Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

ISIS Claiming Responsibility for Shooting at Cartoon Contest; Lynch to Visit Baltimore; Obama's Role in Addressing Racial Tensions; Mike Huckabee to Join GOP Presidential Hopefuls. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 05, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[10:00:33] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR(voice-over): Happening in the NEWSROOM, was ISIS behind the shooting at a Muhammad cartoon contest? The terror group claming its first attack on U.S. soil and threatening more in the future. Also --

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have a situation in which too many communities don't have a relationship of trust with the police.

COSTELLO: President Obama speaking out about police tensions and, despite calls for him to go to Baltimore, he's sending his Attorney General. Is that enough?

And then there were six. Mike Huckabee ready to run and his presidential plan of attack includes a familiar target.

Let's talk live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We begin this morning with breaking news and a claim sure to startle many Americans. ISIS says it has carried out its first attack on U.S. soil. The terror group claiming responsibility for Sunday night's attack in Garland, Texas, the gunmen trying to storm an exhibit of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, something offensive to many Muslims. ISIS is calling the men its soldiers. They were outfitted with assault weapons and body armor, had traveled more than 1,000 miles from their home in Phoenix.

We have new details this morning on those gunmen and the investigation. CNN's Kyung Lah is in Phoenix, and Ed Lavandera is Garland, Texas, following the investigation.

But I want to begin with you, Kyung.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, what investigators are now focusing on is combing through the evidence that they have collected out of the apartment that these two men shared. They were roommates in here Phoenix, their apartment in this complex behind me. So the investigators want to try to figure out were they simply inspired by ISIS or is there a more concrete link?

We're also learning more about the two men. One of the gunmen, Elton Simpson, he grew up here in Phoenix. We have these images of him from high school and, from the looks of it, he had a very typical American upbringing. He was captain of his high school basketball team. We've been to his neighborhood. It's a very typical suburban neighborhood.

But in high school, he did convert to Islam. His family did not convert. And recently on social media he'd become increasingly more vocal. His last tweet before the shooting rampage, he references his loyalty to the leader of ISIS.

As far as the other gunman, Nadir Soofi, he spent formative years in Pakistan. That when his parents divorced, he followed his father there. He went to a prestigious private school in Islamabad, but when returned here to Phoenix, he was a pizza shop owner. He had a son. And one of our local affiliates in Texas, KPRC, spoke with Soofi's grandmother who says she doesn't think that her grandson was the instigator of all of this.

Here's what she told KPRC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he have a problem with how things were going in the United States? Did he feel like Muslim people were persecuted?

SHIRLEY DROMGOOLE, GRANDMOTHER OF GUNMAN NADIR SOOFI: No, I don't think so. Because he wasn't persecuted. Whoever he was with talked him into it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's how you feel about it?

DROMGOOLE: Yes. There's no other way it would have happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: And the two men were quite close. They were roommates. And they also attended mosque together. We spoke with the mosque president and he says even through all the years he spent with these two men, he didn't see any outward signs of radicalization. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Kyung Lah reporting live from Phoenix this morning.

The gunmen didn't even come close to entering the building in Garland, Texas. They were taken down by a lone police officer who was outnumbered and outgunned. Ed Lavandera is Garland with that side of the story. Good morning, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, FBI investigators have finished up their investigation on the street. This is where everything unfolded yesterday. This is where you saw all of the evidence and FBI investigators working.

You see where those orange cones are. That's where the two gunmen were trying to drive in to the civic center here in Garland. As you can tell, it's close to about 200 yards away from the entrance. Didn't even make it close. There was a set up deliberately, there were two officers there, one of them that was wounded in the leg, and then the other officer whose identity has not been released yet, was the one that fired shots that quickly took out both gunmen.

[10:05:03] Remember, both of these gunmen bringing high powered assault rifles, and we're told the officer that took them both out did it with a .45 Glock handgun.

So everything unfolded very quickly. Definitely overpowered but somehow this police officer was able to get off quick deadly shoots that ended the event in about 15 seconds, we're told. Obviously, this could have been much more serious had these gunmen been able to get inside the civic center. But the quick actions here prevented that from happening.

That was part of what we're told the deliberate plan leading up to this event, given the controversial nature of it, Carol, was that there were layers of security that were put in place, including a SWAT team that was in the back of the building. Carol?

COSTELLO: Well, they did a terrific job. Ed Lavandera reporting live from Garland, Texas. Thanks so much.

Joining me now, a man who thinks ISIS may be just seizing an opportunity to claim this attack. Our terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank is the co-author of "Agent Storm: My Life Inside Al Qaeda". He joins me now from London. Good morning, Paul.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Hi, Carol.

COSTELLO: So I know that Elton Simpson tweeted support of ISIS but is there any evidence that he ever contacted ISIS or vice versa?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, just before the attack, he pledged allegiance to ISIS's leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, so he certainly wanted to facilitate ISIS taking credit, taking responsibility for this. But he also urged his followers on Twitter, and he had about 1,000 followers on Twitter, to follow a British ISIS propagandist in Syria just before the attack. And that same British ISIS propagandist in the hours after the attack started taking credit for the attack, tweeting "Congratulations". Very excited that this attack had taken place.

So what we've seen here is an American ISIS-inspired attacker facilitating ISIS taking credit, but neither of these two gunmen are believed to have traveled overseas to somewhere like Syria or to have actually met someone in ISIS face to face. All the contacts appear to have been online.

But it is possible that this British ISIS propagandist in Syria may have encouraged these Americans to launch this attack. The FBI will be looking at this, looking at the social media contacts between these people.

My understanding is that British is propagandist is a guy called Janed Hussein (ph). He traveled to Syria about a couple years ago and he is also suspected of being involved in that so-called hack against the United States Central Command Twitter feed back in January. He may have had some kind of role in this attack as well. So that all needs to be investigated in the hours ahead, Carol.

COSTELLO: So they were rather inept, though, weren't they? It's obvious they weren't trained in any way on how to use a firearm, right?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, I mean, they had assault rifles and they had body armor so you've got to think if they'd attacked a soft target, a shopping mall, say, in the United States, rather than a very heavily protected event, they could have launched absolute carnage in the United States. It was just fortunate they decided to launch an attack against a very hard target.

But we know ISIS has been encouraging followers in the West to launch attacks against soft targets as well any way to create carnage in the United States. There's a fatwa that's gone out from them telling people in the United States, their followers, that it's their religious duty to do this. And they've now promised more attacks in the United States, more of these ISIS-inspired attacks. And unfortunately, through social media through the Internet, they are able to reach out to Americans and to encourage them to do this. Carol.

COSTELLO: So I'm not into being afraid, so just put this into perspective for us. I mean, should we be freaked out by this? How should we feel about this ISIS threat that more attacks are going to come on American soil?

CRUICKSHANK: I think there's no doubt, Carol, there's significant concern right now. We've seen more than 30 Americans charged for material support for ISIS. In the last several months we've seen five ISIS-inspired plots in the United States, some of them more aspirational than others. But we saw that hatchet attack on the NYPD in Queens, New York, back in October. There were those guys in Brooklyn arrested, they were talking about even attacking the President of the United States and law enforcement. And then just in March, this plot quite aspirational, the same sort of plot, nevertheless, to attack a National Guard base in Illinois.

So there's quite a lot of energy in this sort of jihadi system right now. And also there's ISIS itself; you have all these Western and European recruits in Syria and Iraq and appear to be pivoting toward wanting to launch attacks against the West.

So I think we're in a period of higher threat right now in the United States, but also in Europe as well.

[10:10:00] And just in the last few hours, British ISIS fighters have called for attacks against the U.K. election here as well, so concern from U.K. officials, too.

COSTELLO: All right, Paul Cruickshank, thanks for your insight as usual. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, President Obama weighs in on the death

of Freddie Gray.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: It's important that, now that charges have been brought in Baltimore, that we let due process play itself out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And while the president is not visiting Baltimore, his new Attorney General is. Could a civil rights case be next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: After days of requests for the president to visit Baltimore, the administration is sending newly confirmed Attorney General Loretta Lynch. It comes one day after false reports of another officer-involved shooting caused chaos in the streets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You shot him! They shot him in the back, man!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a cop! He's a cop!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You shot my man, yo!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I didn't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You shot my man, yo!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Everything ended peacefully here. A shot did go off but it was because the suspect dropped the gun and the gun discharged. No one was injured in this incident and no one was placed under arrest.

Right now the Justice Department is considering though whether to file civil rights charges in the death of Freddie Gray.

CNN justice reporter Evan Perez joins me now with more on that. Good morning.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. We have Loretta Lynch coming here today, later today, for a few hours. She's going to meet with the police commissioner, with the mayor, with community leaders, members of Congress.

[10:15:00] And, really, the incident you were talking about just now highlights how volatile the situation here in Baltimore remains. She has her job cut out for her as she's trying to calm the situation while at the same time she's investigating both the incident, the Freddie Gray incident, the arrest of Freddie Gray and the death of Freddie Gray, and also working with the police department to try to institute some reforms so things like that don't keep happening, Carol.

COSTELLO: So what about the possibility of civil rights charges? How likely are they to come?

PEREZ: Well, you know, as we've talked about a lot on this show, those types of charges are often a very high bar to meet. And so one of the first things that will be happening is they're going to be reviewing what the state investigation has found, as well as the separate police investigation.

We do believe that there is a lot of FBI work already done. They've been getting some of the access to the interviews, some of the witness interviews that the police and the state attorney's office did, so they are well on their way. It's going to be tough to see whether or not they're going to bring those charges, however.

COSTELLO: All right. Evan Perez reporting live from Baltimore this morning. Thank you.

President Obama paying a visit to David Letterman for a conversation that covered everything from the First Lady Michelle Obama to problems in Baltimore, Ferguson, and many other cities across the country. The president opening up about racism in the United States and some of its causes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I think a residual factor but also a buildup of our history. And we can't ignore that. Look, if you have slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, that builds up over time, even if our society has made extraordinary strides -- and I'm a testament to that and my children are --

(APPLAUSE)

My kids and your kids are growing up in an America where the attitudes of the next generation make you hopeful because I think they genuinely try to judge people much more on the basis of character. But it's built up over time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: I want to bring in Jeff Johnson now; he's a communication specialist and also the chief of strategy for Ilume Communications, a Baltimore based branding firm. Jeff, good morning.

JEFF JOHNSON, CHIEF OF STRATEGY, ILUME COMMUNICATIONS: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: You interviewed the president exclusively in December about race. Did he sound bolder this time?

JOHNSON: Well, I think it's a different situation. During that time we were still in a great deal of unrest in Ferguson. We're not in the same place in Baltimore. And I think yesterday was also about contextualizing what the White House is looking to do with My Brother's Keeper. And so his address yesterday to the nation, if you will, was really talking about how My Brother's Keeper is expanding. And i we heard him properly, he really said that this wasn't something he was doing as part of his administration, but something that he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

COSTELLO: And that has to be a good thing, right?

JOHNSON: Well, I think it remains to be seen. I think every single person that we can have engaged in addressing the plight of men of color is a great thing, and who better than a former president to utilize his resources? I think let's get through his administration first and then talk about how great it will be for him to be engaged in this moving forward.

Because coming from Baltimore, and you know I live in Baltimore, there's a lot of work on the ground there, as much as there is in my home city of Cleveland, as much as there is in Ferguson, New York, South Carolina and all over the country. So we don't need to put so much attention on the president that we take attention off of the local people on a daily basis that have to do this work in lieu of the kind of support that I think the president can lend.

COSTELLO: You know, there's been so much talk about President Obama and why he didn't go to Baltimore. I mean, why didn't he launch his initiative in Baltimore, right? And there's been talk on the other side of the aisle that President Obama is actually inflaming racial tensions. Other people say he's not doing enough. In your mind, what's -- I mean, give us some perspective here from your point of view.

JOHNSON: Well, no. 1, when you're President of the United States, there's no way that you can win. So no matter where you put your attention or your focus, there's going to be somebody that says that you are not doing what you need to be doing.

The fact that we are blaming President Obama for flaming racial tensions, however, I think is absurd. This is a president that, in many cases, attempted to avoid the issue of race for a long time and was still chided by Republicans for his citizenship, was disrespected, in many cases, in ways that other presidents had not been disrespected. And then when he did do a race speech, it was very careful and focused.

So I think President Obama -- if we're talking about could he have done more to talk specifically about the plight of African-American men early in his presidency? Sure, he could have.

[10:20:00] But at the cost of what? So I think being a Monday morning quarterback as it relates to how he's navigated race is less important than how do people in communities, and educators in schools, communication specialists like myself, and journalists like yourself, use these airwaves to create safe spaces to talk about race, which is a conversation I think as Eric Holder said was something we as a nation were cowards in.

COSTELLO: Yes, we do need safe places to talk about these issues, because they're so very important and we're all in this together, whether we like it or not, correct?

JOHNSON: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: One more question about President Obama. You know, he's not campaigning anymore. I guess he's going to start his initiative in earnest in another two years. So what should he do in these last two years of his presidency to help things along?

JOHNSON: I think, No. 1, utilizing the Department of Justice is going to be clear in dealing with issues of police misconduct, profiling that still takes place in local communities. And so my hope is that Loretta Lynch has not only the full support of the president but the full support of Washington and the Congress in pushing forward to analyze what's happening on the ground and make sure that there's federal policy that supports the reforms that need to take place.

I think he's also addressing issues through executive authority and executive power and he's laid a lot of that out in the State of the Union. We've seen some of that happen. I think that's where he has the greatest room to grow. But the other piece is continuing to have relationships with this Republican Congress and hope that, as many of them want to get reelected, they'll work with this president to push forward policy that's not just about their agenda but about the American agenda.

COSTELLO: All right, Jeff Johnson, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, next hour, Republican Mike Huckabee will be announcing plans to join the presidential race. He's been here before and he's hoping it's an advantage this time around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:30] COSTELLO: The race for 2016 heats up next hour when Mike Huckabee announces he's running for president. You're looking at live pictures of the big rally where Huckabee will throw his hat back into the ring just one day after Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina launched their campaigns.

Joining me now from Hope, Arkansas, the shared birthplace of Huckabee and the former President Bill Clinton is Sara Murray. Good morning, Sara.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. Yes, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is just minutes away from announcing he is going to give it another go, throw his hat in the ring for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

I think in this speech, he's really going to try to cast himself as a small town guy who understands what average Americans are going through, can relate to them in terms of economic struggles, their security concerns. But of course it is no coincidence that we are here in Hope, Arkansas, shared birthplace, like you said, of Bill Clinton and of Mike Huckabee. He really wants to set that contrast up early with the Clinton family and Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton.

Take a look at this video clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: On his first day in office, Governor Mike Huckabee's door was nailed shut. It was in Bill Clinton's Arkansas. He had huge Democratic majorities in the House, in the Senate. You had all of the apparatus of the Democratic Party aligned against Mike Huckabee, and all of a sudden this Republican comes out of nowhere and wins.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: That gives you an idea of the contrast he's looking to set up, kind of a long shot candidate. And I think that's kind of what he's facing this time around too. It is going to be a tough slog to the nomination for Mike Huckabee.

COSTELLO: All right, Sara Murray, thanks so much. Sara reporting live from Hope, Arkansas. And don't forget you can catch Mike Huckabee's live announcement from Hope 11:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

As for Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton, she's headlining a campaign fund-raiser in Las Vegas today. But you probably need to be a bit of a high roller to get in. The event actually cost 2,700 bucks per person.

Also yesterday the former Secretary of State agreed to testify once but not twice before the Special House Committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. That's expected to take place two weeks from now.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, spreading hatred and fear-mongering. Why one rabbi says the controversial contest that led to the Texas shooting was not about free speech.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)