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FBI Asks Local Police to Help Track Terrorists; On the Front Lines with Iraqi Special Forces; U.S. Attorney General Steps Up Pressure for Renewal of Patriot Act; Deadly Flooding in Texas; Flood- Weary Houston Faces Five Days of Storms; Journal Details Mass Murderer's Plan. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 28, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:00] MIKE ROWE, CNN HOST, "SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DO IT": This is different. Forget the aromatherapy candles, forget the new age music playing softly in the background. Forget Sharmaine or Tiffany with her soft hands and gentle touch, this is the kind of massage that makes you want to confess. But you know what, it kind of works.

Son of a bitch. It's better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You sure?

ROWE: No. No. There's some, you know, trauma. But --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll remember me all your life.

ROWE: I'm never going to forget you right now. Never. All right. Looks strange.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I don't know what to think of that. I just know I saw a whole lot of Mike Rowe in that piece.

OK. See if Mike can take the heat tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, A tidal wave of water crashing into homes. And more rain is on the way in Texas as the storm's victims are laid to rest including a homecoming queen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it was raining so hard, God was opening his hand for her.

COSTELLO: We're live from the storm zone as rivers rise.

Also the Army accidentally sends out live anthrax. How could this have happened?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a great question. That's exactly why we brought in the Center for Disease Control.

COSTELLO: Plus, it's the text you don't want to get. Beware iPhone users, a message that will crash your phone in seconds.

Let's talk. Live in CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. We begin with the fight against ISIS and fears that the FBI is not equipped to independently fight the surge of homegrown terrorism on American soil. The agency now asking local law enforcement agencies to increase surveillance on suspected terrorist. New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton says he wants to add more than 400 officers to his counterterrorism unit.

All of this in response to that foiled terror attack in Garland, Texas, when two ISIS supporters opened fire at a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest.

Let's bring in CNN's justice correspondent Evan Perez. He has more.

Good morning, Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Carol, this is a big problem. The FBI says that there are hundreds of ISIS supporters that it'd like -- it would want to keep an eye on in this country, doesn't have enough people to actually do that. So that's why they are turning to police departments around the country.

Now we mentioned the NYPD here in New York. We know that the Los Angeles Police Department is also doing this. They are all responding to an appeal from the FBI director Jim Comey, who earlier this month did a conference call, a secure conference call with police chiefs asking them for additional help.

Here we asked Jim Comey yesterday at a press conference in Brooklyn about what he's trying in response to this threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: It is an incredibly difficult task that we are enlisting all of our state and local and federal partners in, and we're working around it every single day. But I can't stand here with any high confidence when I confront the world that's increasingly dark to me and tell you that I've got it all covered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And Carol, you know, the reference he made there, too increasingly the dark to him, what he's referring to is the fact in the case of Garland and in the case of a lot of these ISIS supporters that the FBI is keeping an eye on, they are going from talking on Twitter and other public forums to offline, to places where their communications are encrypted, peer-to-peer communications. This is what the FBI really cannot take a look at. And so the fact is

that they are tapped out. They need the help of local law enforcement and they're reaching out for that assistance -- Carol.

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

In the meantime the battle for Iraq's Anbar Province rages on. Right now Iraqi forces are trying to reclaim the key city of Ramadi from ISIS. Nearby in another province, troops are locked in a fierce fight for Iraq's largest oil refinery. There are major fears that terrorists could scorch and burn the site as they clear out, potentially triggering a massive environmental catastrophe.

CNN's senior international Nick Peyton Walsh just got back from the front lines with Iraqi Special Forces. He joins me live from Baghdad to tell us what that was like.

Hi, Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, it's a very complex task for Iraqi forces around the oil refinery. It's been a month's long fight already and they say at this stage they believe they've got ISIS militants down to about a fifth of the enormous territory this oil complex covers. Now it's about 5 by 3 miles, so 15 square miles or so. That is, of course, made even more difficult by the fact that ISIS militants willing to die.

They have laid booby traps. And the pictures we're showing were given as well by Shia fighters there. It shows black plumes of smoke from areas that are already being damaged in the fighting so far.

[10:05:07] The real concern they have, they say they have the special forces, the troops, the Shia fighters, the ammunition around to potentially to move in. They're just worried that if they do that, that will be scorched earth policy by ISIS who either die destroying the refinery or leave a huge cloud of black smoke covering that area beforehand. But it's an absolutely vital place for them to take.

It's the north of the supply route they've been talking about cutting into Anbar where the rest of the fight may happen. And we saw those Iraqi fighters, the Iraqi Special Forces so keen to show us how capable they said they were, how willing to use their weapons they were, an area where we also heard of casualties that same day this fighting happened on the Iraqi government side.

They wanted I think to answer Washington's criticism, they simply don't have the will to fight. Remember these special forces have colleagues in a same unit but in a different place in Ramadi who are part of that withdrawal from Ramadi that allowed it to fall to ISIS. The question when it comes to Anbar and the fight for Ramadi is we know the complexities around the oil refinery due to terrain, while the complexities in Ramadi is due to sectarianism.

The Iraqi Security Forces and the Shia fighters, they may well be able to work together. The question is, can they get the Sunni tribes who live there and the people who live in the area, they're trying to get back from ISIS to cooperate with them. That's a much taller order. And all these questions effectively answer the other question, how can ISIS be defeated -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from Baghdad this morning. Thank you.

Back here in the United States, administration officials are warning of dire consequences as the clock ticks down on the expiration of the Patriot Act. Newly appointed attorney general, Loretta Lynch, warning of, quote, "serious lapses in security if Congress fails to act."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORETTA LYNCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Some of the vital and noncontroversial tools that we use to combat terrorism and crime are scheduled to shut down on Sunday. Without action from the Senate, we will experience a serious lapse in our ability to protect the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta is following the story for us.

Jim, one official calls this national security Russian roulette. What does he mean?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes. I mean, you've heard about fiscal cliffs here in Washington, Carol. This is a surveillance cliff, or NSA cliff that is coming up on Sunday. The Obama administration is accusing members of Congress of playing what you just called and what officials here are describing as national security Russian roulette by risking a shutdown of key NSA programs this weekend.

One of those programs, as you know, Carol, is the bulk collection of data from nearly every phone call made in the U.S. That's scheduled to expire on Sunday unless lawmakers can pass some sort of solution that data is used in counterterrorism investigations. But the program has also outraged privacy advocates. And here's how things will go down on Sunday if no deal is reached.

On Sunday at 4:00 p.m. the federal government will instruct phone companies to stop collecting this data. At 8:00 p.m., four hours later, instructions from the government to do that will become what they're saying irreversible. But that collection can resume 24 hours after Congress renews the program.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, she was warning lawmakers that they need to hurry up. And earlier this morning on "NEW DAY," White House press secretary Josh Earnest echoed that message. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president directed his National Security team to work in bipartisan fashion with members of Congress to reform those programs, to put in place greater protections to our civil liberties and our privacy. That means the government is no longer in the business of holding this bulk data. That is something that should give some confidence to libertarians and those who are concerned about civil liberties.

But it's also why it's critically important for the Senate to act on a bipartisan legislation that's already passed the House. It includes important reforms for privacy while at the same time also giving our law enforcement and our national security professionals the tools they need -- the noncontroversial tools that they need to keep the country safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now the big holdup is in the Senate, as Josh Earnest just said, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to keep the existing Patriot Act in place. The House did pass a bill that makes changes to the Patriot Act, it's called the USA Freedom Act. And a top GOP aid in the House told me, Carol, that the Senate better get moving before these key programs, quote, "go dark."

Carol, it's not very often you hear the House Republicans sort of prodding the Senate Republicans to get going on some legislation. But what's interesting about this dynamic is that the reason why we're at this holdup right now is because of politics inside the Republican Party. Rand Paul, who is running for president earlier this morning, he was sending out an e-mail, a fundraising e-mail essentially trying to raise money off of his efforts to wind down these NSA bulk collection efforts.

And that has sparked a debate inside the Republican Party. He's got a lot of conservatives mad at him right now for doing this. But because of that divide inside the Republican Party, they can't get this legislation passed right now. And the White House is sort of on the sidelines saying, OK, what next.

[10:10:11] They're putting a lot of phone calls in to lawmakers up on Capitol Hill. We'll see if it gets resolved on Sunday -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I feel like I've heard this story before. Jim Acosta --

(LAUGHTER)

ACOSTA: You bet.

COSTELLO: Reporting live from the White House. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the power of raging water. A woman says it turned her home into a giant washing machine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: I can't even imagine this. I just can't. This is what it was like at the Blanco River surge. The lower level of this home filling up in a matter of seconds. The family frantically trying to figure out what to do.

This went down in Wimberley, Texas, the river rising some 43 feet above flood stage. The family did manage to get out of that home safely.

That's just unbelievable.

Marilee Wood, she knows the terror of that moment all too well. Her home is also located near the Blanco River in Wimberley. She sent these photos to our NEWSROOM. You can see the trees snapped in half by the flood's furry.

[10:15:02] Marilee is on the phone right now to share some of her story.

Good morning.

MARILEE WOOD, WIMBERLEY, TEXAS RESIDENT: Good morning, Carol. Thank you for having me on.

COSTELLO: Thank you for taking the time to be on with me. You know, I only experienced this a little bit. I used to have a house in the Fairfield, Connecticut. And the floodwaters came over my front lawn and almost went into my house. And I just remember feeling so helpless because it's not like you can shut the water off, right?

WOOD: No, it's spectacular. You know, they call this flood alley in Texas. And it's the hill county portion of Texas that has the steep hills and the very quick build-up of water. And it was terrifying. But we had a -- excuse me, we had a bit of an advantage at our house because our architect from Houston when we designed our house 20 years ago decided that one thing she wanted to do was try to anticipate what might happen if we had a big flood.

And she actually had us build the house six to eight feet above the FEMA-required limit for -- you know, where you can build your house. So we had an advantage there. And the water also was -- it was designed so that the water could flow under the house. And we had a third floor office that was considerably above the flood.

But the water was flowing around the house, under the house, and through what we call in Texas a dog trot, which is a passageway through the center of the house so that the river was literally surrounding us. And the -- I heard a noise in the middle of the night, and I was worried about the flooding. And I walked over to our central hallway and looked down the stairs and the water was rising up toward me.

It was about, I would say, two feet from my feet. And I woke up my husband and he just said, well, you know, we've got to prepare. And we were there all night. And it was terrifying, I must --

(CROSSTALK) COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about that moment. Let's talk about that moment because it's so weird to see such high water in your house that you freeze because it's such a strange sight.

WOOD: It's -- finally when I told my husband the water was in our house, he thought I was having a nightmare.

COSTELLO: Right.

WOOD: I said, no, this is real. And it's paralyzing in that moment.

COSTELLO: So what's next for you? Is your house horribly damaged? Is it repairable?

WOOD: It's repairable. But it is badly damaged. We got water four feet up in our ground floor. Our garages were the lowest, so both of our cars were towed. Our guest house had three to four feet of water in it. And when we walked -- the water also went down rather quickly. So in our house by about 5:00 in the morning, it was beginning to get a little light, we could tell the extent of the devastation.

We are -- we have a company doing -- SERVPRO is doing remediation work, tearing out sheetrock. You know, just --

COSTELLO: Yes.

WOOD: We're going to build back. I mean, it's a wonderful place. And we've been here for 20 years and we're not going to let this flood beat us.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you said that.

Marilee Wood, thank you so much for sharing your story with me this morning. I appreciate it.

Given the jaw-dropping scale of this disaster and the relentless surge of floodwaters in some areas, it may be no surprise that the death toll is also rising. Twenty-one people now confirmed dead, nine still missing and several more days of rain are on the way.

Let's turn our focus now to Houston, one of the city's hardest hit by the flooding and now the threat of storms and more disastrous rainfall looms in the next several days.

Here is CNN's Dan Simon. Good morning.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. I think this pretty much sums up what you're seeing in Houston. Just these debris piles littered all over the street.

We are on Brays Heather Drive. This is one of the areas that was hardest hit. I've got to tell you, you know, you walk down the sidewalk and pretty much every house in front of it has one of these big piles of debris. You're seeing carpets and couches and those are the kinds of things that are immediately going to have to go. So the house may still be standing, but the contents, that's a whole other story.

But, Carol, I have to tell you, Houston right now a little bit of a tale of two cities phenomenon going on. We saw a school bus drive by. The kids are back in school. I was downtown last night. The business are open. People are going to bars and that kind of thing.

[10:20:00] So the government did a really good job getting the infrastructure back up and running. The electricity is back on but of course you have all of the fallout with this. People trying to figure out when they're going to be able to get back in their homes and of course doing all the cleanup.

And of course elsewhere throughout the state you have the search for the victims. At least nine people are still missing in the storm. And of course the funerals now are just beginning as well, Carol. You have that tragic story of the 18-year-old homecoming queen driving back from her prom, got caught up in the floodwaters, Alyssa Ramirez. She was laid to rest yesterday.

So still so many heartbreaking stories. And now you talked about it, the weather. Just what they don't need, more rain. And of course, there is more rain in the forecast. So we'll just have to see how all this plays out -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll check back. Dan Simon, reporting live from Houston this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, inside the mind of a mass killer. The disturbing details inside the journal of the Colorado theater shooter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's the sickening look inside the mind of a killer. A journal kept by accused theater shooter James Holmes has been shown to jurors deciding his fate. Inside are page after page of handwritten notes detailing his plans for mass murder and an obsession that went back as long as a decade.

Kyung Lah joins us live from Los Angeles with more. Good morning.

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. It'd be easy to dismiss this as the scribbling of a madman but this is a key piece of evidence in this trial. And both sides are going to try to use it to their advantage.

The prosecution is going to try to show that all of this was pre- medicated, it was planned. That he knew the difference between right and wrong.

[10:25:04] Inside the notebook, there are a number of maps. There are positives and minuses of which theater he's going to choose based on exits and it also shows police response times.

I want to show you one page where he writes showing his despair, what is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of death? Another page shows life's fallback solution, death. Now the defense will try to use this as an intimate look into the mind

of someone who is clearly disturbed, who did not know the difference between right and wrong. In one page he writes the word "why." And it continues for seven plus pages, over and over again. And then in another page he writes about the diagnoses -- some of the issues that he has. It's called self-diagnosis of broken mind. That's a sentence he actually writes.

And below that there are a number of ailments that he believes he's suffering from, illness that he discussed with his psychiatrist at the time. His college psychiatrist at the time. So what this is, Carol, is something that has been presented to the court. And both sides are going to try to use this to try to win over the jury to say whether or not this was planned and he knew the difference between right and wrong.

COSTELLO: Remind us what happened to this journal and why it didn't come to the attention of authorities.

LAH: This was actually mailed. And he intended to send this to the person he was seeing, a campus counselor. But it actually never made it there. It was stuck in the mail. And this came to light just a couple of days after the shooting happened. So had this actually been opened, had this psychiatrist or psychologist perhaps seen this, that is a tragedy here, perhaps something further could have been taken, another step with the authorities and prevented all of this.

COSTELLO: All right. Kyung Lah, reporting live from Los Angeles this morning, thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Democrats lean left, way left. Why self-described socialist Bernie Sanders is surging.

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