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France Joins International Fight with ISIS; Congress Agreed to Support Syrian Rebels; ISIS Releasing New Video; The Relationship Between the NFL and the Army; Alibaba About to Make Its Public Debut

Aired September 19, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, "THE NEWSROOM", ready to strike. President Obama's plan in Syria gets the green light as air strikes in Iraq get help from a new partner. Plus, new clues, investigators on the hunt for a missing Virginia college student. Hannah Graham was not alone the night she disappeared. And it's one of the biggest IPOs ever, but chances are you've probably never even heard of the Chinese company about to make $25 billion on the New York Stock Exchange today. Let's talk, live in the CNN newsroom.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin with the international fight against ISIS. Just a few hours ago, France's president confirmed that his warplanes conducted their first airstrikes against the terror group in Iraq. This as U.S. airstrikes successfully hit an ISIS stronghold, a training camp southeast of Mosul. Despite steady gains by the terrorist group, the White House is firm, though, no boots on the ground. In the meantime, the Senate has given the go-ahead to President Obama to arm and train Syrian rebels. But the president's strategy could face challenges. U.S. military officials tell CNN ISIS is modifying and adjusting its behavior ahead of additional air strikes. Let's begin our coverage with CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta, good morning, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. President Obama's plan to defeat ISIS has cleared a major hurdle. Congress has now bought into the president's strategy -- at least the part they could vote on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The joint resolution is passed.

ACOSTA: Just before speeding out of Washington for the midterm elections, Congress gave President Obama the green light to arm and train Syrian rebels in the war on ISIS.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The strong bipartisan support in Congress for this new training effort shows the world that Americans are united in confronting the threat from ISIL.

ACOSTA: The Senate approved the measure attached to a must-pass spending bill by an overwhelming margin. But potential GOP presidential contenders were divided with Senator Marco Rubio voting yes and Ted Cruz and Rand Paul saying no, noting that Congress declined to authorize the president's overall strategy, Paul dubbed Mr. Obama's battle plan "one man's war."

SEN. RAND PAUL (R) KENTUCKY: He was running against the wars of the previous administration and people voted for him for that very reason and he became part of a problem.

ACOSTA: Despite the endorsement from Congress for at least part of the president's strategy, lawmakers were voicing doubts to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If this plan doesn't work, what is the alternative? What does it look like in the Middle East then?

CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, we always have plan "b's" and "c's," that's what the military does as well as anybody in the world. But we believe this plan will work.

ACOSTA: The Obama administration is pointing to the stepped-up air campaign against ISIS that U.S. military officials say took out a terrorist training camp in some of the latest strikes.

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I can tell you that I don't think these guys are ten feet tall and the intelligence tells us that as we've begun to hit them, we've been able to prove that to some degree.

ACOSTA: President Obama welcomed the France's decision to join the coalition in conducting air strikes on ISIS, a sign that battle against the terrorist group is just heating up.

OBAMA: As Americans, we do not give into fear and when you harm our citizens, when you threaten the United States, when you threaten our allies, it doesn't divide us, it unites us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: And the president will be pushing to expand that coalition when he makes the rounds at the United Nations next week in New York City. This weekend he heads to Camp David where he's likely to receive some more updates from his national security team on the fight against ISIS. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Jim Acosta reporting live from the White House this morning.

Former president Bill Clinton is weighing in. On the strategy against the ISIS. During appearance on the "DAILY SHOW" with Jon Stewart last night, Clinton said he supports President Obama's plan to fight ISIS, but stressed only the Iraqi people can win a land war in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON: So the reason 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've proved that. But they can. And we can help them win it. And that's got to be what we're trying to do.

COSTELLO: The former president also emphasized the importance of a strategy that provides intelligence support to local forces, referring to the recent beheadings of Western hostages. Clinton said a price will be paid for those crimes.

ISIS has released, though, a new slickly produced hostage video. This time, it shows a British journalist, John Cantlie, reading a prepared script. We're only showing you a still from the video because Cantlie makes clear that he is under duress. The message clearly targets the West saying the United States cannot win a war against ISIS and Cantlie says it will be followed by other messages continuing that same theme. Also new this morning, dozens of British Muslim leaders have signed an open letter calling for the release of Alan Henning. The British journalist is also under the threat of execution. Let's talk about it all. Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling is a CNN military analyst. He's in Orlando this morning. And Karl Penhaul joins us from London. Welcome to both of you.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPODENT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: First to you, Karl.

MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. First to you, Karl. How are the British reacting to the threat to two of its citizens?

PENHAUL: Well, people are absolutely horrified. Certainly the threats against Alan Henning seems to have been what has galvanized this repulsion. Why? Because he wasn't a journalist, he wasn't a trained aid worker. This guy was a cab driver. He was a taxi driver with a heart of gold, he was persuaded by some of his Muslim friends to go out and take some aid to Syria and he ended up giving up Christmas, family time and weekends to do just that. And now he's being caught and so I think that a lot of Britons feel that this is every man, the guy next door who went out to do his bit and now he's been nabbed and this is what is horrifying a lot of people, Carol.

COSTELLO: General, the other video where we saw Mr. Cantlie, who is a journalist, and as I said he was clearly under duress while he was making this video supposedly on behalf of ISIS. What do you suppose ISIS' strategy is here? Because this is different from what they've shown the world in the past.

HERTLING: Yeah, this is a miniseries, Carol. I think they're trying to expand their cyber war. That's what this is. And Karl will tell you as you walked through the streets of the Middle East, anywhere in the souks, in the markets, there are people selling videos like this to pull people in, there are Internet cafes that are advertising these kind of videos and now they're looking for the West to just generate support. And it's not just the support for those who behead, that's one category of the population. This is going to be a series of video, as they've described, that are going to appeal to a different class of people. So they're trying to suck people in into this horrific organization. COSTELLO: And, Karl, you brought up an interesting theory about what

Mr. Cantlie might be doing by, I don't know, agreeing to do this video?

PENHAL: Yeah, I just wonder, you know, because that video is so different from the way that other hostages have been treated and John Cantlie, of course, is not the only photojournalist. We know that Steven Sotloff has been executed by ISIS and James Foley before him as well. In fact, James Foley and John Cantlie were both kidnapped at the same time, they were traveling together back in November, 2012, when they were kidnapped, and so, you know, I think let's keep our minds open on this until we know a little bit more. But I just wonder whether, in fact, this might be a scheme that John Cantlie was able to cook up, use his silver tongue to maybe buy some time for himself, prolong his own life, offering to maybe do this miniseries. At one point in the speech that he gives he says, yes, OK, I am a prisoner, of course, but I also feel abandoned by my own government. So I just wonder whether this is a kind of gamble to get more time and maybe buy back his own life, Carol.

COSTELLO: And General, do you think that there are operatives still looking for these hostages?

HERTLING: Absolutely. We are continuing, I think, as a coalition force, not only the U.S. But the U.K. and others gathering intelligence to try and find where these people are holding these hostages and I think there is the potential for future attempts at rescues. But again, we're gleaning every bit of intelligence from this kind of videos and the more that are produced the more intelligence we can glean.

COSTELLO: All right, General Hertling, Karl Penhaul, thanks to both of you, I appreciate it.

All right, a bit more of breaking news to pass along to you. We have new details about a military investigation into the NFL. Yes, into the NFL. Our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon with some exclusive information. Why?

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Carol. I don't know that we can call it an investigation just yet, I don't think it's there. But, indeed, what CNN has learned is that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has now asked his senior staff for detailed information about the U.S. military's relations with the National Football League in the wake of this still-growing scandal about whether the NFL is really committed to handling domestic abuse incidents. Of course, the U.S. military has a zero-tolerance policy in its ranks for domestic abuse, and yet it is a major financial, economic, and community supporter of the NFL. So what has happened is Hagel is asking his staff "Give me all the information about the NFL." Senior official telling me he wants that in case now with all of this going on he decides it's time to make some changes in that relationship.

The Army alone, for example, spends about $10 million a year with the broadcast networks buying advertising for NFL games. There are very long and deep community relationships. We see it all the time, military personnel at NFL events singing the national anthem, drill teams flyovers, a lot of community support, a lot of community outreach from the U.S. military to the National Football League and, of course, it goes without saying that the National Football League viewership to a large extent is a significant demographic, young people, that the U.S. Military tries to reach out to for recruiting. So this -- you know, there's no indication yet that anything has been decided, that anything will be changed, but this is a very significant step forward in the Pentagon saying wait a minute, we want to see exactly what's going on here with the National Football League and decide if we want to keep all of our relationship going with them. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Barbara Starr reporting live for us this morning, thank you.

In other news, she is one of at least four women who have gone missing in Virginia over the last five years. University of Virginia sophomore Hannah Graham was last heard from on September 13 when she left a party. Then she sent a text message to friends. Police are hoping new surveillance images could help them construct a sort of timeline. These images show a man following Hannah on foot near a downtown Charlottesville mall. Legal view anchor Ashleigh Banfield joins me now to help us devil into this case. So police have a person of interest, right? Who is this person?

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN "LEGAL VIEW" ANCHOR: Kind of and kind of not. It's a very weird series of videos that they've been trying to put together and by the way, we're now at about a week. She was last seen having dinner with her friends and then sent out sort of this cryptic text late Friday night into Saturday morning saying "I'm lost." They think she might have been under the influence of alcohol, but those videos, one of the men that was pictured in the follow videos actually went to the police and said "I saw her, I was following her because she looked distressed. And then I saw another man who - they appeared to know each other and I backed away and that's the last ..

COSTELLO: Is that the person of interest, though.

BANFIELD: That could be the person of interest. Whether they've got a good description on that person, not so sure. That certainly is the story of the first person.

COSTELLO: Yeah, we're putting the description up that the police gave to us of this person of interest.

BANFIELD: From the man who was seen in the video. Whether they've got the video or not of him we're not exactly sure of that at this point. But what we do know is there's $50,000 for anybody out there who might know something. And here's what's weird. She's seen on a bunch of different videos and she's seen stopping in front of a pub door. There are other people there. She might have even spoken to someone in front of that doorway and they want these people to come forward to tell us what was her condition, what were the things she was saying? Was she lost? Was she drunk? Was she confused? Was she with someone? Because she just effectively vanished and now her parents are putting out a statement saying "Help us. We are beyond devastated." And imagine all the parents right now. Here we are early September who've sent their kids off to college and they are just hoping to God they never get a story like this. She's a sophomore.

COSTELLO: And to make matters more worrisome for her parents, other young women have gone missing and have never been found.

BANFIELD: Four in Virginia in the past five years. They're not making any connections between them, but one that might stand out if you think you've heard this story before, 2009, there was a young woman by the name of Morgan Harrington, she went missing as well and sadly, the fate was terrible. Her remains turned up on a nearby farm. Police are not making the link. They're not saying that there's any connection. They don't even say there's foul play yet in the case of Hannah, but at the same time the police chief is saying "If I were a parent, I'd be worried." So that's distressing to hear that.

COSTELLO: It is.

BANFIELD: But the message is, if you're out there, if you know anything about this young woman ...

COSTELLO: Pick up the phone.

BANFIELD: McGrady's pub. If you were at McGrady's pub last Saturday morning, 12:52 a.m., about 1:00 in the morning Friday night, Saturday morning, please call the police and let them know. We have got a mystery, we've got a family that's absolutely desperate here.

COSTELLO: And I'm sure you're going to talk more about this on your show coming up.

BANFIELD: You got it.

COSTELLO: All right. Ashleigh Banfield, thanks so much.

Still to come on the NEWSROOM, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba set for a record IPO this morning on Wall Street. Alison Kosik is live on the New York Stock Exchange.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol, the weight is on for Alibaba to actually set foot onto the stage and make it public debut. So, what's happening while we wait? I'll explain after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Have you ever used the site Alibaba? Well, you might want to start. The Chinese e-commerce giant is like a mix of Amazon and eBay wrapped all into one site. Today the site is set for a record- breaking IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. But can it live up to the hype? Alison Kosik joins me live with more. Good morning.

KOSIK: Good morning, Carol. So, what's happening right now is it's a price discovery process. Alibaba has not yet walked on to the public stage and gone public yet. So what's happening now, as you're seeing this sort of dance between buyers and sellers in the number of orders coming in? The orders are being put into the system but won't be completed until Alibaba actually starts trading. What's going to happen now is there is going to be a callout on the floor to temporarily freeze orders and not take anything new and that's kind of a heads up that trading will begin soon when John Q. Public for the first time will have a chance to get in and buy Alibaba shares for the first time, Carol.

COSTELLO: So what's the big thing we should be watching for today?

KOSIK: Well, the big thing that everybody is going to be watching for is the price. So, early investors got in at $68. Those were the early investors. But really, the end game here, at least for the day, is that the showing is strong, meaning investors don't want to see this stock drop below $68 at the close, they really want to see it higher if not at least keep that $68. You know, it's all about smoke and mirrors, at least for that number. Because you think about what happened with Facebook, it was a big flop. This is a memorable moment and moment in history in Alibaba doesn't want it to flop like Facebook did on its big day in part because of technical glitches at the NASDAQ. Carol?

COSTELLO: That would be embarrassing.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Alison Kosik live from New York Stock Exchange. Thank you.

Still to come to the NEWSROOM, NFL legend Jerry Rice speaks out on domestic violence issues that seem to be plaguing -- well, that are plaguing the league these days. Rachel Nichols is here with more.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. You think, Carol that you're frustrated with what's been going on in the NFL? Jerry Rice, the greatest receiver of all time, he's pretty angry, too. He told me all about it. I'll bring it to you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: As I told you a little while ago in the "NEWSROOM" the DNC's women's leadership forum is now under way. Hillary Clinton expected to speak noon Eastern Time, but speaking right now, Vice President Joe Biden and he had a very passionate remarks on domestic violence. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: And I was absolutely convinced from the outset -- as I am now, by the way -- that if we force the American people to take a close look at the face of violence, the face of domestic violence, to look into the eyes of the women who were abused, in every social strata, every income level, doctors as brutal as plumbers, football players as brutal as professors, no distinction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Vice president Joe Biden. Others at the White House also responding to the NFL's handling of its recent abuse controversy saying the league needs to "get a handle on the situation since so many young people look up to these players as role models." This as yet another player has been charged with domestic violence. Police say Arizona Cardinals running back Jonathan Dwyer head-butted her wife, breaking her nose after she refused his sexual advances back in July. Dwyer's wife says he later texted her a picture of a knife threatening to kill her and the couple's son if she told police about the assault. Rachel Nichols is here. She talked with legendary NFL receiver Jerry Rice about his thoughts on the NFL's current troubles.