Senator Wants to Cut Funding to Middle East Countries; Romney Softens Tone against Obama
BURNETT: Breaking news now. CNN has just learned the identity of the fourth person killed in Tuesday's attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. official confirms to our Chris Lawrence that Tyrone Woods also died in the attack. Woods was a former Navy SEAL. Well, what has happened in Libya and in Egypt and now in nine countries around the Middle East has led to a standoff in Washington. In the Senate, Republican Senator Rand Paul trying to force a vote today on his measure to cutoff aide to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan, which totals about $4 billion a year. Democratic leaders blocked Paul's move.</s>SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: They know if they vote their position, which is to send your money to Pakistan, and to Egypt, and to Libya, that the American people won't like it.</s>SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Cutting the aid to any of these countries right now in this fashion is not the way to honor the memory of an Ambassador Chris Stevens, who went there in great danger to help that country be free and have an opportunity to have democracy.</s>BURNETT: The exchange became much, much more testy. And I spoke to Senator Paul about it and asked him why he wants to cut funding.</s>PAUL: I think until we have the assassins who killed our ambassador and until both countries, Libya and Egypt, can verify that they can provide support and protection for our embassies, I see no reason to keep sending them money.</s>BURNETT: Let me ask you, because obviously you and John Kerry had it out on this today. But John McCain also is on the other side of this. Here's John McCain.</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: If we turn our backs now on the millions of people in Libya and Egypt and Syria and other countries across the Middle East, people who share so many of our values and interests, people who are the true authors of the Arab Spring, we will hand our common enemies, the terrorists and extremists, the very victory that they seek.</s>BURNETT: Senator, what do you think about that? I mean the Libyan leadership apologized immediately. Would we be handing terrorist, extremist a victory by pulling the funding back?</s>PAUL: I think too many people misinterpret that you have to bribe people to be your friends or that your disengaging by not giving people money. We're pretty well engaged with England but we don't send any money to England. We're borrowing $50,000 a second. Where is the money going to come from. But often foreign aid is stolen by the leaders. Mubarak stole probably billions of dollars. His families secreted it away in Swiss bank accounts. They had mansions around the world. Most foreign aid is stolen and is counterproductive.</s>BURNETT: Senator, do you think -- you know, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked a question today about whether Egypt is now allied with the United States. President Obama had said the country is, quote, "not an ally nor is it an enemy," and a lot of people, "So what was he saying? What was he saying?" So press secretary said, well, ally is a legal term of art. We do not have a mutual defense treaty with Egypt like we do with our NATO allies.</s>PAUL: Right. What I would say is --</s>BURNETT: Do you think -- is Egypt an ally? Yes, what --</s>PAUL: Well, that may be semantics but I would say if you want to be an ally of America, act like it.</s>BURNETT: So I want to throw up the top five recipients of foreign aid from the United States in 2012. Israel is number one, then Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Egypt. And our Egyptian number is $1.6 billion. Would you cut off to all these countries, though, or just the ones that you wouldn't deem currently friends? I mean obviously I'm getting very specifically here at Israel.</s>PAUL: Yes.</s>BURNETT: The number one recipient of American aid in the world.</s>PAUL: What I would do is start with the countries who disrespect us and are not acting like allies. Start with countries like Egypt who can't even protect our embassy. Do you know that news reports said that they called and said the mob is coming but then nobody did anything? In my budget, we took the $30 billion of foreign aid and made it down to $5 billion but we didn't specify who those are but if we're going to have some foreign aid I would start out by giving it to those who are our allies.</s>BURNETT: And by that, Israel?</s>PAUL: Well, Israel has always stood with us and there's been no question. But I think really we have to reassess all money every where considering that we're bore roger the money we're sending overseas.</s>BURNETT: A final question about how this has played out politically. As you're well aware, Mitt Romney criticized the president very early on. His first statement after the attacks read, and I know you're familiar with it, but I'll read it for the viewer. "It's disgraceful the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks." He has been criticized by many in the Republican Party for that statement. Did he do the right thing or did he go too far?</s>PAUL: Well, it was kind of the same as my first response also when I read that and people have said oh, look at the sequence of time when it came out. Sort of a bad statement to come out when any embassy is under any kind of assault. To come out and say, we under you're angry. I think really probably and, you know, the president disavowed it. But it essentially came from an extended part of his administration so I think the first statement was a mistake. President Obama has said it was a mistake. So by Governor Romney pointing out it was a mistake he now agrees with President Obama. So I think it's somewhat of people making a mountain out of a mole hill now.</s>BURNETT: I have to say, you just did a very masterful job of spinning it to your point of view.</s>BURNETT: Everyone who does this --</s>PAUL: Thank you.</s>BURNETT: With rhetorical -- that's why it's become Mt. Everest. Thank you so much. Good to see you as always, Senator.</s>PAUL: All right. Thank you, Erin.</s>BURNETT: All right. Rand Paul is not backing down but is Mitt Romney? Or is he at least trying to refocus the conversation? His tone today seemed a little softer.</s>MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As we watched the world today, sometimes it seems we're at the mercy of events instead of shaping events. And a strong America is essential to shape events.</s>BURNETT: Jamal Simmons, Democratic strategist is with us, along with Reihan Salam, Republican strategist, and John Avlon from "Newsweek" and "The Daily Beast." OK. Great to see all of you. Reihan, that was a little bit of a toning down, no, he's not backed off of what he said. I think that's important to say. But he is shifting his rhetoric a bit.</s>REIHAN SALAM, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, there's a very straightforward reason for that. Because when we actually focus not on the political back and forth but what's actually happening you're looking at an incredibly chaotic situation. You're looking at the president having said on one day that Egypt is not an ally and then the next day having that walk back.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>SALAM: It's a great deal of uncertainty and then you're also seeing this chaos spread and there are deep questions, are we protecting our diplomatic missions adequately and who's have -- who was keeping their eye on the ball because this is a volatile region and that's something that everyone is -- really ought to have understood since the start of the Arab Spring. There's an opportunity here but there's also a tremendous danger.</s>BURNETT: Right. Which I think everyone can agree with, wherever you are on this politically. But John, one thing that does all seem to be true is the U.S. was taken by surprise by all of this, which I think a lot of people might say look, given the situation maybe you shouldn't have been taken as much surprise as it seems we were.</s>JOHN AVLON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Certainly. I mean the dynamics that we know now.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>AVLON: The fact that this all sprung up from a film that everyone was unaware of created by an obscure studio in California, and then over-dubbed to create a controversy picked up by anti- Islamists here in United States and then amplified by Islamist radicals in the Far East, it is a surreal parable, a cautionary tale about what can happen in the Arab globalization. But clearly Ambassador Stevens felt secure in Benghazi. He had done so much to try to secure and liberate that country. So we were taken by surprise. Should there have been more defenses at the consulate, obviously the answer is yes.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>AVLON: I think the problem is the politicization. During the attack, when we had incomplete information, for Governor Romney's campaign to say that the Obama administration was sympathizing with the people attacking our embassies, I think that went beyond the pale and that's why he's softening his tone rightly because it's not the right approach to take in a such a volatile time.</s>BURNETT: And Jamal, I'm wondering, there's something I don't know if you've heard, but Ben Wedeman at the top of the program was reporting and he had spoken to a protester who was impassioned and saying, Obama is guilty, Obama is guilty, Obama is guilty.</s>JAMAL SIMMONS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes.</s>BURNETT: And then what Ben Wedeman said is that protester was not aware that the United States had said that this film was not OK and -- and now I'm wondering, and he said when he was aware, now who knows what would have really changed about is point of view. But the president backed off that statement the embassy put out. Should he embraced it?</s>SIMMONS: Should the president embrace the statement? I don't --</s>BURNETT: Embrace that statement saying, look, these kinds of action -- against a religion are not acceptable.?</s>SIMMONS: Well, if you look at what Secretary Clinton said today in her remarks, I mean she pretty much came out and said that these things aren't acceptable. We don't agree with the content of the video. I think to couple that statement, though, if you're the president of the United States with a strong statement of, you know, but we're not going to tolerate violence against our people or against our nation or against our assets, because you're upset about a video that was produced here, and I think for most people around the world, they don't understand that in the United States we do have freedom of press, we do have the ability --</s>BURNETT: That's true.</s>SIMMONS: -- to say what they want. And maybe in their countries they don't, and so it's hard for them to understand the society where we have as much freedom as we do here in the United States.</s>BURNETT: Yes.</s>SIMMONS: But to get back to Mitt Romney I do think -- his statement was ill-timed and it was ill-informed and temporary. And I think he's digging himself out of this hole. I think that's why you saw him today trying to soften it up a little bit because now he's got to get back to a place of statesmanship so that he can continue to argue the points he wants to make.</s>BURNETT: All right. We have to hit pause there. All I have to say is when I was in Cairo during the revolution I was lectured by person after person about the peace treaty with Israel as if I could do something about it. And there is -- there was a real, obviously, not understanding the distinction between individuals and the government. Thanks so much to all three of you. We appreciate it. And next for days we knew almost nothing about the person behind the film sparking worldwide outrage. But tonight that has changed and in a very important way.