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Jihad John Identified; Interview with Rep. Ted Poe; NYC Police Arrest Terror Suspects; House Returns to Session for Budget Debate; TSA Officers Caught in Budget Battle

Aired February 26, 2015 - 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 in the NEWSROOM, he's the masked man accused of beheading American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. Now he has a name. Jihadi John identified. Turns out he's no stranger to British authorities.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BRATTON, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: The initial actions were effectively to go to Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Three men arrested here at home for plotting to join ISIS. How the FBI took them down.

And one day left and still no deal on Homeland Security funding. Can Republicans stop the feuding?

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We're following breaking news on ISIS at home and overseas as the FBI stops would-be terrorists from joining the group. And according to Reuters friends help identify Jihadi John, the ISIS terrorist accused of murdering American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

We're covering the story from both sides of the Atlantic. We begin with CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson at New Scotland Yard.

Take it away, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol, Reuters citing "The Washington Post" have named Jihadi John as Mohammed Emwazi, a man from a middle class background in the west of London, college educated.

The organization Cage from whom "The Washington Post" say they got confirmation of his name, Cage has also made some details about Emwazi available in a press release. They say that this was a young man who when he graduated from college in 2009 went on a trip, supposed to be a Safari to Tanzania, arrested at the airport there, returned via Amsterdam to the U.K., questioned by British intelligence agents.

They say that he -- that these intelligence agents roughed him up, tried to recruit him to join British Intelligence Services and the Cage organization essentially -- and saying that this is sort of what put him on a path to end up in Syria.

But what we have heard from the police here, they are refusing to comment on the naming of Jihadi John. They say that they have an active terror investigation, that lives are in danger and that they refuse to comment on it. We've also heard that from the British Foreign Office. They are not going to -- they are not also going to be speculating on the ongoing reports they say about Jihadi John.

The sense you get from British authorities here is that their investigation into Jihadi John is still something that is very active and they still believe that there are potentially lives that can be saved through following this line of investigation -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So some of the things we know about Jihadi John, he's been in Syria since 2012, he was raised in a middle class family. He was actually born in Kuwait, grew up in West London, right? Has a degree in computer programming.

Are any of his family members still in London, Nic?

ROBERTSON: It's really not clear at the moment. They -- according to the reports, Reuters citing "The Washington Post," that they don't want to comment for legal reasons. Certainly the Cage organization has said that his family had been involved in the past by trying to help him in his dealings with British authorities.

At one point his father suggesting that he changed his name because he was trying to pursue a computing career in Kuwait. They say that he was blocked from doing that by the British Intelligence Services.

The organization Cage here is an organization that is, if you will, stuck up for a lot of the young men being accused of going to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria. On an spectrum of organizations that do that, they are towards the end of the -- of the spectrum that supports a lot of these young men and their explanations as to why, for example, young men go to Iraq and Syria, according to Cage. His family thought when British police informed them that he'd gone to Syria, his family actually thought that he was helping deliver aid to refugees in Turkey -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Nic Robertson reporting live from London this morning.

So does naming Jihadi John impact how authorities go after him?

I want to bring in CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto to tackle that part of the story this morning.

Good morning, Jim. Does it hurt? JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning,

Carol. Well, it can certainly because if he's a U.K. citizen, then he has rights. And that's an issue that the U.S. faced, for instance, with the American Anwar al-Awlaki, the preacher -- the senior preacher and spiritual leader of AQAP. He was eventually killed in a U.S. drone strike along with one of his sons, which presented a number of legal questions.

Decided in that case that thye could, and you know, there's a whole legal operation in the administration where they determine kill orders in effect which has included American citizens. So now you have the U.K., assuming this is confirmed, facing a similar issue, the U.K. part of that coalition. If he is, indeed, a British citizen, he has rights.

How does that affect how you go after him? I mean, in general it's been decided that, you know, this is still a war situation. They are enemy combatants and, therefore, you don't have to run through a legal process. But, you know, if he's taken out by a strike, that's just a fact of life in the combat zone on the ground with U.S. forces and allied forces now in action.

But it does at least raise questions and this is something that -- assuming the British government confirms that his identity here as a U.K. citizen, it's going to have to answer those questions and develop a process and say how they comply with British law.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

Also under the microscope today, the reach of ISIS into American neighborhoods like yours and mine. Prosecutors in New York say these three men plotted to help ISIS. One planned to fund their trips to join ISIS on the battlefield. And if that failed, investigators say they wanted to wage war here at home.

CNN's Will Ripley is in the Brooklyn neighborhood where two of the suspects live to tell us more.

Good morning, Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Here in Coney Island, this is about a cross section of America as close as you can get. You can turn around the corner, feel like you're in a different country, so many different cultures represented here. And it was here that these two young men, 19 years old who lived in the apartment behind me and 24 years old who worked at a euro shop down the street, they completely blended in.

Their neighbors, their friends apparently had no idea that they were talking to ISIS and trying to join the terror group.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRATTON: The initial actions were effectively to go to Syria.

RIPLEY (voice-over): This morning two men intent on waging war with ISIS, according to the FBI, are in custody in New York. A third accomplice arrested in Florida.

At least one of the alleged aspiring terrorists lived in this Brooklyn, New York, apartment complex. The building's superintendent says he didn't seem suspicious.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) Every time quiet.

RIPLEY: But federal prosecutors say 24-year-old Abdurasul Hasanovich and his 19-year-old friend planned to fly from New York to Turkey and then cross into Syria to join ISIS. The teen's attorney says the FBI is rushing to prosecute.

ADAM PERLMUTTER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: This is all information that is delivered to the FBI have a confidential informant that the government says in their own complaint they can't rely on the credibility of.

RIPLEY: The third Brooklyn man, a 30-year-old business owner from Uzbekistan allegedly funded some of the efforts. According to the FBI the men had a chilling secondary plan if they were unable to reach Syria.

BRATTON: If they were not able to go, that they would seek to acquire weapons here, handguns, machine gun, and seek to attack very specifically police officers.

RIPLEY: According to court documents, Hasanovich tried to make contact with the terror group in an online chat room last summer, saying "To shoot Obama and then get shot ourselves, will it do? That will strike fear in the hearts of infidels."

That alarming post brought FBI agents to his front doors. Hasanovich allegedly admitted he would harm President Barack Obama but did not have the means to do so and said, if ISIS ordered him to, he would also plant a bomb on Coney Island in New York City.

ISIS' online propaganda, a growing threat to the U.S. The State Department says they're combating around 90,000 tweets a day. This as the FBI says there are investigations into homegrown violent extremists in all 50 states.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIPLEY: This morning here in Brooklyn, Carol, yet another example of ISIS using social media to reach out and recruit these young men. One who worked at a mall kiosk, the other texting his boss saying that he wasn't going to be at work this weekend, not mentioning that he wasn't going to be there because he planned on getting onto a plane, flying to Syria and joining ISIS.

COSTELLO: All right. Will Ripley reporting live from Brooklyn this morning, thank you.

Well, online postings from two of those suspects may have provided critical clues for authorities. Republican Congressman Ted Poe says social media sites need to do more to crack down on terrorists.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TED POE (R), TEXAS: But free speech has its limitations, just as there are no constitutional protections for child pornography. Terrorists should not have access to an American controlled social media platform so they can kill, rape, and pillage and burn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Congressman Poe joins me now live from Capitol Hill. He's a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism.

Welcome, sir.

POE: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Congressman, I know you're passionate about this issue. Recently you wrote an op-ed for CNN.com called "It's Time to Silence Terrorists on Social Media." It sounds great. But Facebook and Twitter might say that's not so easy.

Do you agree?

POE: Well, I'm not saying that it's easy or it's not easy. It's just an obligation that Twitter has. We're dealing with a specific group of terrorists. Designated foreign terrorist organizations like ISIS. They have no constitutional protections. They are at war with the United States. Federal law says that no one can give them any type of aid or services or benefits. So that includes organizations like Twitter, they should be more proactive in taking down these social media sites which not only recruit, but raise money for their illegal actions and also spread their propaganda. YouTube and Facebook are doing a fairly good job. But Twitter is really where the problem is.

COSTELLO: OK. So you're focusing mainly on Twitter. Because I was going to say sometimes it's not so easy to determine that it's an ISIS organization because sometimes these postings are very subtle.

POE: That's true. But sometimes they're very obvious as well. And those obvious ones, it's -- Twitter really has the obligation to bring those down. Recruitments are up worldwide. Young kids in their basements are looking at these public sites online. They are getting radicalized or moving from whatever country they're in, going to Syria to be radicalized more. Some of them want to go back home and commit crimes. They're doing all of that recruitment through social media. And --

COSTELLO: So what kind of language --

POE: So be proactive.

COSTELLO: What kind of language are you talking about? Is it a tweet that says something like, I think I like ISIS? Would you take that down? Does that go far enough?

POE: Well, Twitter has the ability to determine which are actually bona fide tweets and which are not bona fide tweets. And as you have mentioned, there are thousands of these tweets every day. And so we need to start with the basic ones which are recruiting in a very obvious public tweets preaching their propaganda of hate, preaching their propaganda of recruitment and trying to raise money.

So we can make that determination. It's not really that difficult, but doing nothing is really not the solution.

COSTELLO: Well, I would -- I would posture that Twitter would say it's not doing nothing, but it is trying. But, you know, there's a lot of people who tweet out there. And it's a difficult job to keep track of everything. But you're saying that you don't think Twitter is doing a yeoman's job of that.

POE: That's correct. And I'm not saying Twitter is not doing anything. It's just that they're not as proactive at pulling down these obvious foreign terrorist organizations, those sites that do those three things. And I think they should be more proactive in doing that. And in fact federal law says that we're not supposed to -- we should not be helping any foreign terrorist organization.

We wouldn't allow, say, in World War II the Nazis to take out ads in the "Wall Street Journal" recruiting people to go overseas and fight against the United States. We wouldn't allow that, that obvious type of advertisement. And we should not allow that type of obvious advertising with ISIS, AQAM, and of course al Qaeda as well.

COSTELLO: And I just wanted to ask you briefly about YouTube and putting these videos of beheadings and worse online. You think that should be absolutely banned, correct?

POE: Well, I think -- I think that they should be proactive about that, yes.

COSTELLO: Right. Right.

POE: And the propaganda that's being spread by these organizations certainly. And for the most part, I think YouTube is doing a better job than Twitter, for example.

COSTELLO: Right. But I just wondered if you would extend -- if you extend your concerns to the media in general in showing these videos at all on air or on their Web sites?

POE: Well, these private companies have an obligation to follow the federal law. So if we're dealing with a foreign terrorist organization, they should not be aiding them in any way. So they should just follow the law. And of course that's a call they have to make. But allowing the recruitment, allowing the propaganda, and allowing especially the fundraising to occur on these public sites is something that I would hope --

COSTELLO: Right.

POE: -- that our American companies would do a better job of preventing. COSTELLO: I was just -- I was just thinking specifically of FOX News'

decision to put the Jordanian pilot on their Web site, you know, the terrible video of him being burned alive. Do you think that should have happened?

POE: I don't know if that should have happened or not. You know, we could make the argument, yes, that's aiding ISIS maybe, maybe not. I don't know on that specific one. I didn't see it so I can't answer that question.

COSTELLO: But you would object to that being put on Twitter or on Facebook, right?

POE: In the -- I would object to any type of Twitter or any type of tweet that would promote the -- a foreign terrorist organization, no matter who it is or what agency would do that whether it's clear or --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Right. Including links to those videos, right? Including links to those videos.

POE: Yes, ma'am.

COSTELLO: Congressman Ted Poe, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

POE: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the -- you're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Republicans battling it out over the Homeland Security budget, while the men and women who protect our country are left stuck in the middle.

We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: The House is back in session this hour trying to avoid a Homeland Security shutdown and at the same time trying to knock down President Obama's executive action on immigration which is overseen by DHS.

Our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash live in Washington to bring us up to date on the latest developments.

Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, we expect the Senate to act formally today to pass that clean bill fully funded through the end of the fiscal year. But, of course, as we've been talking about, the big question is what is the House going to do?

Our Deirdre Walsh is on Capitol Hill outside a meeting of House Republican leaders where they're discussing options. And those options we're told include, one, doing what the Senate is doing, funding the department, but also having a vote on blocking the president's immigration plan which is really at the core of what conservatives are complaining about. That's why this has all been held up in the first place because they wanted to link the two.

And the second option is to -- because the clock is ticking, pass a short-term spending bill just to keep the department running for a couple of weeks. And the third I think is what is perhaps most fascinating. Somehow link the funding bill to the court case that happened in Texas, effectively putting an injunction on the president's executive order.

And that's something that I thought was very interesting, that the Senate -- one of the members of the Senate leadership, John Barrasso, said to you in the last hour. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R), WYOMING: The courts have acted. Accept the victory that the courts have given us, which is that the president doesn't have the authority to do what he has done and vote to continue to fund the Department of Homeland Security. I think that is the right decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So the reason why I thought that was so telling, Carol, that that was his answer to you, was because that clearly is the message that you are hearing from the leadership, certainly obviously in the Senate but maybe even in the House to the conservatives who are saying we've got to do everything we can here in Congress to push back on the president's policies.

The message being, wait a second, we had a court -- a very important court decision in Texas doing it for us. So why don't we do what we need to do, give the money to the Department of Homeland Security and make sure that Americans are safe and let the court work its will.

So we'll see how they try to thread that needle in the hours to come.

COSTELLO: Do you think that the House speaker is telling his members that behind closed doors?

BASH: Not yet. There's probably going to be a meeting later today. But it is entirely possible that he will do that. The way that the speaker has sort of learned to lead the caucus which is not so easy when you have so many conservatives who have been pressuring him for years really to hold the line against the president's policies is to be careful to listen and to kind of -- as one aide has said to me time and time again, sort of let the caucus go through their stages of grief about the reality of their situation, their political situation.

So unclear how quickly he's going to get there, but, you know, again, we're talking about tomorrow night when the time is going to come for the money to run out.

COSTELLO: For the funding to run out. Right?

BASH: For the Homeland Security Department.

COSTELLO: Dana Bash, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

BASH: Thank you.

COSTELLO: While -- you're welcome.

While it's easy to get lost in the partisan battles on Capitol Hill, it's important not to forget that American citizens are caught in the middle. The men and women who protect our ports and our borders may be left without a paycheck.

Victor Martinez is a TSA agent at the Los Angeles International Airport. Welcome.

VICTOR MARTINEZ, TSA OFFICER, LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Thank you so much for being with me. So as you sit back and watch the situation unfold in Congress, what goes through your mind?

MARTINEZ: Really I'm just a little frustrated that we're having to go through this a second time. A year and a half ago we just had to go through a government-wide shutdown. So that's in the back of my mind, you know, wondering if this will happen and how long will it go on for.

COSTELLO: So you're required to show up to work even though you won't get your paycheck, right? Some Americans say, well, you know, so you might not get paid for a month, what's the big deal?

MARTINEZ: I mean, yes, certainly we have to show up to work no matter what. I mean, the mission is important. You know, it's definitely concerning not knowing when you're going to get paid because then you have to start prioritizing what you need to take care of. And certainly that just creates a lot of worries when we're out there, you know, trying to protect the public. And we certainly will be out there protecting the public.

But certainly not concerns you want to have as you're doing your day- to-day job, ensuring the safety of the public. And you certainly don't want to go back home and then, you know, not have any answers for your familiarly as far as when you're going to get paid and, you know, you have birthday parties coming up. And then, you know -- too many unanswered questions. And you don't want to be left in that position.

COSTELLO: Well, most of you and your fellow employees, you pretty much live paycheck to paycheck? Is that fair to say?

MARTINEZ: I think that is a fair statement to say, yes. Definitely most of us do live paycheck to paycheck. You know, certainly we're not the best paid in the federal government, so certainly we do live paycheck to paycheck.

COSTELLO: Some people have pointed to morale among TSA agents, that they're the agency that's going to be punished for this partisan fight in the House. What's the morale like among your co-workers?

MARTINEZ: Certainly in the last few years, surveys have said that DHS and TSA, you know, morale ranks at the bottom, government-wide. And certainly, you know, right now knowing that this, you know, pending possible shutdown, it's -- you know, brought a lot of negativity to the workforce and just impacted our morale much more, knowing that we've gone through this once already and we know that experience. So we certainly are very concerned and yes, really worried.

COSTELLO: All right. Victor Martinez, thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

MARTINEZ: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the annual CPAC is in full swing. Find out who is already firing up conservatives next.

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