Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

New ISIS Video Reveals Brutal Tactics; 25 Years after the Big Quake; Gloves Come Off in Kentucky Senate Debate; Facebook Founder Donating $25 Million to Fight Ebola

Aired October 14, 2014 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and thank you for joining me. I'm Ana Cabrera sitting in for Carol Costello. Glad to have you with me.

After weeks of punishing air strikes by coalition forces, ISIS fighters still continue to gain ground in the Middle East. This morning the terrorist group is tightening its grip around the key Turkish border town of Kobani, Syria despite the fierce fighting from the Kurdish troops on the ground. And even though the administration has vowed to degrade and destroy ISIS, doing that may be harder than it sounds. A new ISIS propaganda video reveals how ISIS fighters prepare and train for this fight.

Let's dig deeper with CNN's Brian Todd. He's joining us live from Washington -- Brian.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, this video shows ISIS recruits being kicked, dragged, fired at. It's an indication of how brutal is can be within its own ranks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD (voice over): Recruits crawl through simulated barbed wire with trainers firing at them. They line up to have their torsos kicked. The last man gets the honor of a knee to the body. A fighter drags a cloth mat with a rope fastened to it to rescue a wounded comrade. As they're pulled away, they're fired at.

This is the latest ISIS propaganda, a video called "blood of jihad" showing fighters in basic training.

(on camera): Is this anything that they would use in Anbar right now anywhere on the battlefield?

ANTHONY CORDESMAN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Almost never. This type of hand-to-hand fighting with automatic weapons, mortars, artillery, vehicles, almost never really occurs. Throughout this entire video what you have is a stage set of exercises. You look at them and this really isn't a training exercise, it's a video exercise.

TODD: Propaganda. CORDESMAN: Exactly.

TODD (voice over): But somehow ISIS has captured most of Anbar Province and come within just a few miles of Baghdad International Airport. What tactics have they deployed?

Iraq combat veteran Douglas Ollivant says on the battlefield, ISIS has previously used what he calls a react-to-contact drill. That means in a fire fight they make initial contact against their enemy using the smallest number of fighters possible, maybe three or four.

DOUGLAS OLLIVANT, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: And then put down fire because those three or four guys can keep 20, 30 of the enemy focused on them.

TODD: Then Ollivant says, a larger group of ISIS fighters comes around, flanking the enemy on one side, finds a weakness, attacks it.

OLLIVANT: This is something that the U.S. Army Ranger regiment has really practiced for years. It's been their hallmark.

TODD: But now in Anbar analysts say they've shifted tactics, recruiting locals to do much of the fighting. ISIS surrounds remote outposts with few Iraqi soldiers in them and launches non-conventional assaults.

CORDESMAN: Almost all of what they've done is a combination of terrorism. It is the use of indirect fire to soften up positions, it's to assault key positions with suicide bombers and then close in using automatic weapons.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: Now, analysts say ISIS has been much more flexible on the battlefield in Anbar and elsewhere, adapting its tactics to specific targets. While the Iraqi forces on the other hand have been static, tied to their positions, not resupplied, abandoned. It's allowed ISIS to pick out the weakest links in the Iraqi army and overrun them -- Ana.

CABRERA: Brian, do any of the analysts you've been speaking to believe that Anbar province can actually be recaptured from ISIS and would that be important in terms of strategy?

TODD: It would certainly be important Ana but they say it's not going to be recaptured any time soon. This is a mostly Shia army in a Sunni-dominated province. Until they can get Sunnis reintegrated into that army sufficiently and work with the local Sunni tribes in Anbar, it's not going to be recaptured.

One analyst told me, he says this will take a year, not a week or two.

CABRERA: All right. Brian Todd -- thanks for that.

And amid growing concerns about ISIS abroad, plus the threat of Ebola here at home, the White House appears eager to show the President taking action, showing him at work.

Today he heads to Andrews Air Force base to discuss the war against ISIS with 20 foreign defense chiefs. That meeting, of course, comes after the President held a conference call on a federal holiday with top advisors along with the CDC director on the fight against Ebola and allowed this picture to be taken; both of these events following a high-profile strategy session on ISIS at the Pentagon last week -- another photo-op.

Here to discuss, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist Kevin Madden -- easy for me to say; and CNN political commentator and host of Huff Post Live Marc Lamont Hill.

Kevin, let's start with you. We know in the past, President Obama has dismissed photo-ops. Most recently he dismissed it during the border crisis saying he is more interested in solving problems than taking pictures but now seems like there may have been a change of heart. What's your take?

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well I would challenge the premise or any argument out of this administration that they don't care about photo-ops. I mean this is an administration that cares a great deal and a presidency and a candidacy back in 2008 that was vaulted ahead of all the others because of photo-ops.

But look, I think as part of the presidency, photo-ops are important. How you send a message to the American people about the level of concern that you have for a given challenge, your plan for dealing with a certain challenge -- those type of photo-ops are important. So it should come as no surprise and I don't think that the -- there will be criticism because the President is doing that.

I think where the criticism comes for any president -- whether it's a Republican or Democrat -- is when those photo-ops are not met with action or execution against the given challenge.

CABRERA: How do you grade the President's response?

MADDEN: Well, I think the President's response is going to be graded on whether or not he can contain this -- and make sure this does not become an epidemic on our soil. So right now, I think the jury is still out. But they have put together -- they have put the resources in place, they have definitely been communicating with the public about their plan and I think so far there's -- the jury is still out.

CABRERA: Marc, Obama supporters have said that he's in a catch-22. If he shies away from the cameras, well then he's too detached. If he appears maybe it's all for publicity. Wartime photos, though, have been used by many presidents. Do you think that this is effective? Should there be a middle ground in terms of the criticism?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There is a middle ground and I think the President has to find it and I think those of us who are critical or supportive of the President also have to find that middle ground. What the President is attempting to do -- and I agree with Kevin, every president cares about photo-ops. Every president cares about the optics but I think there have been moments where the Obama administration has been tone deaf to what people want.

It doesn't mean that the Obama administration is wrong on the issue. I actually think on the Ebola thing they were correct. The question becomes how are the American people responding to it?

So, for example, the Obama administration has essentially said "We are not going to come out and talk about stuff that we can't fix or change. The Ferguson thing was happening so we're going to step back and not do anything. But it was tone deaf. People wanted justice, they want to know something was going on.

The American people right now are scared about Ebola. The President can't fix Ebola. The President has done what he was supposed to, he has said the right things, he's offered the right medical insights, he's appealed to the right experts. But the American people are scared and he needs to come out and say "I'm doing everything I can to deal with this." That's where the disconnect comes.

And now you enter the photo-ops later to redress that, it might be a little too late to deal with this substantively.

CABRERA: Marc, you call it a disconnect and perhaps you're right. A new "Washington Post"/ABC News poll shows 43 percent of Americans disapprove of how the President is handing the Ebola response. That's more than who approve which is just 41 percent. What's the President doing wrong, Kevin?

MADDEN: Well, look, I think that right now the public by and large has a justifiable level of skepticism about whether or not the government is doing enough or has been competent. I think a lot of that is judgment because of the past given other problems that the government had whether it's the V.A. scandal or other places. They just don't feel like the government has taken the right, appropriate, quick action to contain some of the problems that they've had.

HILL: I disagree.

CABRERA: Yes. Go ahead, Marc.

HILL: No, no. I was going to say I think the CDC has a long history -- I mean this isn't like the post office or even the IRS. This is the CDC. This is public health.

MADDEN: I would agree with that.

HILL: And I think that there's a huge difference here. I think the problem is as a social scientist I would say that often times what we see as a poll is a proxy for something else. No one is going to be satisfied with any government's handling of Ebola as long as someone has Ebola. The first U.S. person contracted it yesterday. No one is going to say they're happy with the U.S. government be they're terrified and people keep getting it. It has nothing to do with Obama. It has to do with fear about a disease -- or an illness that we don't fully understand and that we're deeply scared of.

CABRERA: All right. Kevin Madden, Marc Lamont Hill -- good to see you guys, thank you.

MADDEN: Great to be with you.

HILL: Pleasure.

CABRERA: Still to come, it was in 1989 that San Francisco was rocked by a massive earthquake. And now 25 years later we're hearing about some of the terrifying moments from those who made it through that day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: A new study says the Bay Area is due for another big earthquake. And researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey say sections of the San Andreas Fault have built enough energy now to unleash some really large quakes. This news comes on the 25th anniversary of the big quake in San Francisco. You can't forget this. Remember, scores of Americans felt the pain, the sorrow, remembered the heroic rescues after that quake hit northern California. It killed 66 people, injured many others.

CNN's Dan Simon is in San Francisco. Dan, really hard it's been 25 years.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Ana. We're always reminded of it every time we hit the post-season in baseball. No one can forget Al Michaels fading to black just before game three of the World Series between the Giants and the A's. So many lives were forever changed that day and we're going to introduce you to one of them, a doctor who helped rescue a six-year-old boy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JAMES BETTS, UCSF BENIOFF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: It's very vivid. It's hard to imagine that 25 years have passed.

SIMON (voice over): October 17, 1989. The Bay Area is strike by a 6.9 earthquake. Some of the worst damage centered in Oakland. A double-decker freeway just off the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge collapses, crushing people in their cars near the height of rush hour.

Dr. James Betts is chief of surgery at Children's Hospital Oakland. He and his team raced out the door to try to save some of those trapped victims, sandwiched between the two freeway decks. There he was directed to a six-year-old boy in the backseat of a car, pinned down and unconscious. His nine-year-old sister, who was also found alive, had just been rescued moments earlier. Two women in the front, including the children's mother, were dead.

BETTS: His right leg was crushed to the knee. His left leg was pinned under the driver's seat.

SIMON (on camera): The only way you're going to get him out is to amputate his leg?

BETTS: Yes. There was no way to elevate 500 tons off of him. SIMON (voice over): And just to perform that amputation required

something even more gruesome. Severing the woman's body any the front passenger seat, a family friend.

BETTS: It was something that is forever etched in my mind. The body was there, her soul was elsewhere. We all very quickly decided that this was a necessary, clinical procedure we had to do.

SIMON: The boy Dr. Betts rescued, Julio Barumen (ph) is now 31 years old and living a fully active life. He has rarely spoken publicly about the day that claimed 42 lives on that free way, including his mother.

(on camera): If Julio happens to be watching you right now, is there anything you would want to say to him?

BETTS: Just live a good life. And I know he is. The same for his sister -- live a good life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMONS: Well, Dr. Betts says not a day goes by where he doesn't think about another big earthquake hitting the Bay Area. Of course we had a scare not too long ago in Napa and, of course, Ana you mentioned the new study that says a major earthquake could impact this area really at any time so it's another reminder for all of us who live out here to have those emergency kits ready and be prepared as best as we can.

CABRERA: Well, thank goodness that there have been some new construction practices, too, since that earthquake did such destruction. Dan Simon in San Francisco -- thanks for that heart felt report.

"SAN FRANCISCO SHAKEN, 25 YEARS SINCE THE QUAKE" airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Don't go away, though. Still to come right here, the contentious Kentucky senate race came to a head with both sides pulling no punches in their only debate before next month's election. Chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash is live with more.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, it was the one and only debate in the most consequential political race of the year and it didn't disappoint. Stay tuned for what the candidates said and did not say after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: We have breaking news right now.

These pictures are just in to CNN. This is in Hong Kong. Remember there have been weeks of protests and unrest in Hong Kong. Police and protesters, you can see, are facing off right now. These are new pictures of the officers in the city trying to hold back crowds. Crowds of people there taking to the streets once again. It was just yesterday, you might recall, we mentioned on this program, that the barricades had been removed and that key roads were opened in this area after weeks of peaceful sit-ins; the protesters who call themselves pro democracy protesters. And these are live pictures, I'm told right now. And you can see a little bit of shoving going on, some scuffles in that crowd.

I can tell you that CNN's Anna Coren is heading to the scene. We'll bring you more information on these new developments out of Hong Kong this morning just as soon as she gets there and gets in place.

Meantime back here in the U.S., Kentucky senate race could have major implications in the balance of power in Washington and last night's debate between senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic challenger Allison Lundergan Grimes, the gloves came off with less than a month to go before Election Day. Neither side backed down in what has now been one of the most expensive races in the country.

Chief Congressional correspondent Dana Bash is joining me live in Washington with more -- Dana.

BASH: Well, Ana, minimum wage, health care issues really came to light last night that showed voters how much these two candidates genuinely differ on important issues. But it's clear the deciding issue in this critical race maybe who is more unpopular -- President Obama or the Congress where McConnell is GOP leader.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH (voice over): This high-stakes debate in the marquee senate race crackled with heat.

ALLISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES (D), KENTUCKY SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Senator McConnell, you and your henchmen the Koch brothers.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: I haven't said anything in any private meeting I haven't said publicly.

BASH: Democratic challenger Allison Lundergan Grimes came out swinging trying to put GOP senate leader Mitch McConnell on the defensive.

GRIMES: We have to have a senator that actually realizes what the realities are here in Kentucky and the fictional fantasy land that Mitch McConnell is in doesn't show the statistics that are here in the states.

BASH: Saying to McConnell's face what she says on the stump, he's been in Washington too long.

GRIMES: They've happened on your watch, Senator. You've been there 30 years and you don't want to take any responsibility for the loss of the jobs here in this state.

BASH: McConnell repeatedly responded in his classically calm manner. MCCONNELL: Secretary Grimes, if I may, Congress didn't pass what the

President is doing, we defeated it.

BASH: He tried to turn his long service into a plus, especially if he wins this race and becomes senate majority leader.

MCCONNELL: The majority leader gets to set the agenda not only for the country now look out for Kentucky's interest.

BASH: And link her to the unpopular president.

MCCONNELL: Giving Barack Obama another vote in the Senate, continuing this Democratic majority in the Senate is not going to do anything to improve America's economy and certainly not Kentucky's economy.

BASH: McConnell did teeter on losing his cool when Grimes suggest he enriched himself in office since his millions actually came from his wife's inheritance.

GRIMES: Becoming a multimillionaire on the backs of hardworking Kentuckyians.

MCCONNELL: I can't let that stand. That is an outrageous suggestion, she knows it's wrong.

BASH: Grimes' weakest moment even after video went viral last week of her refusing to stay if she votes for President Obama, she still wouldn't say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are you reluctant to give an answer on whether or not you voted for President Obama?

GRIMES: Bill, there's no reluctance. This is a matter of principle. Our constitution grants here in Kentucky the constitutional right for privacy at the ballot box, for a secret ballot.

BASH: Still, the real answer may be political, not principle. In 2012 Obama got crushed in Kentucky and is even more unpopular now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: McConnell suffered his own stumble. On Obamacare, of all things, which has to be the GOP issue against Democrats and Democratic policies. He contradicted himself by arguing he wants to rip out Obamacare by its roots but he told the moderator that Kentucky's health care Web site which has been a successful tool in signing people up for Obamacare is quote, "fine" -- Ana?

CABRERA: Interesting. Thank you so much, Dana.

Still to come, the CDC gets a big hand in fighting Ebola. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is donating $25 million.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Welcome back. More now on Facebook founder's Mark Zuckerberg big donation to the CDC; as we reported just moments ago he's giving the federal health agency $25 million to help fight Ebola.

CNN's Alison Kosik is live in New York. Alison -- this is a big chunk of money.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It really is, Ana. That $25 million coming from Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla going to the CDC Foundation to help fight Ebola. Zuckerberg's foundation is saying that the money will actually be used for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Ebola response effort in the countries that have been hardest hit by the virus.

He put out a statement a short time ago, of course, where else, right on his Facebook page and in part it reads "We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn't spread further and become a long-term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at a large scale like HIV or polio."

If you think about, Zuckerberg has certainly made a name for himself for giving big donations. Hey, he's certainly got the money for it. His net worth at this point, at least $33.3 billion but he's given back a lot. He's given millions of dollars to schools in Newark, New Jersey. He's part of Warren Buffett's giving pledge as well as other billionaires who have pledged to give away or to donate a majority of their wealth.

But Zuckerberg isn't the only bigwig doing this. Other big companies are also donating to the Ebola cause. Mars and Nestle, Ana, actually announced that they're going go ahead and donate money to help in the fight against Ebola. Those of course, are the chocolate makers announcing this as well Ana.

CABRERA: And that's, of course, on top of the $50 million that the Gates Foundation has pledged to donate to the Ebola fight. So it's good to see these people who have the means reach out and try to make a difference in this way.

Alison Kosik, we really appreciate your reporting.

KOSIK: Exactly. You got it.

CABRERA: And thank you for being here with me today. I'm Ana Cabrera. Hope you'll join me again tomorrow.

"@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Hello there. I'm John Berman.