Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Manhunt on for Two Terror Suspects Continues; Funding the Department of Homeland Security; "Charlie Hebdo" Will Publish Next Week; Interview with Rep. Mike Turner

Aired January 08, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from Washington. Thanks very much for joining us.

Right now the hunt is on for these two men, they're the prime suspects behind yesterday's brutal terror attack in Paris. Related by blood and bound by a motive to kill. According to French media both men robbed a gas station earlier today just outside of Paris.

Let's bring in our justice reporter Evan Perez. He's joining us from New York right now. What else do we know about these two individuals, Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Wolf, we know that these suspects were on the radar, not only of French law enforcement but also the U.S. because they shared some of that information with U.S. authorities. We know that at least one of them has some history with French extremist groups. These are groups that were involved in helping arrange for the travel of fighters to go to Iraq to try to join the jihadists over there, and that is the older brother Cherif Kouachi.

We do know, Wolf, that this was information that was passed on to U.S. authorities which was very quickly after this happened the U.S. was able to have some information, was able to know exactly who we were dealing with. What is not clear, Wolf, is whether this was something that could have been prevented because we know that the French had some kind of monitoring on both of these suspects. It wasn't 24/7 monitoring that you do with the most worrisome of suspects. The French have hundreds of people that they're monitoring, but they -- to do 24/7 monitoring is something that's very manpower intensive and expensive and not something that they can do, Wolf.

And right now we know that on the U.S. side there is some concern. We know they're worried about whether or not there could be copycat attacks, not only here but in other parts of the world. They're raising security in the United States and in some locations, especially here in New York because of the concern that others could try to do something like this, Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, that's what we heard from John Miller, the deputy police commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism in New York just a little while ago. Even, are you hearing anything from your sources at all about whether or not there's any direct connection between what happened at the magazine yesterday and what happened in the southern suburb of Paris today when this police officer -- this policewoman was shot and killed?

PEREZ: Well, they're treating the second incident as a terrorist incident, Wolf, but they don't know whether there's a direct connection. And again, that's exactly what they're worried about, is that people will see what happened with the magazine and then use this as the opportunity to get -- to carry out other attacks. This could be just somebody who was trying to act upon the opportunity that they had here. We expect that you might see some more of this type of thing in other places around the world.

BLITZER: Evan Perez reporting for us. Thanks very much.

Let's talk a little bit more about yesterday's brutal attack. Joining us our CNN military analyst, retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling. General -- thanks very much for joining us.

You wrote a really interesting piece on CNN.com about the tactics used by these gunmen. Walk us through what stood out to you after you studied those videos that surfaced? And I want to point out, those are the videos that have surfaced publicly. I'm sure law enforcement, military personnel, counterterrorism experts in Paris and in France have a lot more closed circuit TV video they're going through right now. But walk us through what has been released publicly.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Wolf, when I first saw the videos -- the various videos that came up yesterday, there were certain things that just struck me as a former soldier that appeared that these two individuals had their act together much more than what we've seen in the past.

A couple of things: first of all, their use of the weapons, the way they had -- at least one of the shooters had what we call a three- point sling over their shoulder. It appeared they were very careful to make sure they weren't shooting in each other's path. They were using a buddy team mentality of movement and shoot, going behind barriers to protect themselves as they were maneuvering through the area. That was the one thing.

The second thing was the uniform. They were all wearing black to include their balaclavas and their face masks. But that also hides bulk. You can tell by the look on the upper part of their body that something was underneath that jacket whether it be an armored vest or suicide belt you don't know. But they had something under there and they were using the black color not only to intimidate but also to hide that bulk underneath their jacket.

I think one of the things we had -- one of the first things that came across was they had conducted a very good reconnaissance of this area. Many of your other guests have pointed this out, too. They were very well prepared to conduct this operation. Unfortunately they've messed up and stumbled through a couple of other things since then, but for the attack itself they had prepared, trained and planned. It was obvious in the way they were moving and the way they were attacking the building and the fact that they knew the editorial board had conducted meetings every day at 12:00 to go through what cartoons they were going to show next.

Finally, the precise targeting of what they saw as their target was very interesting. They went in specifically to get key individuals. That's almost precision-targeting like we use in the West where you don't shoot a lot of other people, you just go after the main targets. Unfortunately it resulted in the deaths in the building and of the deaths of the policeman.

The final thing I saw was just in terms of the movement, and it wasn't reported yesterday, but I would have bet a dollar on the fact that someone was filming this scene. Since then there's been reports of one of the terrorists giving a signal somewhere. I think that was probably, hey, we're either done or we're about to do something. Usually the tactics of terrorists is to always film their attacks so they can use it later on, on social media and show what they have done.

BLITZER: And you write this -- I'm going to put it up on the screen -- in this the article you did for CNN.com, you make the exact point and you say "Usually terrorists film their attacks for future information operation and social media use. They may have had terrorist videographers in specific locations for that purpose during this attack as well. Those videos may appear in the future but until then French citizens posting YouTube videos contribute to the terrorists' information campaign."

Elaborate a little bit on what you mean by that.

HERTLING: Well, right now we're not seeing anyone claim responsibility for this attack. They don't have to because we're seeing so many of the repeated videos on all the news channels and all the media outlets. It's getting the word out that this was a successful attack.

And again, you know, when you consider things like copycat or the call to jihad, the news itself will call other people to do some of these things, whether it's posted on a channel like CNN or al Jazeera or whatever or whether it's posted on a terrorist Internet site, it's going to be a call to jihad. Right now they don't have to do that because they're getting the free publicity from all the open news access channels.

BLITZER: General Hertling, thanks very much for joining us. And I recommend our viewers go to CNN.com and read your powerful explanation, your article there -- very good stuff. Thanks very much, General, for joining us.

HERTLING: Thank you -- Wolf.

BLITZER: According to "USA Today" both brothers have spent time in Syria. These are the two suspects this morning. Authorities are trying to figure out if the two gunmen are part of a larger terror network, Said and Cherif Kouachi. Let's bring in our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson. He's covered the story for a long time. What's your analysis, Nic? These two guys apparently they were on the radar screen. One of them, at least, had served a year, year and a half in prison, released for time. What's your analysis of why these guys were able to do what they obviously, or at least allegedly, did yesterday?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they've had a lot of time to think about it -- Wolf. Let's face it, one of them is allegedly reported to have said he was radicalized as far back as a decade ago -- that's sort of when one of them at least first came on the police radar. So they've had a lot of time thinking about this. Going to jail for quite a lot of radical Islamists is just another school for indoctrination into the sort of radical ideology. That's happening a lot in Europe, and it happens other places as well.

Again, we talked about the control of the weapons. You hear one of the weapons, at least, the two weapons -- automatic weapons they used on a sort of three-burst -- that type of weapon. You can switch it to single shot, three shot, multiple shot. You hear bang, bang, bang, from one of the weapons; bang, bang, bang again. So there's a level of control.

But one thing I would say here, what we've seen from radical Islamists, and look at the beheading of the soldier on the streets of London about a year and a half ago. The attackers in that case relied on people on the street like this to use their phones and to film what happened. Indeed one of the killers there goes up with blood on hands and talks to -- talks to a person on the street holding their cell phone to their camera there and explains what they've done.

So I think there's a degree where the radical Islamists will allow and expect what they're doing to be captured and record. They won't necessarily film it themselves. We talked as well about this issue of one of them holding up a finger and we're told as well about them potentially have been to Syria at one time. If you look at a lot of photographs that come out of Syria at these young jihadists when they're being expressive and trying to show that they've done a good job or they think they're about to die they will often hold up a single finger.

We don't know why a single finger was held up here, but that is common practice among radical Islamist jihadists and ISIS in Syria and Iraq. So there's some commonalities. Those are some of the thoughts I'm having right now -- Wolf.

BLITZER: I know you've studied these videos like all of us. But you spent so much time in that part of the world, whether in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan -- you really know the story. We appreciate it very much.

Nic Robertson, helping us better appreciate what's going on.

We'll take a quick break. Much more, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLITZER: Here in Washington, D.C. the impact of the Paris terror attacks are being felt. They're being felt especially up on Capitol Hill where House Republicans are preparing to square off with Democrats over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The funding for the Department of Homeland Security will expire at the end of next month as part of a deal to keep the rest of the government running through much of this year.

The GOP set that deadline in a bid to get President Obama to reverse his executive actions on immigration reform. But a standoff could, in fact, shut down the Department of Homeland Security and ramifications could be significant.

Now, some members, prominent members of the party including South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham say their colleagues should consider a new strategy in light of the "Charlie Hebdo" tragedy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans are threatening to cut Homeland Security budgets even more to retaliate for immigration. Are you rethinking that?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Yes, I hope so.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You hope so?

GRAHAM: I hope that we can challenge the executive action of the President in a mature fashion. I've never been for shutting down Homeland Security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told me last night that this new attack underscores the need to keep his agency open.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEH JOHNSON, U.S. SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We should not at this point be playing political football with the budget of the Homeland Security capability of this nation. So what I've been urging today, all this week to members of congress is there are things that need to be funded in the Homeland Security Department -- new starts, new funding for border security, counterterrorism, the Secret Service that cannot wait much longer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. Let's discuss what's going on. Joining us Republican Congressman Mike Turner of Ohio -- Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. You don't want to really shut down the Department of Homeland Security, do you?

REP. MIKE TURNER (R), OHIO: Well, what we need here is the President of the United States to return back to the 9/11 commission report and read chapter 12 that calls for a global terrorism response. The report says specifically that we're not responding to just al Qaeda or just the events that occurred on 9/11, but a global strategy to address Islamic terrorism.

That's what we're seeing here as both NATO and U.S. Allies are very concerned about these Islamic terrorists that are going back and forth from war zone areas and then back into the west that pose a threat. I think the President by focusing on this certainly can rally the country and certainly rally support for the efforts in Homeland Security.

Now the President himself is the one that's tying his attempt to change the status of illegal immigrants here in the United States to the funding for Homeland Security. It's been clear on a bipartisan effort there's opposition to his plan. It's been clear that Congress is willing to fund Homeland Security, but does not wish to fund his executive action with this --

BLITZER: But isn't there another way -- Congressman, isn't there another way to make your views clear, what you want to do as far as immigration reform, opposing the President's executive actions, but at the same time doing what you've done for the rest of the federal government, allow it to be funded through the end of this fiscal year so that the American people will be protected by the Department of Homeland Security and all the agencies that are part of it?

TURNER: Well, remember, Wolf, if anything shuts down, it's not because Congress shuts it down. It's because the President either vetoes or is unwilling to take action. If a bill is on his desk to fund Homeland Security but doesn't fund his effort to change the status of illegal immigrants and he vetoes that, he will be the one who shut down the government without looking to what he should be focusing on which is a global strategy which was called for the 9/11 commission to address Islamic extremist and Islamic terrorism. You know our hearts go out to these victims -- the president needs to focus on the threats to our nation.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I just want to be precise. Yesterday I spoke with your colleague, Republican Congressman Mike McCaul, he's the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He's met with Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security yesterday. Both of them are obviously very concerned about this battle right now over immigration. And if it will shut down, in effect, the Department of Homeland Security which includes the Secret Service, which includes immigration, which includes all sorts of domestic security agencies, he wants some sort of compromise.

He wants to work out a deal that the funding will be there. And you know what? Maybe deal with some of these immigration issues elsewhere, because right now, especially in the aftermath of these terror attacks in Paris, it's not time to shut down the Department of Homeland Security.

TURNER: Absolutely. BLITZER: So here is the question to you, Congressman. Do you agree with the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee that a deal has to be worked out, some sort of compromise on this issue?

TURNER: Well, I don't think you'll find one person in Congress in the House or the Senate that wants to shut down Homeland Security. You will find one person in the White House who has an ability to determine that outcome. And for negotiations, that means he has to come to the table. There is widespread opposition, both the American public and in congress, against his executive action with regard to the illegal status of immigrants tat he wants to change.

There is also wide support for addressing the issue of Islamic terrorism --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let me interrupt Congressman -- let me just interrupt for one moment, and I apologize for that because we have a limited amount of time. What you're saying is it's more important to you to stop the President's executive actions on immigration than it is to fund the Department of Homeland Security?

TURNER: Wolf, of course, as you know, I didn't say that. What I said is that the President has to come to the table. The only person talking at all about shutting down Homeland Security and how that might affect the President's executive action is the president. He has to come to the table.

BLITZER: But you've linked. He hasn't linked those two. You have linked it.

TURNER: Wolf, the only way it happens is if he vetoes the bill. That's his move. That's not --

BLITZER: Yesterday Jeh Johnson said to me the President will not accept any changes to his executive orders. He said that clearly, Jeh Johnson, yesterday.

TURNER: That is the President linking it, not Congress. Congress has the ability to fund actions and to defund actions. If the President of the United States takes that action, it would certainly be incredibly a threat to our national security, especially with what we see that's going on in Paris and the Islamic extremism, the fact that the 9/11 commission says we need a global strategy.

The President needs to focus on that. Come to the table and negotiate with Congress.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: So just to be precise, Congressman, if there's no change in the President's executive action, you will vote against funding the Department of Homeland Security?

TURNER: No Wolf, I did not say that either. I said that the President is the one that is linking it. If he's giving a bill that he's willing to veto, he's the one that's linking it. Congress is doing its work. The President needs to come to the table and negotiate. And certainly those negotiations may mean he has to face that Congress does not support his executive actions just as the American public do not support his executive actions. What we have support for though is fighting this global threat of terrorism.

BLITZER: All right. It's eyeball to eyeball right now. We're going to see who blinks, the Republicans in the House and Senator or the President of the United States. But obviously funding the Department of Homeland Security and all that means for the American people's protection and security is critical right now. And obviously there's going to be a big, big fight over this issue over the next few weeks.

Congressman Mike Turner thanks very much for joining us.

TURNER: Thank you.

BLITZER: All right. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Wednesday's attacks in Paris won't stop the employees of "Charlie Hebdo" from getting back to work. The magazine plans to release a new issue next Wednesday. But from cartoonists to comedians, that attack has affected many whose job it is to make us laugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON STEWART, TALK SHOW HOST: Our hearts are with the staff of "Charlie Hebdo" and their families tonight. I know very few people go into comedy as an act of courage mainly because it shouldn't have to be that.

CONAN O'BRIEN, TALK SHOW HOST: In this country we just take it for granted that it's our right to poke fun at the untouchable or the sacred. Today's tragedy in Paris reminds us very viscerally that it's a right some people are inexplicably forced to die for. It's not the way it's supposed to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Many cartoonists used paper and pen to show their solidarity to the dozen people that were killed yesterday.

Joining us now is our senior media correspondent Brian Stelter, the host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES". Brian, it's causing a huge, huge impact around the world, what happened yesterday. Walk us through a little bit of what you're seeing?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: You're right, Wolf. And rarely have we ever seen anything like it. But rarely have we ever seen the slaughter of so many journalists at one time. This was one of the deadliest days for Western journalists in modern times yesterday. And cartooning is absolutely a form of journalism in so many ways.

Some of the images you were just showing have been trending on Twitter -- the image of one pencil broken in two becoming two pencils there.

And you can also one we should put on screen from David Pope in Australia. What he shows is a picture here. He says "He drew first." I'll hold up the back page of "USA Today" -- it has this, you know, montage of all these different cartoons. And we're going to continue to see that I think in the days to come.

As you said, the magazine will resume publication next week, a remarkable announcement today, one of the columnists saying "Stupidity will not win."

BLITZER: It's amazing and I assume millions and millions of people will want to see that magazine when it's released next Wednesday. I assume it will go viral online, right?

STELTER: I would sure expect it would. You know, the Web site for the magazine briefly crashed yesterday, probably under the weight of too much traffic. It's back online with a very simple message of solidarity. Obviously they will not be able to produce it from their offices. This is going to be something that's going to be a Herculean effort by the surviving staff members.

The editor in chief was in London yesterday, he was not among the victims. There are other columnists and former employees who are going to work together. There was an initial actual meeting held today -- an initial planning meeting to get this magazine back up and running.

BLITZER: News organizations around the world watched what happened yesterday. And they're obviously deeply concerned, right?

STELTER: You're right. And there are issues about security, not for this magazine but others. We saw some Paris-based media outlets take security steps yesterday. There are varying decisions being made about what to publish from the magazine. You know, the magazine over the years published very provocative, very controversial cartoons, in some cases depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

That's a taboo and it's offensive to many Muslims. We've seen some Web sites today showing those cartoons but CNN is not. And most other major news outlets are choosing not to.

BLITZER: All right -- Brian thanks very much. Brian Stelter helping us appreciate what's going on.

That's it for me. Thanks very much for joining us.

I'm be back at 1:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

"@THIS HOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA" starts right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)