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At This Hour

French Join U.S. in Air Strikes Against ISIS; Clinton on Sunni Inclusion in Iraq; iPhone 6 Now on Sale; Chinese Alibaba IPO on NYSE; Search Warrants Executed in Case of Missing UVA Student; FBI Puts PA Cop Killer on Top Ten Most Wanted List

Aired September 19, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN HOST: Expanding the fight against ISIS. France now unleashing its warplanes on militants in Iraq as President Obama finds himself with all the authority he needs to arm rebels to battle ISIS in Syria.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Manhunt: the FBI offering $100,000 for help finding the newest addition to the Ten Most Wanted List. A suspected cop killer sharp shooting survivalist who has talked about committing mass murder is on the run and he has thousands of people on edge.

PEREIRA: Some terrifying moments aboard a JetBlue flight. The cabin -- the cabin there, look at that, it fills with smoke.

BERMAN: Yikes.

PEREIRA: Oh my.

Hi there. I'm Michaela Pereira, happy Friday.

BERMAN: Happy Friday. I'm John Berman. Those stories and more right now @THISHOUR.

We are going to begin with the battle against ISIS -- no longer just American bombs falling on militant targets. The news this morning, France carrying out its first air strikes in Iraq. This, as the senate has now approved the President's plan to arm and train the so- called moderate rebels in Syria. The House and top military leaders were already on board with this plan.

PEREIRA: But even as the president looks to expand the U.S. air campaign, he once again reiterated what he called the key principle of the U.S. strategy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission. Their mission is to advise and assist our partners on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PEREIRA: As President Obama weighs his options in Syria, refugees, meanwhile, streaming out of that country. ISIS extremists have now seized 16 villages in the north, a development that prompted Turkey today to open its southern boarder to those fleeing from the violence.

BERMAN: Meantime, a new strike by ISIS in its media assault, a video with British hostage John Cantlie criticizing the U.S. and British governments.

Now, we're not going to show you the video because it's obviously ISIS propaganda. and we have no way of knowing what level of duress Cantlie was under when he was making it. You can only imagine what kind of duress he was under at the time.

PEREIRA: President Clinton has also joined -- weighed in, rather. He was with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" talking about U.S. intervention in Iraq. He focused less on military strategy than on internal Iraqi politics. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The reason that I think that the president's strategy to combat ISIS has a chance to succeed is that the Iraqi government finally includes Sunnis who were representing those tribal leaders who are moderate and without whom ISIS cannot be defeated.

We can't win a land war in Iraq. We proved that. But they can, and we can help them win it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: President Clinton with Jon Stewart.

Now joining us to discuss this, our military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, and our terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank.

Colonel, the news this morning the French now joining in on the air strikes, I'm sure the U.S. likes the company in this effort. From a military standpoint, though, what's the significance?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL RICK FRANCONA (RETIRED), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: The French have six aircraft in the UAE, and they're involved in the fight. We welcome their participation.

We practice extensively with the French and the British, so it's not going to complicate things. We work very well together. I think it's just an added capability. I think everybody welcomes it.

PEREIRA: CNN has been hearing from U.S. military officials, and they tell us ISIS seems to be modifying their behavior. Whether it's changing the way it communicates to the way it's concealing itself, they're sort of ebbing and flowing in response to these potential U.S. air strikes in Syria.

So the question then begs, Paul, if these air strikes will be effective at all then. Have we shown our hand too much here?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: These air strikes can be effective at taking out training camps, some of the larger formations in depopulated areas, can constrain their frame of movement.

But if ISIS melts into urban areas -- it's already largely based in urban areas in Iraq in Syria -- it's going to be very, very difficult to target them without also taking out civilians.

PEREIRA: Then there's the concern. We find ourselves right back with that --

FRANCONA: What we heard this morning -- what we hit was a warehouse, a depot, and that's good for now, but as Paul says, they're moving out of those because they know those are going to be targets.

BERMAN: Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq currently, is occupied currently by ISIS. How do you get ISIS out of a city of that size?

FRANCONA: From the air, very difficult because you know what's going to happen. They're taking any of their high-value assets -- I'm talking about artillery pieces, armored pieces, anything large that they want to -- they can no longer hide in a warehouse because we're going to destroy the warehouse -- they're going to park it in the middle of the city next to a mosque, next to a school, next to a hospital.

That really complicates your targeting effort. You can try to hit it with a precision weapon, but we saw how this happens in Gaza. When you put these large weapons on these targets, there's a lot of collateral damage.

PEREIRA: We saw the collateral damage. We saw that in Gaza. We saw that. And it comes back, we keep coming in this circular motion. We keep coming back to the point you made to us that you have to have strong intelligence on the ground, and you have to have personnel on the ground to help pinpoint some of those targets.

Yet we also know that lawmakers, several lawmakers, are coming forward and saying, look, the president has to stop with in "no boots on the ground, no boots on the ground" because that's just not possible in what we're looking at here.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, that's right. No American boots on the ground. I don't think it's very likely there will be Sunni Arab boots on the ground, either.

So what are the boots on the ground that are going to take on this group? Are the Iraq army and the Peshmerga capable of doing that? I think that's far from clear.

In Syria, the moderate opposition doesn't have very much capability anymore, so who's going to take the fight to ISIS there?

BERMAN: And they may not having any willingness, either, which is a whole separate issue. I don't want to let you guys go without asking you about this new ISIS video, John Cantlie, the photojournalist we saw there, clear propaganda.

What do you make of something like that when you see it, Paul?

CRUICKSHANK: This is just ISIS opening up a new front in the propaganda war using this Westerner to get across their message.

The message is, don't become involved in Syria and Iraq; it will be an abyss for you, ISIS actually trying to deter the United States and other Western powers from getting involved militarily.

PEREIRA: So upsetting to see.

FRANCONA: I think it shows a level of sophistication to the people that we're fighting, though. They understand the power of the Internet, the power of social media --

PEREIRA: The power of the message.

FRANCONA: -- and the power of putting someone in an orange jumpsuit in front of a camera, talking to the people.

PEREIRA: Brings up passion and fury, yet strategy as s what's needed here.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THIS HOUR, the new iPhone, it is on sale. There are long lines. I mean long, long lines.

PEREIRA: Shouldn't you be in that line?

BERMAN: I think I'm going to go without. That's the headline here. We'll talk about why I'm going to go without it, and also the news we actually want to hear about the iPhone when we come back.

PEREIRA: Also, Alibaba starts trading on the New York Stock Exchange. We're going to talk about how the biggest-ever IPO is faring.

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PEREIRA: Our breaking news is that beleaguered NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is going to hold a press conference today. Yes, 3:00 p.m. Eastern today in New York, the NFL commissioner is going to take -- make a statement.

He's also going to take questions from the media, which is very surprising given what is going on in the NFL right now.

BERMAN: There is so much going on. Look, just the news today is that the Pentagon, the U.S. military, is now reviewing its relationship with the NFL. It spends millions of dollars on advertisements here.

The pressure is clearly mounting, so this news conference, this statement from the commissioner, it could be a very, very big deal.

It does smell a little bit of a Friday afternoon news dump, I will say that.

PEREIRA: Oh, are you somewhat skeptical?

BERMAN: Always. Just a little.

PEREIRA: They're going to address -- he's going to address, obviously, the domestic violence policy that exists in the NFL right now and on the NFL's personal conduct policy.

Curious to know if there are going to be further updates to those policies or other changes --

BERMAN: Plus, he wants to talk before the football games this weekend so people start talking the games.

PEREIRA: Oh, there's football being played right now?

BERMAN: Exactly.

Something else that's going on right now, you may have heard. The new iPhone 6 is on sale. The lines outside Apple stores are, as we say in Boston, wicked long.

PEREIRA: Wicked long?

BERMAN: Some people camped out all night, why, I don't know.

PEREIRA: The big draws are -- obviously this is a big draw for gadget geeks -- are the bigger screen. You've got a longer battery life on this new camera, and apparently a better camera, a faster processer, all sorts of goodies.

Our Laurie Segall is here. All right, so this new iPhone, worth the lineup for these folks?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNNMONEY.COM TECH CORRESPONDENT: I thought I saw you out there. That wasn't you?

No, look, a lot of folks are very excited about this. When the 5s came out, people were like, "We want the iPhone 6 already," so we have seen those numbers.

And Apple actually put out a number. They said that they sold four million iPhone 6 and iPhone Plus smartphones within the first 24 hours of presale. And they usually don't say that --

PEREIRA: They usually don't do that, do they?

SEGALL: Usually they tell us the number after the weekend, so we see that sales are expected to be very good, and a lot of analysts are saying that people have been waiting on that bigger screen.

And the folks who've downloaded iOS 8 are already raving about how good it is on the smartphone, so I think we'll see. We see there's a real demand for this.

BERMAN: I was going to say, what is the demand based on? Is it just the size? People really feel like they need the bigger phones or the software?

I've done loaded iOS 8. It's terrific. I really do like it, but it's going to keep me from buying an iPhone 6 because I feel like I've got what I need.

SEGALL: I think a lot of folks are excited about the size. And also they're excited about a new device. As I said before, with the 5s, people wanted a new phone, and we'll see if we see the long lines for the iWatch, when the iWatch comes out.

But these lines are longer. As a tech correspondent, I've gone out to these lines every go-around, and they are longer this year. They were spanning like 10 blocks or something at the flagship store here in New York City.

PEREIRA: It's so interesting. Remember when cell phones came out, the whole idea was to get smaller and smaller because they started out those big bricks and the cases you had to carry around. And now getting bigger and bigger again.

You were speaking of the excitement some people have experienced. We've got to show you a quick little video of a guy who was so eager to get his phone and watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, we're doing a reveal. His name's Jack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That would be #fail. Apparently -- yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

SEGALL: That is something I would do. I just feel for that guy. I'm just happy mine isn't cracked.

PEREIRA: Are they more robust, these newer ones?

SEGALL: I really hope so.

PEREIRA: Thank you, Laurie.

BERMAN: That's the new feature that Cook is offering, Laurie-proof phones.

Great to have you with us. Laurie Segall, thank you so much.

The other big money story -- big tech story we're following today. Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, will begin trading at the New York Stock Exchange really any second now.

PEREIRA: Really any second.

BERMAN: It has secured its place in history as the largest U.S.-listed IPO of all time. It's raised almost $22 billion.

But for those who are asking what is Alibaba? Here's a little explainer.

PEREIRA: Yes, here we, go John.

Alibaba is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, often kind of described as a bit of a mashup of eBay, Amazon, and PayPal. It is going to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BABA, B-A-B-A.

It has little presence in the United States, although many analysts are expecting that to change.

I want to turn to our Alison Kosik. She is live on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Good to see you. I know that you're expecting this to list any second here. Talk to us about the access to this stock. Is this something that everyone can buy, or is this only for institutional investors?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point, at this moment, it is for institutional investors, and that's really what the process is right now.

You look over my shoulder. You're seeing this price range that's $90 to $91. That's actually what John Q. Public will have a chance to buy it. At least, this is the minimum at what John Q. Public will be buying it at.

But the expectation is that that price is actually going to go higher in the minutes before Alibaba actually goes public. That pricing is happening right now, so short answer to your question, Alibaba is not open for trading, but chances are that price is going to go higher.

If you're just a regular person looking to buy this stock, that range is probably going to go at least a little bit higher.

BERMAN: So, Alison, we gave a little primer there on what Alibaba is, but I think people are still a little confused about, wow, this is the biggest IPO ever.

How will Alibaba affect our lives, or will it, here in the United States? Any connection?

KOSIK: No connection yet. What's interesting is that not a lot of people actually know what Alibaba is and what's interesting is you see that Alibaba, which is a Chinese company, decided to list on an American exchange here at the New York Stock Exchange. It didn't list on the Hong Kong Exchange and there's a lot of reasons for that. A big reason is because of the way its corporate structure is. Alibaba actually has 27 people in control of its board of directors which, that essentially means that shareholders aren't really the decision makers for the way the stock goes. And it actually seems to be a trend these days so while shareholder can get a cut of the profits, they don't really have voting power. So that seems to be a trend that actually rubbed the Hong Kong Exchange the wrong way but seems to be rubbing people here in the U.S. in the right way because you see the demand is so strong because institutional investors got in on this stock at $68. Once again, we go back to that price range, that price range is going higher because of the demand for this stock. No matter what the corporate structure is, John.

BERMAN: Limitless market in China for its products and services.

PEREIERA: Gigantic there.

BERMAN: Limitless market. Alright, our thanks to Alison Kosik on the floor of the exchange and what's all going on right now.

Ahead for this hour, a manhunt intensifies for a suspected cop killer. A sharp shooting survivalist who has talked about committing mass murder. The newest addition to the top 10 most-wanted list.

PEREIRA: And frightening moments for passengers. They cry, they pray as thick smoke fills a flight heading to Austin, Texas. We'll tell you a little bit more about what happened and you'll hear from some of those passengers.

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PEREIRA: Here's an update for you, search warrants have just been executed a short time ago in the hunt for University of Virginia sophomore Hannah Graham. A CNN team in Charlottesville says about a dozen police vehicles are at a complex, an apartment complex, the officers are putting up crime scene tape. This all comes after new surveillance images emerged showing a man following the 18-year-old on foot near a downtown Charlottesville mall. The man in the video later came to the police department and told officers he was following Graham because she looked distressed. He told police he stopped trailing her when he saw another man approach her and put his arm around her. Police said they were looking for that man as a person of interest in the case.

BERMAN: CNN's senior producer, Eric Fiegel, is on the ground right now outside of that apartment complex where police right now, we believe, are searching. Eric, can you hear us?

ERIC FIEGEL, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: I hear you fine, John.

BERMAN: Give us a sense of what you're seeing and what's going on right now at that scene.

FIEGEL: Well, right now we're at an apartment complex maybe two to three miles away from that pedestrian mall where Hannah was last seen early in the morning of Saturday. What led them here was a vehicle, a person that they thought had an association with the case. They wanted to check out that vehicle that was parked in front of the apartment. They did -- they got a search warrant on that vehicle. What they found inside that vehicle led them to believe that there was more evidence that needed to be gathered inside the apartment. So they got a search warrant for inside the apartment. They have been inside that apartment for maybe about the last hour or so gathering evidence, whatever evidence that could be. The police chief told us that there is no one here at the apartment, we're not quite sure who the vehicle belongs to that they actually impounded. Police would give us little information on who this apartment belongs to and whether there's a direct link to that person that was seen in the video. I asked the police chief myself, is there a link to the person in the video and the person who lives in this apartment? And he would not elaborate on that. No one has been questioned at this apartment complex but police have been inside, like I said, for approximately the last hour. John?

BERMAN: It is interesting, two separate warrants issued here, the first one for the car and they did finding something in the car that led them to want to search more and get a second warrant. So you get the sense that something's going on.

PEREIRA: Well yeah, and it's interesting, just to back up for you, Hannah's parents say they were worried that something had happened to her after she left a gathering of friends Friday night. We saw the emergence of that video and again Eric, maybe you can help us clarify. There's word that there was one man seen following Hannah on video and then he says he left when he saw another man come and put his arm around Hannah. That man went to police and said -- told them exactly what they saw.

FIEGEL: That's exactly correct. The man who was a witness in this came forward, he actually came forward to police, he contacted police on his own. Police have talked to him. And they're wondering whether the second man in the video was there to help Hannah, as well, because she seemed lost and confused. That person they really want to talk to and we don't know if that person is in any way associated with this apartment complex.

BERMAN: Alright, Eric Fiegel, thanks for being there for us. Obviously something going on right where you are right now in this search. We'll check back in with you as developments warrant. We appreciate it.

Meantime, in Pennsylvania, the search for a suspected cop killer, Eric Matthew Frein, enters its seventh day. He is now on the FBI's ten most wanted fugitive list and the Feds are offering $100,000 in reward for information leading to his capture.

PEREIRA: That is in addition to the $75,000 being offered by Pennsylvania crime stoppers. Frein is accused of opening fire on police barracks last Friday night killing one officer, wounding another. This all happened in the small central Pennsylvania town of Blooming Grove. Our law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes, joins us. We know that community right now is reeling. They are terrified, they don't know if this man is still among them. They don't know if he's hidden in the woods somewhere. Tom, of course, we know given your time with the FBI, you have seen cases like this before. We also know there's been a bit of a description of this guy, heavy smoker, a weapons enthusiast, a survivalist, that he has a grudge against law enforcement. Give us an idea about what stands out to you the most about this guy and the danger he poses to this community.

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Michaela, I think the biggest thing that stands out to me is that he planned that ambush of the police officers at the state police barracks, at their shift change. So he hid himself in the woods nearby, waited for the change, the officers come and he shoots and kills one and severely wounds the second officer and I think it wasn't a spontaneous act that he was pulled over for a traffic stop and suddenly spontaneously decided to kill the officer who approached his car. This was a planned out assassination of a police officer.

BERMAN: I was surprised by the fact he was apparently obsessed with Eastern Europe military conflicts and he would dress up in uniform and stage fake battles, I've never heard of anything like that. But Tom, what's the MO here, usually, when someone like this does plan an assassination of this nature, does he or she have more in store or is this a one off and he goes on the run and hides as long as he can?

FUENTES: I think normally there's more in store and I think that's the problem with a case like this but anything's possible, so the police can't take for granted well, he stole somebody's car and he's five states away by this time or that he abandoned his car in that pond with his driver's license, with Social Security Number, but he has the guns and we have no idea how many magazines, how much ammunition, what other equipment or supplies he took with him. At a certain point, a person would want to have shelter beyond just camping himself under leaves in the forest and that would mean normally a home invasion. To go in and seek shelter, food, water, electricity, if he's trying to power his phones or other equipment. So that's the danger here is that he poses a complete danger to the general public that live anywhere close.

PEREIRA: Well you know, Tom, it's reminding me so much of the case that we saw in southern California with Christopher Dorner. I remember the same thing is that they didn't know how far this guy may have gotten. They didn't know if it was a one of and then we found out later that it wasn't. The community was really terrified because, again, you don't know at which point -- where could this person be on the run? And again, you don't know if this person is watching television, has communication with the outside world. Where do you think they'll go from here in terms of this manhunt? We're going into a weekend here, kids are going to go back to school on Monday, I know they canceled some classes this week out of concern.

FUENTES: I think they have to keep up the intensive search, particularly in that area, and even if they search an area and clear it they have to go back later because he could circle back to an area that's been searched and cleared by the police and the police can't just say oh we've been there and checked that area and we can break away, they have to keep going back and going back and going back and I think that just hoping that at some point, and he's in charge of this, that some point he surfaces to do the next thing, which probably going to be shoot more police officers or carjack somebody or take hostages. Anything's possible and the police are in an extremely difficult situation with that.

PEREIRA: Especially considering that they lost one of their own and another was severely injured. Really concerning. Tom Fuentes, always a pleasure to have you with us. Thanks so much for joining us and adding your voice to the conversation.

FUENTES: Thank you, Michaela.

PEREIRA: 11:27 in the East. Ahead @THISHOUR, Hillary Clinton calling for a women's movement. Is it because she wants to advance their economic power or her own political aspirations? We have strategists on both sides of the isle. They'll be here to discuss it with us.

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