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Interview With California Congressman Eric Swalwell; Interview With Indiana Congressman Luke Messer; Funding Homeland Security; Missouri Murders

Aired February 27, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I hope that the one or few times you do get to go somewhere special, you think about it in a little different way, maybe go beyond the resorts, understand the locals, the choices they make, the decisions they make that change paradises like that, for better or worse in some cases.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Right.

WEIR: And -- but, yes, I'm hopeful that, in 2050, you know, we can look back at these little films and see what was there and hopefully what's still there.

CABRERA: Well, we're almost out of time.

But, real quickly, did your exploration give you more hope for some of these places or leave you more concerned?

PHILIP BLOOM, "THE WONDER LIST": I think a real mixture, wasn't it?

WEIR: yes.

BLOOM: Definitely. There were places where we were very sad by what we were seeing, and other places there was definitely some hope. As bill said, it's about change. And who are we to say if the change is good or bad for some of them? It's a real mixture.

WEIR: There was hope in every hour, and more and more.

(CROSSTALK)

WEIR: To find these people who are fighting against mass extinction or to preserve wild tigers in India or the Dead Sea gave us hope that may be a path to the Middle East could be over water. So there's a lot of sort of mind-blowing, unexpected moments.

CABRERA: Yes. Well, Bill Weir and Philip Bloom, thanks for taking us on the journey. We appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: And, of course, "THE WONDER LIST" premieres this Sunday night at 10:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Thanks for staying with me. Developing right now, the House of Representatives is back in session after a short recess. At issue, do they have enough votes to pass the three-week bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security? Yes, a three-week bill. That's where we're at with this.

Athena Jones is keeping track of all of it for us on Capitol Hill.

Athena, bring us up to speed. What's happening right now?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Ana.

Well, right now, the House is now back after their recess. They recessed for a little over an hour because the Republican leadership couldn't get together the votes to pass that three-week funding bill you just mentioned. So now they're back.

They have just passed a motion to conference the House -- extend the House funding bill for DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, that includes measures that would block the president's executive actions on immigration. They passed a motion that would try to conference that bill with the Senate's bill funding the Department of Homeland Security that doesn't block the president's actions on immigration.

So that was one step that they needed to take, according to the plan agreed to with the GOP Conference last night. And now they have moved on to debating this three-week spending bill. That first step, trying to compromise those two bills, was done to try to please House conservatives who didn't want to move forward funding the department.

But the point here is, Ana, it's still not clear there are going to be enough Republican votes to get this three-week funding bill through. So that's what we're going to be watching very, very closely. I'm told that that they are -- there's a full-court press trying to whip this vote on the House floor, make sure they can get enough Republican votes to pass this.

They need Republican votes because Democrats want to see a bill passed that funds DHS for the entire year. So Democrats are not behind this three-week funding effort. So sounds a little complicated, but the bottom line is in about an hour or so, around 4::00, 4:15, 4:30, we should expect to see this vote on the three-week funding bill that would keep the Department of Homeland Security open for just three more weeks -- Ana.

CABRERA: Again, you said, yes, Democrats don't necessarily support the just three-week part of this bill. But yet Republicans do have a large majority. Did Republicans make some compromises to get where we're at in terms of now voting?

JONES: Well, certainly on the Senate side there were compromises made just to get to this point, so we know that in the Senate they will pass a three-week bill once the House sends it to them.

What's really unclear right now is what's going to happen on the House floor. We just don't know if there's going to be enough support from Republican conservatives and a few Republican moderates to get this bill through. CABRERA: All right, well, let's ask one of those Republican

lawmakers.

Athena Jones, thanks so much.

I want to turn to a House Republican who is joining us now, Luke Messer. He's the chairman of the GOP Policy Committee.

Chairman Messer, thanks so much for spending some time with us.

I know it's intense right now there on Capitol Hill. Right now, we know weeks ago, you wanted debate on this bill. You wanted the Senate to change it and then send it back. Now here it is. Why are your colleagues standing in its way?

REP. LUKE MESSER (R), INDIANA: Well, I mean, Ana, from the House perspective, we voted both to fund the Department of Homeland Security and stop the president's unconstitutional overreach.

I literally just stepped off the House floor, but we voted now to send the bill to conference. We believe that's the best way to try to resolve our differences. I'm hopeful here in just a few minutes or at least within the next hour or so, we will be able to pass a three-week extension that gives us the ability to have that debate.

The House passed our legislation six weeks ago. It took the Senate over five weeks to get it off the floor. I think it's reasonable to give us a little more time to try to work through our differences.

CABRERA: Why not pass a clean bill, like the Senate just did, though? Isn't the Department of Homeland Security important enough to say we all agree funding needs to be there for this crucial part of our government?

MESSER: Well, I absolutely believe we need to fund the Department of Homeland Security. That's why I voted for legislation that will do both, both fund the Department of Homeland Security and try to stop the president's executive overreach.

As you know, a federal court judge has said that the president is operating outside the bounds of the law. And it doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all that we would not fund activities that seem to be in legal question here.

What I hope we're able to do -- we just voted to go to conference -- within the next hour, I'm hopeful we will be able to have that three- week extension that will keep the Department of Homeland Security open. I think the Senate Democrats are going to be in a very difficult position if they think that somehow they can play games here and stop any further debate.

If they're the ones that shut the government down because they don't support that extension, I think they will have a very difficult time doing that.

CABRERA: Pull back the curtain for us. During that recess, what was the discussion? What were the big concerns?

MESSER: You have to ask your question again. I'm sorry. I didn't understand.

CABRERA: In terms of that recess, the conference that some of the Republican leaders just called, what were the concerns? Can you tell us a little bit about the discussion happening? Give us some insight into your mind.

MESSER: Yes.

The belief on our side is that we have a couple different responsibilities here. One is we want to make sure the Department of Homeland Security stays open and secondly we have a responsibility to defend the Constitution. As you know, the president had said 22 different times that the actions he's taking now, that he didn't have authority to do that. A federal district court judge said that as well.

And so we believe that we have a responsibility to defend the Constitution against this overreach. The activities that the president has tried to put forward as executive order happened in the Department of Homeland Security. That's why these two issues have been tied together.

I think we have an opportunity now to have a three-week extension of the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that funding continues and we don't have a shutdown and at the same time continue debate on the executive orders of the president. During that time, the district court -- I mean, the appellate court may rule and we may have a better understanding of where this lies in the courts as well.

CABRERA: I know there's been question about whether this three-week, this short-term funding bill is going to pass the House. How confident are you that this is going to happen before midnight?

MESSER: Well, I certainly believe it needs to happen. I think a vote against this three-week extension would frankly be a vote against continuing debate.

It puts the speaker in, I think, an impossible position. So, I think now we're in the best spot that we can be, which is that we have now voted to go to conference and to have the continuance. It's my hope that that's what we will see. We're working and whipping the votes. I can't give you a guess now as to where it will be, but I certainly hope that it will pass.

CABRERA: All right, Chairman Luke Messer, we appreciate it. Thank you. Good luck.

MESSER: Thank you very much.

CABRERA: We have some breaking news right now out of Missouri. Police there are investigating a horrific crime, at least nine bodies found in several different locations, most of them in a small community called Tyrone. Let's listen in to this news conference, an update on this news

conference.

QUESTION: First name of the sheriff?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: James, J-A-M-E-S.

And he's the sheriff of Texas County.

CABRERA: Again, we're expecting the sheriff here to address this horrific crime.

We know overnight officials discovered four separate crime scenes, nine people who are dead, a 36-year-old man believed to be the shooter also among those killed. We're still working though to find out details on how all the victims fit together and what the motive may be. And we're hoping that the sheriff, law enforcement here in this small rural part of Missouri will be able to give us a little bit more information as to the circumstances surrounding this mass killing.

And as we look at the pictures, it looks like they're still trying to get set for their press conference. This is a look at the crime scene. Again, this is in Tyrone, Missouri, a rural community, so a small town.

We don't have all of the identities of the victims. I can tell you they believe one of the nine people who they found dead may have died from natural causes. It was an elderly person. We don't know exactly the ages of the other victims. All we know, though, is that they died from shooting and that the suspect again is believed to have taken his own life, a 36-year-old man.

This is one of the properties where they found at least some of those victims. We're again standing by for that press conference. As soon as it gets going, we will be listening in. It looks like the sheriff's just about to go. But we will come back to this once we get going.

Here we go, it looks like.

SGT. JEFF KINDER, MISSOURI HIGHWAY PATROL: Thank you all for coming. Good afternoon.

We just want to give you some updated information from our press release that we had this morning at 9:00 a.m. As part of the ongoing investigation into the multiple homicides in Texas County, the names of some of the shooting victims are being made available for release at this time.

There are Garold Dee Aldridge, age 52, Julie Ann Aldridge, age 47. They are husband and wife. Harold Wayne Aldridge, age 50, Janell Arlisa Aldridge, age 48. They were also husband and wife.

Three victims' names are not being released pending notification of their next of kin. The elderly woman is identified as Alice L. Aldridge, 74. Although her cause of death appears to be of natural causes, the postmortem examination will be performed tomorrow, February 28, 2015.

The shooter is identified as Joseph Jesse Aldridge, age 36, of Tyrone, Missouri. And he is the son of Alice Aldridge. He's believed to be cousins of the previously named victims.

The motive for the killing has yet to be determined. All of the victims' residences are located within a three-square-mile radius of Tyrone. All officers have cleared from the crime scenes, from the six crime scenes, and the investigation continues by the Missouri State Highway patrol and the Texas County Sheriff's Department.

We will take your questions at this time.

And, like I said, this is Texas County Sheriff James Sigman.

QUESTION: The other three victims that you're not naming right now, were they all in the same -- not the Aldridge family, but all the same family?

KINDER: No.

QUESTION: They're not?

KINDER: No.

QUESTION: Is one of them belonging to a couple that's in the hospital and not home (OFF-MIKE)

KINDER: No. No, they weren't.

QUESTION: Sheriff, can you, to the best of your ability, lay out in chronological order what exactly happened last night?

JAMES SIGMAN, TEXAS COUNTY, MISSOURI, SHERIFF: My office received a call about 10:15 p.m. last night from a juvenile female of shots being fired out in the Tyrone area.

My deputies responded, upon arrival at the address, found two deceased victims. A short time later, I was notified again by phone that we had another shooting a few miles away, one deceased and one injured victim there. When we began working these scenes, we discovered a couple other scenes with deceased victims.

QUESTION: That injured person, have you had a chance to talk to them?

SIGMAN: Briefly last night.

QUESTION: And what information did you get from them?

SIGMAN: Not anything I'm willing to release right now.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) the victims, which homes?

SIGMAN: I will tell you the Tyrone area. QUESTION: How were you able to find the other crime scenes? Did

somebody lead you to them?

SIGMAN: We started checking family.

QUESTION: Sheriff, the Associated Press is reporting that the shooter came home, found his mother dead on the couch and then went on this rampage. Can you confirm?

SIGMAN: No, I can't.

QUESTION: Sheriff, does Joseph Aldridge have a past criminal history? Do you all know him pretty well?

SIGMAN: I didn't know him personally.

QUESTION: But, I mean, do law enforcement have -- any of you guys have any involvement with him before?

SIGMAN: I know he had the minor criminal history.

QUESTION: Anything major?

SIGMAN: Not that I recall.

QUESTION: Do you know if he lived with his mother at the time or...

SIGMAN: To the best of our knowledge, he'd been with her quite some time.

QUESTION: How many weapons (OFF-MIKE)

SIGMAN: Just one.

QUESTION: What kind?

SIGMAN: A handgun.

QUESTION: Have you been able to determine what order this happened in yet?

SIGMAN: No, sir.

QUESTION: Were any additional ammunition found with the shooter when you found his body and the handgun?

SIGMAN: I didn't respond to that scene. But it's my understanding there was.

QUESTION: How far away is that from Tyrone?

SIGMAN: Fifteen to 20 miles probably.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

SIGMAN: As far as I know, she's expected to be OK. QUESTION: Do you know where she was shot?

SIGMAN: No.

QUESTION: Are any of the other victims children?

SIGMAN: No.

QUESTION: Is she the one related to the suspect?

SIGMAN: We obtained part of our information from her.

QUESTION: The victims that are not identified, are they in the same family as the victims that you did identify? They aren't, they are?

SIGMAN: They are not.

QUESTION: But are they in a family themselves?

SIGMAN: You know, I really don't want to get into that. I released the names of the victims that I can right now. We will get the names of the victims later.

QUESTION: You have witnesses to any of these, other than the girl that rang the help and the woman that's in the hospital?

SIGMAN: Could you repeat that question, please?

QUESTION: Do you have any other witnesses?

SIGMAN: No.

QUESTION: Do you know anything about the relationship between the shooter and the people you cannot name right now?

SIGMAN: It is a small community out there. Everybody knows everybody. But, as far as what their personal relationship is, I couldn't tell you.

QUESTION: How large is the community?

SIGMAN: There's probably 50 people in the immediate area.

QUESTION: In such a small community, what is the degree of this crime compared to (OFF-MIKE) in the past?

SIGMAN: Well, a crime like this in any community is pretty major. So, it's not something we're used to seeing.

QUESTION: Did the shooter, suicide victim leave a note or an explanation?

SIGMAN: No.

QUESTION: Have you been able to find anything that would lead you to a motive at this point? SIGMAN: We're still working that.

QUESTION: How was the shooter found?

SIGMAN: We had several units patrolling a wide area, and he was actually found in the middle of a highway in his vehicle.

QUESTION: In the middle of the highway?

SIGMAN: Yes.

QUESTION: Which highway was this?

SIGMAN: W.W.

QUESTION: Still inside the vehicle?

SIGMAN: Correct.

QUESTION: What kind of vehicle was it?

SIGMAN: It was a GMC pickup.

QUESTION: We had information that you found...

CABRERA: That was Sheriff James Sigman. We have been listening in. This is in Texas County, Missouri, a small rural community in southern Missouri, where we're learning more information about the deaths of nine people overnight, including the man believed to have been the shooter in this case.

They have now identified him as 36-year-old Joseph Aldridge, the son of one of the victims. They have also identified five of the other people found dead, and not all the victims, we're told, are from the same family, but it is a small community, as he mentioned, and so everybody knows everybody. People are all connected.

We do know that the ages of at least five of the victims range from age 40 up to 74, with the eldest perhaps dying of natural causes, but they will be doing an autopsy, three other victims not named, pending next of kin. The big mystery still is why. They do not know the motive of the shooter at this time. That's what is the key in their ongoing investigation.

All right, up next, as Congress debates a bill on Homeland Security and the clock ticks down to midnight, it's a little over eight hours from now. You heard the GOP position earlier. After the break, you will hear from a Democrat who will vote on this bill.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: All eyes on the House of Representatives right now on Capitol Hill. Right now, the nation is waiting to see what's going to happen as the funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out at the end of the day today if these lawmakers cannot pass an extension on the funding or vote to fund it through the rest of the fiscal year.

Right now, I can tell you that the House has called a bit of a recess. They have voted to have the discussion in a conference to try to come up with some kind of a compromise that will past the House.

And I want to bring in Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, who is on the Homeland Security Committee.

Thank you, Congressman, for joining us.

We just spoke to one of your colleagues, a Republican congressman, Luke Messer, who said that they have sent this bill to conference. Take us behind closed doors. What is going to come of these negotiations? Will it get passed?

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, Ana, the American people are hoping that the negotiations produce a Homeland Security Department that is funded for longer than this evening and certainly longer than the next three weeks.

You know, our enemies, they have plans to attack Americans beyond the next three weeks. And so to protect Americans, what we can do is fund the Homeland Security Department for the rest of the year and take the uncertainty out of our own personal security.

CABRERA: So, will you vote to pass this three-week extension?

SWALWELL: Ana, I will not. Again, our enemies, they have designs and plans to attack us beyond the next three weeks. And so if we're going to keep Americans safe, we cannot have the people who are charged with protecting us on the front lines know that they only have three more weeks of a guaranteed paycheck.

We need their morale to be as high as it's ever been because the threats are as diverse as they have ever been right now. And so I believe that we should approach this in a bipartisan way. Ana, I was an intern on Capitol Hill when September 11 happened. I remember what I wore that day, I remember members of Congress singing the Capitol steps that day and, most importantly, I remember that every decision around homeland security since that day has been done in a bipartisan way. And we should not defy that now.

CABRERA: I understand what you're saying, but isn't three weeks better than the funding running out tonight?

SWALWELL: Ana, I think three weeks continues to play into this standoff that the Republicans want to have. And so it's also no way to govern. The American people expect us to plan for their security beyond three weeks.

CABRERA: Would Democrats share the blame, however, if funding runs out tonight because there isn't a compromise?

SWALWELL: No, I believe that the American people, if they were asked, they would say they want to go to bed tonight knowing that the Department of Homeland Security is going to be funded for at least the rest of the year and that we're not going to be in this same position three weeks from now, with our own personal security being taken hostage by House Republicans.

CABRERA: On the other hand, we do know that essential personnel will continue to keep working. Therefore, our national security, some may argue, isn't really at risk. Explain how this would affect our national security.

SWALWELL: Sure, Ana.

And what's going to happen is approximately 100,000 people who are charged with detecting whether an explosive gets on an airplane or whether somebody's crossing the border, they are going to be asked to continue to do that job as the threats continue to escalate, but what they're not going to receive is a paycheck.

And with costs all around us continuing to rise, you can imagine how devastating that will be to their morale. And I want the person who is checking for a bomb on an airplane to not be worrying about whether they can provide for their families at home.

CABRERA: I think most people would agree with you on that. But yet it still seems like there's a blame game between Democrats and Republicans pointing fingers at each other on this issue. Congressman, where are Democrats willing to compromise?

SWALWELL: Well, Democrats are willing to separate the issue of immigration and Homeland Security funding.

I think immigration deserves a spirited debate on the House floor, but I do not believe the American people want to take the immigration debate and mix it up with our own personal security. And so if we separate those two, I think Democrats are happy to do that. But we're charged principally that the first sentence of the Constitution to provide for the common defense of the American people.

CABRERA: Congressman Eric Swalwell, thanks for your time. We appreciate your time.

SWALWELL: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: In a CNN exclusive, Jordan's King Abdullah II is speaking to the world now for the very first time since ISIS terrorists released that grim video showing the murder of a Jordanian military pilot.

The 27-year-old Muslim pilot was put in a cage, doused with fuel and burned alive. The gruesome video triggering a worldwide reaction, outrage. Jordan's king responded by ordering the execution of a female wannabe bomber whose release ISIS previously demanded as part of a proposed prisoner swap.

Also, you will recall he ramped up Jordan's role in airstrikes on ISIS strongholds and really we saw the Arab nations come together. But Jordan's king fell silent in the weeks after the pilot's horrific murder, until now. King Abdullah II sat down with our Fareed Zakaria for an exclusive interview. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: What do you think they were trying to do with the video?

KING ABDULLAH II, JORDAN: They're always trying to intimidate, scare, put fear into people's hearts. And, you know, this is a group that works by intimidations.

They're trying to invent, falsely, a linkage to a caliphate, a caliphate linked to our history in Islam which has no truth or bearing to our history, to bring in deluded young men and women that think that this is sort of an Islamic nation. And it has nothing to do with our history.

And actually the barbarity of the way they executed our brave hero, I think, shocked the Muslim world, and specifically Jordanians and people from this region, that it had nothing to do with Islam. And it's this intimidation that I think they use as their major weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Joining me now, Fareed Zakaria, the host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

Fareed, thanks for being here.

What a fascinating interview, what a great opportunity to hear from one of the leaders of that part of the world in this battle against ISIS. What did he have to say about how that battle should unfold? Should the U.S. be doing more? Does he believe that Arab countries have greater responsibility?

ZAKARIA: Well, he said time and time again, this is our fight. But he wants help, of course.

He wants the international community, not just the United States, to unify in support of Arab countries, Muslim countries that are fighting this, particularly, of course, America, because America has military assets that nobody else does. He's a military man, the king of Jordan, and so he knows very well the battlefield and he understands how -- we went through talking about how to do it in Iraq, how to do it in Syria, but he kept returning to the point this is an Arab fight. This is a fight within the world of Islam.