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Trump Pushes Back On Russia Hacking Investigation; Aleppo Evacuations Resume After Convoy Hit; Assad Calls Actions in Aleppo a Liberation; Fight for Mosul Reaches Two-Month Mark; Obama's Red Line; ISIS Forces at Lowest-Ever in Iraq and Syria. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 15, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: -- p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Aleppo, Syria. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

President-elect Donald Trump raises new doubts about Russia's election hacking here in the United States. While an operation to rescue civilians in Syria runs into trouble and the fight for Mosul in Iraq reaches a milestone.

We're following developments on those three major stories this hour.

Here in the United States, the incoming president, Donald Trump, takes direct aim at the White House, and, once again, disputes whether Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. The president-elect blames it all on politics. We're going to tell you what he said in his latest tweet.

In Syria, a convoy ferrying civilians out of Aleppo came under sniper attack today. One person was killed. Four others were wounded. The attack brought the evacuations to a halt but the operation has since resumed. We're going live to the region for you.

And in Iraq, it's been now two months since the battle to retake the city of Mosul was launched. Iraqi forces backed by the U.S.-led coalition are fighting to regain control of the city from ISIS. And an update on the operation ahead in a live report.

But first, let's get to the president-elect. In his latest response to claims that Russia directly interfered in U.S. presidential elections, he place -- he's placing blame on the Obama administration.

Trump tweeting this morning, let me read it to you, quote, "If Russia or some other entity was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?"

He's also continuing his victory tour tonight in the historically blue state that put him over the necessary 270 electoral votes needed to win. We're talking about Pennsylvania.

And tonight, he will speak to supporters in Hershey. Tomorrow, he'll head to Orlando, Florida. Saturday, he has a scheduled stop in Mobile, Alabama. Let's bring in our Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. He's in New York City for us. Our CNN International Correspondent Matthew Chance is joining us live from Moscow.

Jim, the White House has said the president-elect knew about the Russian hack benefiting him. What more can you tell us about Trump's response today?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf, some pretty sharp words being exchanged between the president-elect and the White House.

We haven't really seen this kind of back and forth, you know, since the election between the White House and Donald Trump. They were sort of making peace, as you'll recall, in those days after November the 8th when the president said he wanted to help Donald Trump bring about a smooth transition of power.

But earlier, just a little while ago, at the White House press briefing, Josh Earnest, the press secretary, sort of went back at Donald Trump. After Trump tweeted earlier this morning, if Russia or some other entity was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act?

Josh Earnest had a very pointed response. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: But there are others on the outside who are raising these questions. And, apparently, that is striking a nerve with the president-elect's team.

One way to deal with that is to start answering these questions. And not just relying on a defense suggesting that the rhetoric of the Republican nominee was a joke, when nobody thought it was funny.

And there's plenty of evidence to indicate he knew exactly what he was talking about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And, Wolf, I was at that press conference in Doral, Florida back in late July. I asked that question that elicited that response from Donald Trump when he said, you know, if Russia could find those 30,000 missing e-mails from Hillary Clinton, please turn them over.

You know, the Trump campaign at the time said he was just joking about that. But, you know, in the room, it didn't sound like a joke at that time.

But moving forward, Wolf, I do also want to point out something that I think is very interesting. I've talked to a transition source, just a little while ago, who said that the president-elect is, quote, "concerned about the intelligence community's findings that Russia was engaging in hacking during the election." That is a bit of a nuance, I think, because, up until this point, Donald Trump had been saying, you know, look, it could have been Russia. It could have been China. It could have been a guy sitting on his bed. He said that during one of the debates.

And so, a transition source is telling me that, yes, the president- elect is concerned about these reports, is concerned about these findings. But they feel, inside the transition, that this whole Russia matter is being used to delegitimize his victory and that's what he has a big beef about.

BLITZER: And in this tweet this morning, when he says, if Russia or some other entity was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? We do know -- and I'm sure the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, mentioned this on October 7th of this year before the election.

There was a joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security and the office of the director of National Intelligence, specifically saying that the U.S. intelligence community, quote, "is confident that the Russian government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons --

[13:05:12] ACOSTA: Right.

BLITZER: -- and institutions."

So, there was that statement during the campaign.

Hold on a moment, Jim.

ACOSTA: No problem. OK.

BLITZER: I want to go to Matthew Chance who's in Moscow for us. We're also learning, Matthew, that a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, an outside surrogate, if you will, former Congressman Jack Kingston, was in Moscow. He's now back here in Washington.

What do we know about his trip, with whom he met? What are you hearing, Matthew?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's been a couple of people that have had associations with the Trump campaign that have been making the rounds here in Moscow. But not in an official capacity. They've been here on personal trips. That's how they characterized it at least.

Jack Kingston, former congressman from Georgia, he's one of those individuals. He's been meeting with businessmen, apparently, not with Russian officials. But he's also been talking to reporters as well and talking about what Russia can expect under a Trump presidency.

And one of the things he's been talking about is the issue of sanctions. Of course, the United States put Russia under economic sanctions following its annexation of Crimea back in 2014, in an attempt to try to punish Russia or to get it to alter its policy. That's been unsuccessful he said because Russian policy has not changed. And so, president Trump, he said could possibly be looking at sanctions and possibly drawing a line under them. That will, of course, be music to the ears to the Kremlin who were desperate to get these punishing sanctions lifted.

Carter Page is another figure who's been making the rounds here in Moscow as well. The Trump campaign have distanced themselves from him now.

But early on, Trump mentioned there was a foreign policy advisor. He's talking -- I spoke to him two days ago. He's been speaking to businesspeople as well. He said that one of the folks is going to be Islamic terrorism. That the Russians and the United States should join forces to combat that joint threat.

And so, these are the sort of pictures we're getting about what Trump's thinking. But when they come to Moscow (INAUDIBLE), they're not officially part of a Trump delegation.

But when they come to Moscow, they're treated by the state media here as delegates from the White House in waiting. And so, they get a lot of special treatment and people listen very carefully to what they say -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I'm sure they do. Matthew Chance in Moscow. Jim Acosta in New York. Guys, thank you very much.

Let's talk about the U.S. relationship with Russia. Chuck Hagel is joining us right now. He was the defense secretary during the Obama administration from 2013 to 2015.

He served in Vietnam, the first Vietnam veteran to serve as secretary of defense. A former U.S. Senator from Nebraska, I should point out, as well.

Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for joining us.

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Wolf, thank you.

BLITZER: You -- is your head spinning listening to all of this, what's going on right now? Give me your reaction.

HAGEL: Well, I think a couple of things. Yes, it's important that we get the facts. We will get the facts. I suspect when the new Congress comes back into session in January, they will open hearings on all of this. And we do need the facts.

But, also, we've got to remember, in 35 days, we're going to have a new president, a new administration, new policies, new structures.

The fact is, also, that we have common interests with Russia. Russia's a big country. It's an important country. Every new administration that takes office, especially after an eight-year presidency, comes in with new hope, new possibilities.

I remember when President Obama came in eight years ago, there was an effort to reset the relationship.

BLITZER: How did that work -- how did that work out?

HAGEL: That didn't work out very well.

BLITZER: Yes, it didn't work out.

HAGEL: But the point is that we can't continue down this path of more slaughter, more chaos, more war in the Middle East.

BLITZER: So, are you encouraged now, what you're hearing from the president-elect and his national security advisers, that they do want a strong improved relationship with Russia?

HAGEL: I am encouraged by that. That doesn't discount or at all put aside the big differences we have with Russia. Where Russia is today and what they did, Ukraine, Crimea. Their involvement, clearly now, military involvement. And they're there to stay, I suspect, in Syria.

But we've got to find some platforms of stability to start working together if we can to sort this out. Because the question I have is where does this go, Wolf? We can continue proxy wars on and on and on and it will bring more suffering, more death, more slaughter.

So, yes, I'm encouraged. Can they do it? Can they find enough common ground? We'll see.

BLITZER: Do you have any doubt that the Russians interfered in these hacking operations in the U.S. presidential elections?

HAGEL: From what I know, and I have not seen the intelligence, but I think it's pretty clear that Russia did do what we think -- at least what the intelligence community is saying they did.

But I would just also say, in some ways, this shouldn't be particularly new. Cyber is a new form of warfare and it has been. And we're going to be all dealing with this. It is a sophisticated instrument now of warfare, of intelligence gathering, of mischief making and that's a reality.

[13:10:08] That doesn't discount it or excuse it, of course not. But we've got to focus on how we deal with it and how we get ahead of it.

BLITZER: So, was the hacking, the interference in the election by Russia, an act of war, as some are suggesting?

HAGEL: Well, an act of war is a pretty heady statement, of course. And I don't know -- based on what I know, I wouldn't say that that's --

BLITZER: Because you said cyber --

HAGEL: -- an act of war.

BLITZER: -- warfare is war, if you will. It's a cyber war. HAGEL: Well, just like terrorism or just like espionage, it's an arm

and it's an instrument of some kind of warfare or effort to undermine opponents or people who you do not share a common interest with.

I mean, look at Yahoo. What happened? Is that an act of war? It was just -- it just didn't happen. But a billion customers were hacked. That's a pretty serious invasion. And that's not new. We've been seeing that more and more.

And, by the way, it's not just coming from Russia. It's coming from China and North Korea and Iran.

BLITZER: Let me -- let me press you on this point. In that statement that General Clapper, the national intelligence -- the office of the director of the national intelligence homeland security secretary, released. They said, we believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior most officials could have authorized these activities. Senior most officials.

Listen to Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, speaking about that just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EARNEST: We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior most officials could have authorized these activities. That is a statement from the intelligence community that was made public on October 7th. At the risk of editorializing, when I read that statement for the first time in early October, I didn't think it was particularly subtle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: He didn't think it was particularly subtle. The suggestion being that Putin himself was involved in orchestrating this -- the hack and the interference. You buy that?

HAGEL: Well, first of all, I have utmost respect and confidence in General Clapper and his professionalism and that of our intelligence agencies. If that is their summary and if that is their conclusion, then you have to take that pretty seriously.

I don't know if Putin signed off on this or not. But if our intelligence community says that did, in fact, happen, we need to take that seriously. And I get what President-elect Trump is saying. He questioned some of this information that the CIA and intelligence is always imperfect. They were wrong on a lot of things over the years. Not just the CIA but our intelligence. It's imperfect. You'll never get 100 percent.

But this is a pretty serious charge to have the head of the DNI, who oversees all of our 17 intelligence offices, make a charge like that based on the accumulation of intelligence from all those different agencies.

BLITZER: So, when General Clapper says senior most officials, you believe he's referring to Putin himself?

HAGEL: Well, I don't know that, again. But it certainly would have to touch -- if that's his reverence, it would have to certainly touch the Putin office. Whether it was President Putin himself that signed off on that, I don't know.

BLITZER: We got a lot more to discuss, Mr. Secretary. Stick around.

We're also going to talk about what's going on in Aleppo right now. An evacuation is finally underway. While Syrian President Bashar Al Assad celebrates what he's calling the liberation of the city.

Plus, it's been two months since U.S.-backed forces began the battle to liberate Mosul in Iraq, hoping to free the city from ISIS control. The latest on both fronts right after this.

[13:14:07]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:24] BLITZER: A desperate cry from an orphan in Aleppo, please get us out. The evacuation of civilians is underway. The Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, is calling it the liberation of Aleppo.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the battle to regain control of the second largest city reaches the two-month mark.

Let's get the very latest on both stories from two of our international correspondents. Fred Pleitgen is following the situation in Syria from across the border in Beirut, Lebanon. Ben Wedeman is joining us live from Erbil in northern Iraq, not far away from Mosul.

Fred, the evacuations from Aleppo apparently have resumed after an earlier attack. Update us on this operation, the dire situation in Aleppo right now.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, Wolf, it certainly is dire situation for the folks there are still in that last rebel enclave there in Aleppo. And you're absolutely right, this operation began early this morning to evacuate all of the fighters and all of the civilians from that area and it really started very badly when the first convoy that was supposed to leave came under fire at a checkpoint right on the border between rebel and government- held territory. One person was killed in that attack. Several others were wounded.

And after that, all of these convoys were suspected for a while. But then everybody got back together and said, look, we have to get this back on track. And now convoys have started rolling again. And, you know, if you look at the video of those convoys, there's some drone footage. There's also some regular camera footage of them as well. You'll see that there's a lot of ambulances and ambulance convoys coming out of eastern Aleppo. That's because the first people who are being evacuated are the ones who need it most, wounded people, people who have illnesses, people who need immediate medical attention. Of course, can't get those in those enclosed rebel areas. After that's done, Wolf, that's when the civilians and the fighters

are going to come out of there as well. Of course, for most of them, it's really a leap of faith that they're taking. And a lot of them very concerned about the fact that they have to go through government- held territory, where they're very vulnerable inside those buses, to then get into other rebel-controlled areas. You've already mentioned, Bashar al Assad calling this the liberation of Aleppo. Of course, the people who are leaving there see that very differently. Many of them very bitter because in spite of the fact that they were getting bombed so badly over the past couple of months, many of them didn't want to leave their city. But as they leave, that's when the Syrian government takes full control of Aleppo once again, Wolf.

BLITZER: Stand by for a moment. I want to bring Ben Wedeman into this as well.

Ben, we're now two months into the fight to liberate Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq. How much progress has been made? Where do things stand right now?

[13:20:06] BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this was a battle that started with fairly dramatic advances by the Iraqi army and the Peshmerga taking villages and towns around Mosul. But now it's become a street by street, house by house slog. Now, according to some accounts, the Iraqi military have been able to retake one-third of the eastern half of Mosul. And, of course, it's anticipated that the -- was anticipated that the eastern half would be the easy part. It's the western part where it's believed that ISIS is really dug in.

And speaking to people on the ground there and people who have just come out within the last 24 hours, they say that there are many civilians who are basically stuck in the middle. You'll recall that before the offensive began, the Iraqi military dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets on Mosul urging residents to stay in their houses if they felt safe. Many of them actually heeded that call, but that has created a situation where you have civilians caught right in the middle of a battleground.

Yesterday, we spoke to some people who had just come out of Mosul who said that they were in the lower part of their house, the ground floor, on top, on the roof, were ISIS fighters. One block over was the Iraqi army, and they were terrified that coalition or Iraqi aircraft would hit their homes. So you've got this very complicated situation within eastern Mosul itself. And really this is just the beginning of what could be a battle that could last, Wolf, for months and months and months.

BLITZER: Ben Wedeman in Erbil in northern Iraq. And Fred Pleitgen joining us from Beirut, Lebanon, not far from the Syrian border.

Let's bring back my special guest, the former defense secretary, Chuck Hagel.

You look at these two situations, Aleppo and Mosul, right? Now let's talk about Syria first. When you left the Obama administration, you were upset the president

had delivered an ultimatum, a red line, that if Syria used chemical weapons, they would have -- they would pay a price. The U.S. did not cross that red line, if you will. I want you to listen to what the president recently told our Fareed Zakaria about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it is the smartest decision from a menu of bad options that were available to us. Do I believe that it would have been a profound mistake for us to wade in and to currently have 100,000 troops or 50,000 troops inside of Syria right now? Do I think that the situation would be better for us? I do not believe so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: OK. We do know the slaughter that has gone on over these years, 400,000, maybe a half a million people in Syria have been killed. Millions have been made homeless. Refugees. Was it a mistake for the president to make that -- to issue that red line and not follow through on the ultimatum?

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, yes, I think it was. And I say that not because I minimize or trivialize the complicated and the decisions that go into something like this, because you're always thinking about consequences. So I respect what the president has said there. And we spent a long time talking about this.

But 100,000 troops in Syria wasn't the only option. In fact, that was not even really a feasible option that we had brought to the president. When the president of the United States says something to the world, that's a big deal. And then not fulfill a commitment that he made, your allies lose confidence and trust in your leadership and your word. Your adversaries are watching this very -- clearly, whether this led to the Russians moving militarily into Syria, where -- what before they had not been, they had just one small little naval base in Latikea (ph) province on the Mediterranean, or not, I don't know.

This is imperfect. The United States military is not going to solve that problem in Syria. The United States is not going to solve that problem. But, again, I go back to a president's word. And I think when a president gives his word and makes a commitment like that, and even before that when the president had said, and I wasn't there at the time, that Assad must go, and we did nothing in our policy to actually facilitate that, which I think hurt us with our allies as well.

[13:25:00] So I'll leave it to history to decide whether the president's position on this and what he ultimately decided was the right thing or not. But I think we had some options. They were good options that we could have done.

BLITZER: Well, because you were on the inside. You say deploying 100,000 troops to Syria or even 50,000 troops to Syria was not necessarily a realistic option. What could the president have done after he issued the ultimatum, crossing the red line, they used chemical weapons, what were the options before the president, short of deploying tens of thousands of U.S. troops?

HAGEL: Well, I'm not going to get into the middle of that on the air, in the National Security Council meetings and what the exact options were. But, again I will say, there was really never any really serious conversation about putting 100,000 or 50,000 troops in Syria. Nobody was for that, by the way. No one. But there were other options that were significant that, in fact, we had agreed on to go forward with.

BLITZER: So what should the U.S. do now?

HAGEL: Well, I think the reality is, is you're not going to unwind what's just happened. Leave it to the historians on who was right, who was wrong and how it came out. But now, with a new president, a new administration coming into power in 35 days, we've got to figure out some ways how we, the United States, can play some kind of a role here in trying to stop the suffering and the slaughter.

But also I would say, this is not just about Syria, Wolf. This is a regional problem. Look at the dysfunctional government and the non- governments in countries all over that region. And you can continue with proxy wars and the Russians put their people in, the Iranians, the Turks are there. The Turks are now outside of Mosul, the Turkish forces, and they're in Syria. We're in both places. You can continue that, but we've got to get this elevated to some stability where it's going to -- it's going to have to include the Russians and the Iranians in the Middle East.

But we've also got to recognize that we can't fix it. NATO's not going to fix it. It has to come from the Middle East, the leaders there. We can play a role. We can facilitate. So that's what I -- I would probably (ph) recommend.

BLITZER: But you have confidence in the leaders -- you have confidence in the Iraqi government, for example?

HAGEL: Well, there is no government that essentially is functioning, no. But this isn't -- this isn't going to be done overnight or in one year, Wolf. Until you stop the slaughter, until you stop the bloodshed and the fighting -- and you'll never stop it totally, but you've got to build some platform of stability to get to the next step.

You asked what I -- I think we should do. One of the things I'd recommend President Trump do is seriously consider putting together a new Baker/Hamilton-type commission, which Bush did, came back within months, 75 recommendations to President Bush on Iraq.

Now, in the meantime, you still have to deal with the day to day, minute to minute. But I think you've got to come at this from a larger context and structure on what is the future and I don't thing you can continue to play it, just a game, Iraq here, ISIS here, Syria here. It's bigger than that. It's a cultural ethnic tribal sectarian religious historical problem in the entire region. And the one really critically important country, Saudi Arabia there, is going through unprecedented reforms, whether they can pull those off or not. Turkey's in a mess. Turkey's moving away from the west. So we've got a lot of dangerous elements. BLITZER: The whole region (INAUDIBLE).

HAGEL: The whole region.

BLITZER: And I've studied that region for a time. The whole region, I'm sure you agree with me, is a mess.

HAGEL: Yes.

BLITZER: North Africa, the Middle East, south Asia.

One final question before I let you go. I ask this question to you as a Vietnam War veteran. Right now we're hearing from U.S. military officials and others all these numbers, statistics, 50,000 ISIS fighters have been killed, 75 percent of them have been killed. The -- it's an amazing -- how great things are going in this war against ISIS. You're smiling right now because, like me, you remember, during the Vietnam War, every day, 1,000 Vietcong were killed, another 1,000 Vietcong were killed. Before you know it, U.S. helicopters were evacuating diplomats from the American embassy in Saigon, running away. Do you take these numbers that we're getting now from U.S. official seriously?

HAGEL: No, I don't, because, first of all, what's the veracity of the credibility you collect those numbers? That's to start with. I don't think the public believes it. My policy has always been, don't release that kind of thing.

BLITZER: Body count?

HAGEL: Body counts. I mean, come on, did we learn anything from Vietnam? We obviously didn't learn a lot of things going back to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But body counts make no sense. And I think we're better off just to let that go. The ISIS problem is a big problem. And it's deeper and wider in some areas. We're doing better in some areas. But that problem's going to be with us a long time.

[13:30:00] I gave a news conference at the Pentagon, you might remember it, about three years ago, when I was asked a question about ISIS. I said ISIS is a force that we've never seen before.