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Six Men Now Accused in Killing of Boris Nemtsov; Malaysia Releases New Flight 370 Report; Turmoil Inside NBC News; Who was the Real John the Baptist?; Militants Murder Men Accused of Being Gay

Aired March 08, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow, joining you live from New York, 6:00 Eastern.

And we begin in Russia with the murder mystery that just keeps getting more bizarre, accusations that go all of the way back to the Kremlin and now, more people are dead.

Russian police trying to arrest a suspect in the killing of this man, a loud critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his name Boris Nemtsov. Well, one of the suspects in the killing blew himself up, according to Russian state television, rather than be arrested. This happened in the capital city of Chechnya. The five other suspects in Nemtsov's murder are Chechen, as well.

The man who killed himself was one of a growing list of people now accused in that shooting which happened February 27th in Moscow.

Let's talk about it with Michael Weiss, a fellow with the Institute of modern Russia. Also joining me in New York, Buck Sexton former CIA counterterrorism official, and Chris Dickey, the foreign editor of "The Daily Beast".

Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here.

Let me begin with you, Michael. All of this coming to us from Russian state television and as we discussed last week, a lot of people were skeptical as to whether anyone would be arrested and now we have six suspects.

MICHAEL WEISS, FELLOW, INSTITUTE OF MODERN RUSSIA: Right. Look, it's important to put all of this in context. Putin's ascension to power came after appearing tough on Islamic extremism. The second Chechen war was going on in 1999. He had that famous comment, we're going to rub them out in the out houses. His consolidation of power also the result of cracking down on Islamic extremism.

So, people in Russia, at least those who have oppositional bent, don't buy this at all. They think that this is just part of the same, you know, sort of scenario. Possibly presaging another state crackdown or getting tougher on security measures, not really aimed at terrorism and aimed at the opposition or what remains of it today. HARLOW: Well, I think it's interesting, Buck, that one of the people

who has been arrested and detained has apparently admitted to this. What do you make of that?

BUCK SEXTON, FORMER CIA COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I would expect something like that has happened, given everything else that's happened. That's not surprising at all. In fact, they're really checking off all the boxes here. One person didn't allow himself to get captured, of course, and another person has already confessed. It's almost like this is playing out according to a very clear script. And in fact, if you look at the --

HARLOW: A play scripted by --

SEXTON: Well, that's what we're trying to find out still. The big absent issue here and the big thing we haven't been told is who gave the order or who could have given the order. I don't think anyone believes that these individuals came up with this plot on their own, and by themselves.

Now, what tends to happen, as in previous investigations like this done by the FSB is you find the triggermen -- and, by the way, they do tend to be Chechen, the Politkovskaya killing, of example, was another time when you had this. But you never find out who actually said let's go engage in a --

HARLOW: Between a hired gun and who's really behind it.

SEXTON: Well, that's exactly right. What we're trying to find the don, the mafia don, the head, the guy who's actually giving the order. All we right now are alleged triggermen. So, that doesn't really get us any closer to what we actually want to know, which is, who did this? Who really ordered this?

HARLOW: Chris Dickey, will we find that out?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, FOREIGN EDITOR, THE DAILY BEASTE: Well, I would like to start with the question of motivation. I mean, why would these guys kill Nemtsov? Why would Chechen Islamists kill Nemtsov?

I can think why Chechens might, especially if they were working for Ramzan Kadyrov, who's the right hand in Chechnya of Vladimir Putin, but I'm not sure I understand why the Islamists would have an interest in taking him out.

HARLOW: Do you think, Michael, that the Kremlin would have to provide that answer, the motive answer very quickly for people to side with them and believe them or no?

WEISS: Let me go out on a limb and I think they have that answer. I think they had it the minute this was perpetrated.

DICKEY: Or even before.

WEISS: Or even before. SEXTON: By process of elimination, the only one that they wouldn't even consider was that somebody who's even pro-Putin did this. That's the only thing that's never going to raise.

WEISS: Look at what they did immediately within minutes, literally minutes of his being assassinated. This is a provocation designed to destabilize the Russian government. Chris says what's the motivation? They already have the answer. Nemtsov wrote and said things in sympathy with the victims of the "Charlie Hebdo" massacre. So, clearly, an Islamic extremist wants to gun him down.

But look at how this is perpetrated. I was talking the other day to Andre (INAUDIBLE), who's a Russian journalist and probably the foremost expert on the Russian security services. He said to me, you would need at least three teams to perpetrate an assassination like this. We're talking -- right in front of the Kremlin, one of the most heavily invigilated areas in Moscow.

HARLOW: I just wonder why there?

SEXTON: It sends a message.

WEISS: It sends a message.

SEXTON: It doesn't send to --

(CROSSTALK)

SEXTON: It sends a message if you're somebody that wants -- to silence opponents of the Kremlin, obviously.

WEISS: They shoot Nemtsov six shots, four of them meet the target in his back, but they spare his Ukrainian girlfriend.

HARLOW: You're saying train killers?

WEISS: Clearly train.

HARLOW: But, Chris Dickey, in terms of sending a message, messages have been sent. Nemtsov is not the first here, and also, his opposition allies and those who have marched with him and marched by the way, in the streets of Moscow less than 48 hours after his assassination are not quieted by this.

DICKEY: We may not be quieted, but I can tell you, they're very damn scared. They feel that their lives are on the line, and some of them are speaking out boldly and saying, OK, I'm going to double down, I'm going to take even more risks, but a lot of people are intimidated. I know people in Russia who are getting calls from their parents saying don't go out anymore, please?

HARLOW: Really?

DICKEY: Yes, absolutely.

HARLOW: People that aren't affiliated with the government or opposition?

DICKEY: People who may be identified, affiliated with the government, I mean, affiliated with the opposition in one way or the other. Journalists certainly are being intimidated, dissidents abroad are intimidated, just after Litvinenko, dissident abroad, was murdered in London.

HARLOW: Right.

SEXTON: Nemtsov is not just an opposition political figure, a former deputy prime minister.

HARLOW: Huge.

SEXTON: He really is a representative of an entirely different direction that Russia could have gone. Yeltsin doesn't go with Putin in door number one. He goes with Nemtsov in door number two, maybe it's a very different country. So, his assassination is not just another politician or another journalist that's being silenced for opposition in Kremlin.

HARLOW: It's the highest and biggest name.

SEXTON: It signals something new. It's a change and it's a sea change.

DICKEY: And Nemtsov's focus recently certainly was not on "Charlie Hebdo," his focus was on Ukraine and on the Russian intervention in there.

SEXTON: And this would be the first time Islamic extremism engage in this kind of a hit this way in front of the Kremlin? I mean, this makes no sense.

HARLOW: No.

(CROSSTALK)

WEISS: The Kremlin wants to throw cold water on the idea that anybody in the Russian government had anything to say to this by saying, well, he was irrelevant, he didn't matter. That's actually false. If you look at the U.S sanctions that had been passed on Russian officials for the invasion of Ukraine, the figures, the number -- the amounts, the dollar amounts of money that they were worth, stolen, or whatever, tracks with the work that Nemtsov was putting out on Russian corruption.

HARLOW: Does Putin care about what the West thinks about this? Really?

WEISS: I think he does.

HARLOW: You do?

WEISS: Yes, absolutely. I don't think he cares what happens internally. Again, if this is designed to say we're at war with Islamic extremism, the goal with the West is this, I am your partner in counterterrorism, the same threats that you face, ISIS, al Qaeda, I face them here and facing them since day one. Remember, Putin was the first foreign leader to call George Bush after 9/11.

HARLOW: Exactly.

WEISS: This is part of the campaign. You need me, Russia and the United States need to work together.

HARLOW: Guys, thank you very much. We'll have to leave it there. More on this story, though, coming up this evening.

Also very big story today, it has been one year to the day since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared. We just got this new report from Malaysian authorities and it reveals a number of crucial things, including a critical battery on that flight was apparently expired. It was the battery on the underwater locator beacon that is attached to the flight's data recorder.

Our Anna Coren is covering this story for us in Kuala Lumpur.

Good evening to you, Anna.

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hi, Poppy.

You are absolutely right. That battery had expired on December 2012. It's a maintenance issue which is a major oversight.

Did that hinder the search operation because that battery had expired? Well, we really don't know. Obviously, the battery will still operating in the cockpit voice data recorder. So, there was some sort of beacon being emitted, pings being emitted. But as far as the flight data recorder, that battery had expired.

In that interim report which came out on the very day of the anniversary, the other things that it revealed was that the state of mind of the pilot and really, Poppy, it cleared him obviously of what has been going around which is the rogue pilot theory that perhaps it was the captain of the plane MH370 that decided to steer it off course and commit suicide.

This is something that has been thrown around and the cause of much speculation and have you spoken to officials throughout the week from Malaysia airlines and also from the Malaysian government. They said it was baseless and false and obviously that there was a report coming out saying that the pilot and all the crew, none of them were stressed. The behavior was exactly the same as it had been on previous flights, Poppy.

HARLOW: I think it's interesting we heard Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott answer some questions that were posed to him today, asking about the search and how long it will go on. He said, look, we're 40 percent through this search area right now, but he didn't exactly say it was going to go on forever.

COREN: Yes. No, he didn't. He said it cannot go on forever, but I thought what was interesting in that interview with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is he said we are willing to consider another search if nothing is found in his priority area, which is happening in a southern Indian Ocean, a thousand nautical miles off the coast of western Australia. This search is being conducted by Australia and Malaysia, both countries are putting $60 million towards finding the wreckage.

This sort of terrain we're talking about, it's 4,000 meters deep. There are underwater mountains, you know, trenches, volcanoes and it's proving to be a logistical nightmare for the search crew. But despite that, they are still -- they are still searching and Tony Abbott saying that if nothing is found this time, they will continue with another search. I think its certainly good news for the families who are desperate, Poppy, for some answers.

HARLOW: That's a good point, as you just heard from some of the family members in the last half hour. They want this to happen until that plane is found.

Anna Coren joining us live from Kuala Lumpur, thank you.

Where is the plane? That is the question. One of my next guests says maybe in Kazakhstan. He wrote a huge, extensive article on it. Our other guests say no way, no how. Our panel weighs in, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: In the wake of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370's disappearance, theories about what happened to the flight were and continue to be, frankly, endless. You have to ask, though, without a shred of evidence, any debris, can any theory really be thrown out?

Let me bring in CNN aviation analyst and business correspondent Richard Quest, he joins us from Los Angeles. Also, 777 pilot and contributing editor for "Flying Magazine", Les Abend, and pilot and author Jeff Wise is with me here as well.

Jeff, I have to begin with you because I think your theory, you just wrote about it in New York Mag, is probably one of the most controversial and I assumed you've been getting a lot of feedback on it both ways. You wrote this long article, "How crazy am I to think that I actually know where the Malaysia airlines plane is?"

So, where is it?

JEFF WISE, PILOT AND AUTHOR: Well, the idea is that the only data we have about the last six hours of this plane's fight for these seven handshakes, pings exchanged between the plane and the satellite, and they definitively say that the plane went south. But since we haven't found any floating debris, we searched the sea bed and haven't found anything, I wanted to ask the question -- is there any way that this evidence could be construed in such a way that the plane didn't go south?

HARLOW: That it went north?

WISE: That it went north. That's right.

And it turns out that the electronics bay of a 777 is accessible, the bay is often left unlocked and you can reach it through a hatch in the passenger compartment, and if you got in there, you would have access to the electronic brains of the airplane, you have access to the machinery that sends the signal back to the antenna. And so, it's at least physically conceivable that this data could have been tampered with. And in fact, a report that was issued today I think lends some support to this idea.

HARLOW: You believe it could be in Kazakhstan.

WISE: If the data that remains that wasn't spoofed, you know, you can use it to originate a path by itself and that path takes you to Kazakhstan, yes.

HARLOW: Richard?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, I disagree with Jeff that the report gives any credence to his theory. In fact, I would say the opposite. The report actually says quite clearly that the Satcom unit is not accessible for maintenance as Jeff would have it. And so, I think the idea that -- look, Jeff has come up with a theory.

Jeff has been right. He was right on the pings. I'll be the first person to say, hat's off if I was wearing one. He was right on that, and I think he's slightly off the round with this one -- and if only because it accepts that somebody would come forward, two people or several passengers would come forward and they would be able to hike up the carpet, open the bay, get into the bay, perform an extremely complicated satellite maintenance operation in a part of the equipment that might not be accessible or available and then land the plane.

But I hand it to Jeff. You have come up with a theory and I suspect time will prove you right or wrong.

HARLOW: Les? You are a 777 pilot. You know these planes. What do you make of Jeff's theory? Does it have potential?

LES ABEND, 777 PILOT: Well, Jeff and I have debated this --

HARLOW: Sparred.

ABEND: Sparred a little bit back and forth and Richard Quest just took the words out of my mouth. To get into that E&E compartment is a total operation and you would have to disrupt the service and get down there and then you would have to have someone who had absolute knowledge of the E&E bay, is what we call it.

There's a lot of electronics down there. I'm not familiar with it, even as a pilot. It's not a place I would go on a normal basis, and there are only a couple of occasions that with my checklist would have me go down there. As a matter of fact, my airlines policy is not to go down in that compartment.

HARLOW: For you to write something like this, I'm just interested in sort of what you went through internally, deciding if you should write this or not, putting out a theory knowing that you would have critics and some of them on Twitter, certainly much harsher --

WISE: Really?

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: We all know this, those of us who are on television, right?

WISE: Yes.

HARLOW: But I'm just wondering, for you, you felt a real need to put this out there because we have so few answers.

WISE: That's right. It's a mystery I've spent most of the last year going eyeball deep into the data on this and trying to break it down and trying to understand what it all means. And frankly, the deeper we go into this, the stranger it looks, it's very weird.

And frankly, what Les just said, I agree with it the case that most airline pilots don't know how to get in there and mess with the stuff in the way it appears it was messed with. That to me implied a very sophisticated hijacker, a state level hijacker, which is very weird, very strange. And look, my theory is preposterous. I will grant you that.

But at this point, the whole case looks preposterous. We have to look at the kind of theories that just are very strange because the case itself is very strange.

HARLOW: Richard Quest, to you, looking at this one year in, all of these theories that have been floated, what do you make of them and if they have helped in any way or if they've been painful for the families?

QUEST: I think the moment -- I mean, I'm pleased to say that at least Jeff does agree that the Inmarsat data has to be the starting point, and Jeff chooses to say that it was tampered with. But you got to accept the research shows that the plane did transmit the seven handshakes and the extrapolation of that puts it in the South Indian Ocean at the moment.

It is just going to be a punishingly slow process to find it. If that Inmarsat data is right, and, Jeff, I think you and I can probably find common ground here, if it's wrong and if for some reason they've gotten that around their neck, then you'll never find it. They've got no idea. They have absolutely no idea where this plane is.

And, frankly, 600 pages of documents released today give us not a shred of evidence of where it is.

HARLOW: That's what is so disappointing. Richard, Les, Jeff, thank you. Stand by and we're going to take a quick break. More on Flight 370 when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: It is without question one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time, the disappearance of Flight MH370. Back with me to discuss, CNN aviation specialist Richard Quest. Also with me in New York, pilot and author Jeff Weiss.

Richard, let me begin with you. We were just talking about this. Jeff has penned this e-book, long article in "New York Magazine" as well, arguing this plane may be intact and may be in Kazakhstan.

You take issue with that saying, where is the motive?

QUEST: Oh, absolutely. Look, Jeff may be right and I'm going to keep an open mind on that. But I'm -- or a partial open mind or a little open mind, or I'm going to have a scintilla of openness to Jeff's theory if I may, Jeff, because you have, I mean, but there is no motive. And let's face it, we went through all of the pilots' motive -- suicide, marriage breakup -- all of which the report today says is not true.

So, until we are prepared to sort of suggest that some Putin-esque conspiracy took place on an aircraft, I think you do have to legitimately say, Jeff, what was the motive?

HARLOW: Well, and, Jeff, answer that question and this huge 600-page report came out from the Malaysian authorities today, going through what you could of that. So far, does that lend any credence or does that oppose your argument?

WISE: OK. So two questions. Motive first, there is no -- I mean, it's very hard to discern a motive and that's a criticism you can apply to any theory. It seems very clear that this was intentionally done by someone, the leading theory seems to be pilot suicide. There are problems with that theory, too. There's no good, clear, obvious theory that makes a lot of sense that doesn't have any holes and so that's a problem.

It's not -- the theory doesn't start with motive. The motive falls out of the back that the mathematics takes you to Kazakhstan.

QUEST: No, Jeff.

HARLOW: Richard wants to jump in.

WISE: OK.

QUEST: Yes, I got to jump in, Jeff. You can't have your argument both ways, Jeff. You were the one who constantly has been looking for motive from the beginning. What was the reason? Why did they do it?

But now, motive becomes irrelevant to your theory because it won't fit into your theory.

HARLOW: Is that fair?

WISE: No, I don't really -- well, no, look. There's a bunch of potential --

HARLOW: If you say it's intentional, doesn't it need a motive? WISE: No. If you find a guy standing over a dead body with a smoking

gun you don't say what's the motive? You say did he shoot the person? You see what I'm saying? And so, you look at the context of this --

HARLOW: You say was there motive or was this someone who was insane, or one or the other?

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: No. You're both missing the point here.

HARLOW: We're both missing the point. Yes, Richard?

QUEST: You're both missing the point. Oh, come on, you wouldn't have had time following crime, Jeff. Following crime here and the sanctions and all of that, you would not have had -- I've read your theory, you would not have had time to throw this together with the complexity involved to have actually done this if you are like pro- Putin, anti-Western thing.

You are both missing the point here. This was a highly complex event. It can't just be dismissed into the -- somebody did it without motive.

If you're right, Jeff, if you're right, nobody goes into the E&E bay, reprograms the BFO, lands in Kazakhstan, does it all because they do it on the whim of a Thursday.

HARLOW: Richard, I have to ask you this before I let you go. Can you just give us the main important headline that you took away from this report out from this report out from the Malaysian authorities today one year later?

QUEST: Yes. The really sears point is the shambles of air traffic control that took place that night and the hours that went by before anybody really raised a distress flag add it to which the fact that the battery may or may not have been expired on the underwater locator beacon, but the air traffic control, that's what we need to be concerned about tonight and not whether the plane is in Kazakhstan.

HARLOW: Jeff Weiss, Richard Quest, thank you both. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: NBC News struggling to regain its footing after a series of missteps and behind-the-scenes drama. Its latest troubles, as you know, have centered around the network's top anchor, Brian Williams, but there is a lot more to this story.

CNN's Brian Stelter reveals some of the surprising troubles today on his program "RELIABLE SOURCES".

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: There is breaking news this hour about the turmoil inside NBC News. This edition of "New York" magazine coming out tomorrow has some shocking stories about what led up to Brian Williams' suspension from the "NBC Nightly News," and we have an exclusive first look right here. Reporter Gabriel Sherman's story. It's now online at NYmag.com.

Sherman reports that many NBC journalists have been frustrated with Williams for years before any of the embellishment accusations. In fact they have been frustrated that Williams had gained so much power internally, and Sherman paints a picture of a news division, frankly in severe disarray. Not just "Nightly News" but the "Today" show and "Meet the Press," too.

And NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke seems to agree because on Friday with NBC well aware that Sherman's story was about to come out, Burke moved his news chairman Pat Fili-Krushel out and moved Andy Lack in.

Now you may not know Andy Lack's name but every single person in the TV news business does. He was the president of NBC News during its glory years in the 1990s when Katie Couric and Matt Lauer became stars, when Tom Brokaw led "Nightly News," and when Tim Wesser made "Meet the Press" a Sunday morning staple.

And now he is back, back to clean up the news division and now he has to figure out what to do with Brian Williams.

So what is he going to do? Well, Sherman joins me now on set for his first interview about the news story.

So, Gabe, let's dig in to what you're reporting here. Number one, most importantly, you're saying that Brian Williams is not the news division's only problem. That this is about the "Today" show and others as well.

GABRIEL SHERMAN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I think the Brian Williams scandal really sort of pulled the lid off of a whole cauldron of just messes that have been going on at NBC News.

STELTER: Which is why we are seeing Andy Lack come in.

SHERMAN: Yes. And so I think you can understand the Brian Williams crisis in the context of just the news division that has been reeling for the last year.

STELTER: And with Brian Williams, you're saying it's still unclear whether he will be allowed back or not. You say that the head of NBC Steve Burke has not made up his mind.

SHERMAN: Truly has not made up his mind and what I learned through the course of my reporting is just the real internal frustration with Brian that Brian Williams got so much power inside the news division that he was really sort of -- there was no checks and balances which is how a discredited story like his Iraq anecdote got on the air, where were his executive producers? Where was -- where are the people fact-checking Brian Williams? They were not there.

STELTER: So what you're saying is he doesn't have a lot of fans internally right now. SHERMAN: Yes, and I heard many stories, one example is that he

suppressed difficult reporting that investigative reporter Michael Isikoff was doing on the Obama White House's drone program. He got an exclusive look at the Justice Department's memo about how the justification of killing American citizens with drones, the rationale behind that. Brian Williams did not want that on "Nightly News."

Brian Williams also did not want a tough Lisa Myers' investigative segment on Obamacare. And so the journalists are saying, you have the biggest platform at the network for news and you don't want our tough reporting, that's going to be a really tough bridge for Brian Williams to cross to come back and say not only did I get a story wrong, but now I'm going to really, you know, roll up my sleeves and welcome your tough reporting on to my show.

STELTER: So NBC is -- not commenting on your article. I just spoke with someone there. You know, they're going to let it speak for itself. I haven't seen anything in the article that I think might be wrong, to be honest.

Let's explore two elements of it.

SHERMAN: Sure.

STELTER: The first is about Tom Brokaw. Let's put on the screen part of -- part of what you wrote about Tom Brokaw. You said that, "Last summer, around the time Chuck Todd took over as moderator of 'Meet the Press,' several staffers recalled Williams told them, 'At least your ghost is dead'," meaning Tim Russert. "'Mine is still walking the building,'" meaning Tom Brokaw.

SHERMAN: Yes.

STELTER: You're saying there's a coldness between Brokaw and Williams and that has hurt Williams?

SHERMAN: Oh, it's -- it's a very cold situation. I wanted to understand, well, how could Brian Williams, you know, really get himself into this mess? And a story I heard over and over again is that he tried to live up to Brokaw's legacy. You know, Tom Brokaw is an icon in the TV news business. And Brian Williams followed him. So he always felt this deficiency that Brokaw traveled the world, was a reporter, covered Washington, covered the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And so Brian Williams, I think, tried to inflate himself into Brokaw's shoes. And so he told people that, you know, Brokaw was very frosty to him. And I think that, sort of -- is one of the events that led to where we are today.

STELTER: This week we asked Brokaw for a comment about Andy Lack. He declined.

Let's also read a piece about David Letterman. The thing that got me most surprised in this story.

SHERMAN: Yes. STELTER: Is that you say that Williams pitched CBS CEO Les Moonves

about succeeding David Letterman.

SHERMAN: Yes.

STELTER: Here's what you wrote. You attribute this to a high-level source. You say Moonves wasn't interested and CBS declined to comment.

Basically wasn't there a fork in the road last year.

SHERMAN: Yes. Exactly.

STELTER: His contract was up and he was choosing news or comedy.

SHERMAN: Yes. And I think what the trouble he got into is once he decided to stay in the news business, his -- you know, his heart was still in comedy. You know, he loves late night. He was on "Letterman" last year where he made in 2013, right, two years ago where he made some of those comments.

STELTER: Right. There he is.

SHERWIN: So there he is. And so he gets -- re-signs his contract with NBC but he still wants to be in the comedy world. And I think, you know, you can't be an entertainer or a journalist. I mean, one, a journalist has to be willing to anger people, entertainers want to be liked. They're just fundamentally two different roles.

STELTER: Last thing I'll say is there is still an opening at "The Daily Show" when Jon Stewart leaves.

Gabe, thanks for being here.

SHERMAN: Good to see you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Brian Stelter, thank you for that.

You can watch Brian on "RELIABLE SOURCES" every Sunday 11:00 a.m. Eastern, 8:00 a.m. Pacific right here on CNN.

Coming up next, CNN's special series "FINDING JESUS." This episode looks at the life of John the Baptist. It is fascinating and the creator joins me next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: An unprecedented CNN event. He didn't vanish without leaving a trace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the first time in history, we're able to place these relics.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And grasp something that's changed the world. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This really is the moment of truth.

ANNOUNCER: This is the story of Jesus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The rock upon which the church is built.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An icon of scientific obsession.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This extraordinary define an archeological piece.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do we really have here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did Judas betray Jesus?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody chose to write this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The science does matter. Is this the perennial Shroud of Jesus?

ANNOUNCER: What are the clues he left behind? Faith. Fact. Forgery.

"FINDING JESUS," Sunday night at 9:00 on CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: He was a prophet and a preacher, his message so powerful his name is revered centuries later, but who was the real John the Baptist?

It is the question explored in CNN's new series "FINDING JESUS." Here's a clip from tonight's episode.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the baptism of Jesus by John is a crucial part of the story. It tells us, if nothing else, that Jesus absolutely endorsed what John was doing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I myself came baptizing with water for this reason and he might be revealed to Israel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it means that he endorsed John's message, that God's people did need to repent. They did need to receive forgiveness for their sins.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And just as he was coming up out of the water he saw the heavens torn apart and the spirit descending like a dove on him and a voice came from heaven.

You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's at that moment that something profound changes in Jesus and now he feels this vocation call to go spread his own message. This is the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Joining me now, David Gibson, co-author, also creator of the series "FINDING JESUS: FAITH, FACT, FORGERY."

Congratulations, by the way. It had a lot of viewers in the premiere episode on Sunday night.

DAVID GIBSON, CO-AUTHOR, FINDING JESUS: FAITH, FACT, FORGERY: Doing great. There's a real appetite for this. It's just amazing.

HARLOW: What's the reaction been?

GIBSON: It's been overwhelming positive because people are so interested believers but also non-believers, not just those who are antagonistic to Christianity, but those who don't really have much education in the faith. They want to know who Jesus really was. I mean, is this the guy who changed history?

HARLOW: So I watched this episode and it's very much sort of literally drilling into bones.

GIBSON: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

HARLOW: You're literally drilling into one bone that is believed to be a finger bone of John the Baptist.

GIBSON: And there are so many relics -- you know, we focus on in this series and in this chapter in particular in the relics of the bones of John the Baptist, in part because there are so many of them throughout the world, throughout Europe. There was a joke even in the middle ages that John the Baptist must have had six heads and 12 hands.

HARLOW: Because there were so many relics.

GIBSON: And there were so many. And this trade in relics, it was a corrupt trade even centuries ago.

HARLOW: That's -- our viewers are looking, that's one of the fingers that was just shown.

GIBSON: It was accurate. And there are so many and the astonishing thing is the people are saying, can any of these be real? Can any of these be 2,000 years --

HARLOW: Can they be?

GIBSON: Well, I think so. You'll be surprised at what you find, but they have found some in recent -- in a couple -- in recent years that we looked at that, you know, people thought they must be, you know, more recent, maybe a few centuries old, drilled into them found DNA that showed they were from a man living in the Middle East.

HARLOW: Right.

GIBSON: And the radio carbon testing showed it was 2,000 years ago.

HARLOW: And the hard thing to prove or jump to me is all right, same sort of time, era, but what about same person?

GIBSON: Look, with all of these things like last week's episode on the "Shroud of Turin," even if it's 2,000 years old and even if it's an image on the shroud of a man who was crucified there is always going to be a leap of faith that you have to make.

We can take you right up to the edge there, but you know, in the end if you want to believe that's an image of Jesus.

HARLOW: Yes.

GIBSON: If you want to believe this is a relic of John the Baptist, you're going to have to take that leap.

HARLOW: I'm interested because this is a series that really marries science and belief. Faith and faith in something that is -- that is not tangible and then faith in science that it can prove that that belief. For you, personally, was it hard to marry the two?

GIBSON: No, because I'm personally catholic and we believe as Christians I think believe in faith and reason. These are two things that go together, and I think, you know, we so often see -- and the thing I love about the show and the book and this whole endeavor is we often see, you know, science and religion as at odds.

HARLOW: Yes.

GIBSON: And they're attacking each other and the critics and the believers, and atheists at each other. This is actually a rare patch of common ground that you've got to be able to come together and say, OK, let's do this research, let's explore, let's deepen our knowledge.

If you're a believer, I think it will deepen your faith and if you're a skeptic at least you'll be able to come at this with, you know, a certain respect and a certain attitude of learning.

HARLOW: Did you face -- have you faced critics who look at this and say this is not what needs to be done?

GIBSON: Yes. I mean, you get -- you know, you get fundamentalist on both sides, you know, religious fundamentalists who say, you know, we shouldn't be looking at this, we shouldn't be looking at the context, the historical Jesus at all, just go on what's on the page and what's in there, and then you get the -- the fundamentalists on the skeptical side, on the atheist side, who say why are you even discussing this?

Some even ascribe to this theory that Jesus was a myth. That he was made up by a group of the first-century Jews. It's absurd.

HARLOW: Can you give me a little sneak peek? I know tonight's episode is "John the Baptist." What else really surprised you in the series as we look to the episodes in the weeks ahead?

GIBSON: Well, I think, you know, a lot of what we're doing here is kind of debunking the debunkers. You see a lot of this stuff that pops up once in a while, the gospel of Jesus, his wife, that Jesus was married, and he was married to Mary Magdalene, let's say. Well, is that really the truth?

You know, we go back and we kind of look at these things and we sort of poke holes in what needs to be, you know, examined more closely, but all of them I think are windows into the gospels and the Jesus of history. So, you know, not everything is a forgery, but some things are interesting fact, as well.

HARLOW: Have you heard anything from the Catholic Church?

GIBSON: Yes. They love it. We've got a Catholic priest, Father Jim Martin is on -- is one of our experts. We have a lot of people -- again, faith and reason.

HARLOW: Yes.

GIBSON: We have a lot of people who are both believers and are the top-notch scholars.

HARLOW: Yes. If anything, it is just fascinating because it's really a history lesson, each and every one.

GIBSON: It is. Absolutely.

HARLOW: Congratulations. I look forward to it tonight.

Again, CNN special series, "FINDING JESUS: FAITH, FACT, FORGERY," 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN. You won't want to miss that.

Coming up in our next hour, the miracle baby. You're not going to believe this story. Really, a miracle. How this young baby survived hours alone in a car submerged in a river?

We're back after this.

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HARLOW: In the places where ISIS rules, the treatment of gay men and women is beyond cruel. The terrorist group has released new images meant to shock and of course to terrorize.

We are including them in this report because we think it's important to show you how ISIS carries out its twisted form of justice. The names of the men in this piece have been changed.

Here's CNN's senior international correspondent Arwa Damon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These stills dated March 2015 purport to show a man being thrown from a building. According to the last caption, he was also then stoned to death.

His alleged crime? Being gay.

These images were posted by ISIS in its stronghold of Raqqa. This series as well from January show an older man seated in a chair and then tumbling to the ground. Also, in January, these from ISIS in Mosul, two men murdered in the same manner.

In all the photographs, dozens of people are seen watching the killings, seemingly unfazed. Mor (ph), a gay Syrian man says, that makes the atrocious act even more nauseating.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And their facial expressions are really scary because they are not even scared of what's going on. They may be a little bit excited or maybe happy to go -- to get rid of homosexuals in the -- in the city.

DAMON: Syria was never a nation that accepted its lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans community. The country's laws criminalize homosexual acts, punishable by up to three years in prison. Since their revolution turned war, life for Syria's LGBT community has become even more dire.

(On camera): It was not ISIS that forced Mor to leave Syria, well before ISIS emerged as a significant force. In 2012, Mor saw this video. This is the only frame that is not too gruesome to show. The video depicts two men being beheaded. They're accused of being spies. But then, towards the end of the clip, a voice references a verse from the Quran. And Mor says, when he heard that, it became one of the main reasons why he decided to leave.

(Voice-over): According to the posting, the video was filmed in Idlib, Mor's home province.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a very specific verse that would say, like, only this sin of homosexuality would shake the throne of god. So whenever we hear this on video or on audio, we know exactly that this is meant for gay people. It was the moment of clarity, a moment of understanding that this place within -- is not safe anymore.

DAMON: Sami (ph) and his partner consider themselves already married. They fled after Sami's family found out they were together. And a car tried to run them over. Two hours later, Sami's phone rang.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a man that was -- started saying, this time you could -- you could have make it and you survive. But the next time you will not.

DAMON: In Istanbul, the couple lives in shared housing with other Syrian men. When the ISIS photos emerged, one of their Syrian housemates made a sickening comment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He made the very absurd joke about he was so amused and he has so much fun watching homosexuals. And he say, now, gay men can fly.

DAMON: Fear of persecution continues to haunt them here.

Arwa Damon, CNN, Istanbul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Fascinating, troubling report from Arwa. Thank you for that.

Coming up, a police standoff in Chechnya ends with a high-profile murder suspect blowing himself up. The details next.

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