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ISIS Leader Releases New Audio; Employee Files Suit Against Amtrak; Jeb Bush's Changing Iraq War Answers; Hillary Clinton Not Answering Report Questions. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired May 15, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:12] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Two terrorism cases, two separate courtrooms this morning, highlighting law enforcement fears about the ISIS threat here at home. A trial date could be set today for an air force veteran, Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh. He's accused of trying to join ISIS. And in Texas, a hearing for an Iraqi-born American citizen, Bilal Abood. The FBI says he traveled to Syria to fight with terrorists, returned to the United States and then pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Now this all coincides with the first new recording in six months from the leader of ISIS. Al Baghdadi calling on new recruits to, quote, "fight in his land or wherever they may be."

Why are we hearing from the head of ISIS now? Let's talk about that with CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd.

Hi, Phil.

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Good morning from Memphis.

COSTELLO: From Memphis. Yeah. We'll, I'm sorry we have to talk about al Baghdadi, but we do. Why do you suppose he released this audio recording?

MUDD: Yes. Well, there's a small story here and there's a big story. The small story is, there are reports, speculation about whether he was injured in an air strike. It's not clear that he was, but some people are saying this is an indication that he's OK. It's a fairly long audio. There's no indication that he suffered injuries in the audio. His voice sounds strong. And there are indications that this was relatively recent. But that's a small story.

The big story here is, we tend to think of ISIS as a terror organization that beheads people. Back in June of last year, Baghdadi declared himself as the caliph, the head of the entire Islamic community across the Islamic world. He's trying to send a message out that has political overtones, not just terrorists overtones, to say, I am the leader of all of you. If you want to establish an Islamic state, come join me. If you can't join me, act on your own, as we saw in Garland, Texas, a few weeks ago. He's trying to brand himself as not only the successor to bin Laden, but as the leader of an entire sort of sliver of the Islamic world. Remarkable. COSTELLO: Well, it is remarkable. How well is it working?

MUDD: Yes. Well, in some ways it's working well short term because not only does ISIS have the uniqueness of owning geography, very few terror groups can make that transition from conducting attacks to actually owning cities and territory, as ISIS does in Iraq and Syria. Secondly, this recruitment in Europe and the United States is unique in my experience as a counterterrorism professional. In the past you had secret groups operating in very small cells that did not have the Internet capability to reach out to hundreds of thousands of people. That's a game changer for security services. That said, I think over the course of years, not days or months but over the course of years, a lot of people in the Islamic world are going to say his message doesn't offer a future. All he talks about is violence and killing people, including in this audio where he says, Islam isn't the religion of peace, it's the religion of violence. Whether or not you agree with the regime in Baghdad or with the (INAUDIBLE) al Assad regime in Syria, a lot of people are going to say, that's not a message that I can sort of live under over the course of years.

COSTELLO: OK. So -- because of this new message, I guess because of the Garland attack, right, I know that authorities have like stepped up their efforts to arrest people before they're actually able to do something.

MUDD: Yes.

COSTELLO: So should we expect more and more arrests in the future? Are there that many people out there who can be influenced by this man?

MUDD: I think there are because of the fundamental change in the way the message is being transmitted. When I was watching the -- what we call the threat matrix, the threats coming into the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA every day, there was a common characteristic. You had a small terror group, that is al Qaeda, trying to communicate secretly with people overseas and trying to avoid law enforcement.

[09:35:03] Here we have that whole paradigm switched on its head. You have ISIS saying, I don't care if everybody watches what we say. Whether we say it over FaceBook, whether we say it over YouTube, whether we say it over Twitter, if I can reach thousands of people, if 1 percent of them on the fridges agree with what I believe, that's a remarkable success. So I think what we're seeing is the ability to touch so many people in the way secret cells in the past couldn't communicate.

And if just a small sliver of those people agree with the message, and that's what we're seeing in all these arrests across the United States, that volume is much greater than what I witnessed at the FBI. We were watching maybe dozens of people who were at the core of extremist activity in the United States. Now if you're talking about watching hundreds, as a security professional, that's a group of people that you just can't follow. That's too many people.

COSTELLO: Philip Mudd, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it. MUDD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, as Amtrak scrambles to try to figure out what happened before that deadly Philadelphia train crash, the company is now getting hit with its first lawsuit. We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: An Amtrak dispatcher on board that deadly Philadelphia train crash is believed to be the first to sue the company. Bruce Philips (ph), who's been released from the hospital after being treated for head injuries, was seated in the back of the train when it veered off the tracks. Phillips accuses Amtrak of being negligent. Among the alleged failures, a lack of sufficient personnel to safely operate the train, failing to provide appropriate systems to slow the train and/or stop it, and failure to properly train and instruct the train crew on safe operations.

[09:40:00] Joining us now are Mr. Phillips' attorneys, Michael Olley and Robert Myers.

Thanks to both of you for joining us. I appreciate it.

MICHAEL OLLEY, ATTORNEY FOR AMTRAK EMPLOYEE BRUCE PHILLIPS: Thank you, Carol.

ROBERT MYERS, ATTORNEY FOR AMTRAK EMPLOYEE BRUCE PHILLIPS: Thank you. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Michael, first of all, how is your client doing?

OLLEY: He's doing better. He was released from the hospital. He still has some serious injuries and, you know, will go through a period of recovery at this point. Obviously he's not as catastrophically injured as some of the others. Our thoughts and concerns go out, obviously, to the families of all the victims and -- but Mr. Phillips has got a long road ahead of him.

COSTELLO: And, Robert, if you could get into more of what exactly happened to Mr. Phillips onboard the train?

MYERS: The description is, is, he was sitting in the seat, probably like every other passenger on the train, when the train came to a sudden, thunderous stop. He and others were ejected from the seat and literally they were like rag dolls made out of ping pong material being thrown about the car. They hit the ceiling, luggage racks, the seats. And when it finally came to a stop, there was just panic and just a horrible things that everybody saw on that train, including our client.

COSTELLO: And, Michael, one of the allegations contained within the lawsuit is a lack of sufficient personnel to safely operate the train. What do you mean by that?

OLLEY: Well, Bob and myself have represented railroad union workers over the past several decades. We've had this issue before for other railroads. But, you know, there's an issue -- there's a real issue as to whether you have adequate personnel in front of a train when you only have one locomotive engineer up front in the cab. There's an issue there as to, you know, if the second person was present and the engineer is not operating the train correctly, cannot bring it to a stop safely, and the second crew member be able to do something, throw that train into emergency sooner, you know, make sure that the engineer is cognizant of the curve up ahead. So that is one issue that has to be addressed.

COSTELLO: And then the other -- the other allegation contained within this lawsuit, Robert, is the failure to properly train and instruct the train crew on safe operations. That's kind of scary.

MYERS: Well, we -- that's an allegation we have yet to investigate, but you're talking about a mixture of whether it could be by in -- problems with the personnel, the mechanical problems, a failure to have proper safety device on the train. This -- obviously, this was just one of those horrible things. It was bound to happen without all the safety procedures and training in place.

COSTELLO: And, I guess, Michael, my final question to you is, it's really early to file such a lawsuit because we don't even know what exactly happened yet.

OLLEY: Yes. The reason for that is Mr. Phillips is -- was working for Amtrak. As such, he's a railroad employee. He is not subject to state worker's compensation law. He was on his way to work at Penn Station. So under a -- a statute known as a Federal Employers Liability Act, which governors his rights if he's injured on the job, he is not compensated by his employer or his employers' insurance company for benefits while he's out of work. So it's our practice in these types of cases where a railroad worker is injured, we want to get the matter in court as soon as possible because of the fact that the client does not have, you know, the resources available to him that other workers would have understate worker's compensation laws.

COSTELLO: Michael Olley, Robert Myers, thanks to both of you for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

OLLEY: Thank you.

MYERS: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Jeb Bush's campaign isn't out of the gate and already he's stumbling, fumbling on the message of his brother's legacy, the Iraq War. Dana Bash is on the story.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And, Carol, last night Jeb Bush gave a big, a pretty big hint, as to why he may have fumbled those answers all week. I'll give you more on that after the break.

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[09:47:22] COSTELLO: Fifth time's a charm. Jeb Bush has been struggling all week, trying to finesse his answer on whether or not he would have gone to war with Iraq. And last night he gave his clearest answer yet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), FMR. GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: Knowing what we know now, what would you have done? I would have not engaged; I would not have gone into Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Clear, right? But he certainly didn't start there. Dana Bash collected his evolving answers.

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BASH (voice-over): The confusion stems from this on Fox on Monday.

BUSH: I would've and so would've Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody.

BASH: This on Tuesday.

BUSH: I don't know what that decision would have been. That's a hypothetical.

BASH: And this on Wednesday.

BUSH: Given the power of looking back and having that, of course anybody would have made different decisions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: All right. I want to bring in CNN chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash. So, Dana, what took him so long?

BASH (on camera): You know, I think it's blatantly obvious from listening to his evolving answers, it was hard for him. It was hard for him to kind of get to the point where he could say what he said yesterday, which is that he would not have invaded Iraq.

I'm told there was a hotly debated and active discussion all week long, as you can imagine, Carol, in his campaign in waiting, to try to figure out exactly how to do it, and how he should phrase it. And he finally came up with what he did yesterday, hoping to finally put an end to this very tough week.

COSTELLO: How much of this do you suppose is about loyalty to his brother?

BASH: Truthfully, I think a lot of it is. And Jeb Bush gave a speech pretty late last night in Arizona, and he gave a big hint to that. He said, Carol, that he's not going to go out of his way to say what his brother did wrong, or his father from (sic) that matter. He said it's not going to happen. I have a hard time with that and I love my family a lot. I have been told that he's just plain reluctant to throw his brother

under the bus and he feels that, with this big of an issue, the Iraq war, which, really, for better or worse -- frankly worse -- is such a stamp on George W. Bush's legacy he's been reluctant to go there. But then the obvious question what we have been talking about all week long, is if Jeb Bush wants to be president, how could he not have been prepared to answer the question that is maybe the most predictable and obvious about the Iraq war when it comes to what he would do as commander in chief, if Jeb Bush were to be prseident.

COSTELLO: All right, Dana Bash reporting for us live. Thanks so much.

So we know Jeb Bush is answering questions. Well, you can't really say the same for Hillary Clinton. I think since April, she's only answered, what, seven questions from reporters?

[09:50:02] So what is up with that? We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: Hillary Clinton is making a return to her campaign headquarters, stopping in Brooklyn yesterday to raise some campaign cash. Notice she's not answering many questions from reporters.

Let's go out to Brooklyn. She's actually answered only 13 since April. But she did pause to talk to neighbors, I promise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Brooklyn USA, how can you beat that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shelby (ph), say hi.

CLINTON: Hi, beautiful. How old?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 16 months.

CLINTON: 16 months! Hi, how are you?

(END VIDEO CLIIP)

COSTELLO: OK, so just to be clear, the Clinton campaign released these pictures, correct, producers? Hey, producers. This is from Hillary Clinton's Twitter feed, right? That's correct. I just wanted to make sure, because in the spirit of total transparency.

Let's talk about Hillary Clinton's run for the White House. I want to bring in CNN political commentator and "Daily Beast" columnist Sally Kohn, and Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman. Thanks to both of you for being here.

ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good to be with you.

COSTELLO: Oh, Robert, you were at that Brooklyn event, huh?

ZIMMERMIN: I was indeed. It was great gathering.

COSTELLO: So why didn't she invite reporters and answer questions?

ZIMMERMAN: Because she was meeting with her campaign supporters. And that was -- it was a campaign gathering for her supporters.

But the reality is Hillary Clinton has been, in the first 30 days of her candidacy, her first 30 days, she's given major public policy speeches about criminal justice reform, immigration reform. She's been meeting with actual voters, not only answering their questions but actually listening to them about their concerns.

[09:55:00] I don't think that threatens democracy. I think our democratic process will move just --

COSTELLO: Come on, Robert. I'm a reporter. I want political candidates to --

ZIMMERMAN: Talk to you!

COSTELLO: -- take tough questions, right?

ZIMMERMAN: And, by the way, she got a lot of tough questions from actual voters. But you got 21months to ask tough questions.

COSTELLO: Even Sally's rolling her eyes over there.

ZIMMERMAN: Of course she is.

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, of course I'm rolling my eyes. I love rolling my eyes. But there are a good jabazillion months left to this campaign. So part of it is that people like us, with all due respect, Carol, who really want something to talk about so we hope she'll answer questions so that we can have something to parse. Then again, look at -- it didn't work out well for Jeb Bush. I mean, at this point, he should stop answering questions!

COSTELLO: But at least he's out there answering hard questions.

ZIMMERMAN: But there's a big difference. Jeb Bush gave four different answers to the same question. And that was his problem. Hillary Clinton is actually answering questions. She's talking to voters.

COSTELLO: She's not answering questions. About her foundation, there are really important issues out there that she needs to address.

ZIMMERMAN: First of all, her campaign has put out so much information correcting the false statements that have been made by the book.

COSTELLO: Unchallenged, right? It's easy to put out written statements like --

ZIMMERMAN: Actually, no. It's more important to put out factual corrections and that's what her campaign did. You've got 21 months, Carol. Come on.

KOHN: I do think -- I do think, again, given the -- and you know I'm not one to defend the Hillary Clinton campaign, but given the reality of both the length of this campaign and the giant target sign she has painted on her back, both because of who she is and because of her front runner status, if she were to go out and take a swing at every whiffle ball that was being thrown at her from the right and from the press and from everyone else, then she wouldn't have a chance to actually pro-actively put out her vision, connect with voters. That really is what campaigns, please, should be about.

ZIMMERMAN: And there's something to be said for speaking to issues and connecting to voters.

KOHN: Wait a second, elections are about issues?

ZIMMERMAN: We can start that trend here. Absolutely.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: OK, so something else struck me. Dana Bash was reporting on Jeb Bush and he's having a difficult time saying really bad stuff about his family members. I would suppose that Hillary Clinton would have the same problem maybe in criticizing her husband.

KOHN: I say let's put them all on an episode of "Family Feud". Is Bob Barker still around? I don't know.

Look, I will say this. It is interesting that there is this -- and I will admit I've been guilty of doing it. It's sexist to sort of say, oh well, let's compare Hillary or sort of in any use her husband as a yardstick to measure her against. In the same sense, I do think it's problematic. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't say it's also problematic to say, oh well, just because Jeb Bush is George Bush's brother, therefore we lump them together.

ZIMMERMAN: Wait a second, Sally.

KOHN: So it is up to him -- no, no, but it's up to him to distinguish himself. It's up to him to distinguish himself and the problem has been --

COSTELLO: Just like it is for Hillary Clinton. It's up to Hillary Clinton to distinguish herself from --

(CROSSTALK)

ZIMMERMAN: Wait a minute. This is not about the Kardashians running for president. We're not talking about a reality show. We're asking Jeb Bush to comment on the most tragic foreign policy decision made this century. And the reality is not just will he not take a position, a clear position, but his advisers are his brother's top advisors -- military -- domestic -- foreign policy advisors. And Jeb Bush said himself his top Middle East adviser would be his brother, George. So it tells me that ultimately he's very much in sync with where his brother's foreign policy agenda is. KOHN: But again --

COSTELLO: I don't know if that's fair to say.

KOHN: That to me feels like it's a snare and I'd rather talk about his actual policy, his standalone policy, just like I'd rather talk about Hillary's. And I think the problem, both of them -- both of them -- back then support the war in Iraq. And I think, forget what we know in hindsight and forget his muddled answers. Back then it was a problematic vote. And I think they both have to reckon with that.

ZIMMERMAN: They already have reckoned with it.

KOHN: But the fact that his foreign policy advisers are the same George Bush's is like, are you going to repeat the mistakes again?

ZIMMERMAN: First of all, Hillary has already reckoned with that. She's acknowledged it was a mistaken vote and she certainly worked hard to correct that error.

But the reality here in terms of our foreign policy is, if you want to know what their agenda is going to be, and their policy, look at their advisers. Jeb's are George's advisers. Tells you something.

COSTELLO: All right. Robert Zimmerman, Sally Kohn, thanks to both of you. You can roll your eyes again. It's OK.

(LAUGHTER)

ZIMMERMAN: She's got great eyes.

COSTELLO: The next hour of NEWSROOM after a break.

[0959:04]

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