, Martin Luther King did not live and die so that the grandsons and granddaughters of the civil rights revolution might seek justice violently. We don't have to do that. We can do so in a non-violent fashion. Most of the young people in these communities have been seeking justice airing their grievances in a constructive way. We need to continue to do that. The NAACP is working with these young people to do that."
Middle East peace talks continue
With just 16 hours left in the current cease-fire agreement, Carol speaks with Daniel Kurtzer, a former Ambassador to both Israel and Egypt.
Beginning the interview with the question on the minds of many, Carol asks "Why can't everybody just sit in the same room and hash things out?"
Kurtzer explains, "Israel as you know, Carol, does not accept to negotiate with Hamas and Hamas is part of the Palestinian delegation and so the Egyptians have found a way through this 'shuttle diplomacy' of conveying messages back and forth. It also allows the Egyptians a chance to fine-tune some of what they're hearing so they can act as a real intermediary. Until now the Egyptians have done a pretty good job, but the crunch time is yet to come."
Kurtzer later stresses that "Until the cease-fire becomes concretized it's wise for both sides to continue to prepare. The Israelis cannot let their guard down and Hamas clearly wants to see some political gain from this, so you're going to see these kinds of various dimensions played out over the next 24 or 48 hours."
Asked if this time the situation is “different,” Kurtzer says "No it's not been different yet. This is the 4th engagement between Israel and Hamas since 2006 and unless there's some fundamental change in the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians generally, we're fated to see this recur and what I’m talking about is to get to the idea of a two state solution. It may not be possible to use this confrontation to immediately get there, but unless we can find a way back to the table and to resolve the underlying dispute this is gonna look like the Rocky movies, uh, sequel after sequel of violence and counter violence until both sides are exhausted to the point where they have to negotiate peace."
Kansas Senator survives Tea Party challenge
CNN‘s Dana Bash joins Carol with a wrap-up of the Kansas primary. Incumbent Senator, Pat Roberts, was challenged by emerging state Republican, Milton Wolf, in a race that was filled with vitriol. Rather than having huge differences in policy, Dana says the main issue for Tea Partiers was much more about “incumbency, careerism, establishment than the actual issues whether he was conservative enough.”
Secret serum saves doctor?
Carol speaks with CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta about an experiemental treatment given to Dr. Kent Brantly when Dr. Brantley's position took a turn for the worse. The serum, which hadn't been tried in humans had been developed by biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical.
"They say they gave it to him and again, he went from thinking he was going to die and very dire condition to nearly a complete reversal within an hour."
Lawsuit against Obama is a "distraction"
Ana Navarro and Donna Brazile on talk of impeachment and the authorized lawsuit against Obama.
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