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Iraq: U.S. Airstrikes Kill "Dozens" Of ISIS Militants; Attack Survivors Describe Their "Worst Nightmare"; Why Global Airports Are At Risk; Death Toll Rises To 42 And 239 Wounded; U.K. Battle for Leadership, Scottish 1st Minister Meets with E.U. Leaders; Presidential Candidates Respond to Terrorism. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired June 30, 2016 - 01:00   ET

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

[01:00:19] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. Great to have you with us. I'm John Vause in London where it has just gone 6:00 on a Thursday morning.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Amara Walker in Los Angeles where it is now 10:00 Wednesday evening and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

VAUSE: There is breaking news out of Iraq this hour where U.S. war planes have scored a major direct hit on an ISIS convoy outside of Fallujah. Iraq's defense ministry says dozens of militants were killed. More than 500 vehicles were hit. A U.S. source says the strike required the precision of American aircraft because a high number of civilians were in the area. Iraqi officials say the operation started Monday night and is still ongoing. For more on this, let's bring in CNN's military analyst, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona. Colonel, thank you for being with us. These numbers, if in fact accurate, maybe as many as 250 ISIS fighters have been killed, it would be a very significant blow.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Right. Because what we've seen in these towns that ISIS has defended, they use relatively small numbers of committed fighters and they're bale to hold off a lot of Iraqi soldiers. So this will be a real blow to ISIS. What we're seeing is them trying to get out of town. We have seen this in Ramadi and Tikrit when those towns fell. And they were successful in getting their assets, their vehicles and their personnel out of the area and get them back up to Mosul where they are going to have to defend when the eventual battle goes. This time, they were not as lucky. Of course, a month ago, when the battle for Fallujah began, it was obvious that they were going to lose and they were going to have to escape. They've been watching -- the Iraqis and Americans have been watching ever since and last night they saw the opportunity and went after them.

VAUSE: How would the U.S. know that this was in fact an ISIS convoy as opposed to civilians trying to leave?

FRANCONA: A lot of them are military vehicles -- Humvees, things that they have stolen from the Iraqi army, technicals, the Toyota trucks with the machine guns in the back. And they watched them move in a convoy. And they've been watching this town --- not just the areas around the city but actually flying over the city, watching everything that's going on. So as they packed up and moved out of town, they watching them. Waited until they got just clear of the city in this area called (ph) Amari, it's southwest of the city, in an area where they knew they could engage them. They called in the forces in, and they've been able to do a pretty good job here. This is not just U.S. Air Force. We have to give credit to the Iraqi army aviation and the Iraqi Air Force as well. A lot of people involved, a lot of ordnance being expended, and it looks like significant results.

VAUSE: Colonel, there is a tendency, though, to link this air strike with the ISIS attack in Istanbul. It came 24 hours after the airport there was hit, seeing this as some kind of retaliation, but this seems more likely to be just a coincidence in timing.

FRANCONA: I think you're right. They have been watching this for some time, waiting for the opportunity to attack to present itself. I think the fact that it presented itself in this time sequence is truly coincidental here.

VAUSE: Colonel Francona, thank you for your assessment, sir.

FRANCONA: Sure.

WALKER: The death toll and the terror attack on Istanbul's Ataturk airport now stands at 42. More than 100 people are still in the hospital. And new video shows one of the three attackers running through the airport with his gun. Investigators are trying to figure out who they are. One newlywed couple who survived the attack describe it as their worst nightmare. CNN's senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson, spoke with them.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Steven Nabil and (ph) Narneem Shores just got married.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was such a beautiful wedding, to be honest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She deserves it.

WATSON: After a honeymoon in Greece and Italy, the couple was on a five-hour layover at Istanbul's Ataturk airport Tuesday night, waiting for their flight back home to the U.S. That's when the terrorists attacked.

STEVEN NABIL, WITNESS: I literally ordered the salads and the pizza slice, when the guy turned to put the slice in the oven, I heard the gunshots from afar.

WATSON: Did you recognize that those were gunshots?

NABIL: Yes. AK-47. Automatic rifle.

WATSON: No question? And what goes through your head at that time?

NABIL: That she's hurt. That this is happening, my worst nightmare is haunting us now. [01:05:00] WATSON: Steven says he saw a man with a gun shooting in

the departures hall.

What did he look like?

NABIL: I was in tunnel vision. So I'm not sure if he was the actual gunman or the cops firing at him, but there was a gun and there were bullets coming from him, because I could see the echoes and all that from the gun.

WATSON: The terrified couple ran and hid in this little kitchen which Steven filmed on his phone. Through the door, they heard chaos outside.

NARMEEM SHORES, WITNESS: We heard people yelling.

WATSON: It was stop, stop --

SHORES: Stop, stop. I was like, this looks like someone is killing somebody else.

WATSON: This is when the victims who were wounded were screaming.

Steven didn't know whether or not the gunmen were still on the airport on the hunt for more victims.

NABIL: At that point I said, I'm going to make a video to tell our story because we're going to most likely die here.

TEXT: We are still trapped in the room, awaiting the arrival of the security forces to control the situation. Pray for us.

WATSON: Speaking in his family's native Arabic, he tells them to pray for him.

SHORES: I remember, I told him this is our last seconds in our life and we're going to die right here.

NABIL: This is when I realized that this is the moment I might lose my new family that I just made, everything I dreamed for.

WATSON: But Steven says, if a militant came through the door, he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

NABIL: I was going to kill him. This is it. I mean, this is my new wife.

WATSON: Forty-five minutes later, the terrified couple eventually emerged to bloody scenes in the airport.

NABIL: I want to thank all the Turkish first responders, the ambulances, the drivers, the cops, they were protecting us. They were doing their best. A lot of them were bleeding. So they fought it out.

WATSON: An ambulance rushed Narneem to a hospital. She is recovering from bruises suffered after being trampled by panicked people fleeing the gunman, but dealing with the emotional trauma has barely begun.

SHORES: I want to go back to the states. I don't want to come to this country anymore. I don't want to come to the Middle East anymore.

WATSON: This evening, the couple rushed to catch a flight out from another Istanbul airport, hoping to leave this horrible chapter of their honeymoon far behind. Ivan Watson, CNN, Istanbul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Well airports have long been considered a soft target and joining me now from Dubai is Julian Moro. He's a a security expert with International SOS and Control Risks. Julian, is there now a need to rethink the entire approach to airport security?

JULIAN MORO, SECURITY EXPERT, INTERNATIONAL SOS AND CONTROL RISKS: Hi, John. Thanks for having me on the show. Our assessment is that that is not the case, no.

VAUSE: Why are airports essentially such high-value targets for terrorists right now?

MORO: John, we think that like many other locations within countries, airports present an attractive target because there's a lot of people and also a lot of foreigners. But we don't believe that there is a trend that shows that airports have become more of a target than other locations, and I think if you also look over the last six months with the attacks in Paris, attacks in Belgium, there have also been many other attacks in Turkey and other locations, not airports.

VAUSE: Although there is a certain symbolic value to hitting something like an airport, they have been described as the artery of the world. When you hit an airport like you do in Istanbul or in Brussels, you get a lot of publicity around the world, and essentially, it gums up the traveling public for an incredibly long time.

MORO: You're absolutely right. And for a way of really impacting the perceptions of risks, particularly for travelers, whether they be business travelers or whether they be tourists, it is a way of really getting a lot of publicity. Our assessment, however, is that the travel security environment in Turkey hasn't changed as a result of this attack.

VAUSE: One of the issues, though, governments continue to issue travel warnings all the time. There was one put out by the U.S. State department the day before the attack in Istanbul, but yet they seem to come out so often that a lot of people don't take any notice of them. Is there a way maybe of improving the communication, getting those travel warnings out there so people do actually take greater notice of what the government is saying when it comes to the traveling risk?

[01:09:50] MORO: It's an excellent question. One of the things that we do is we obviously provide advice to our member constituents about traveling to all destinations, including places like Turkey, and we take into very specific account the preparation required before travel. And I think our message to your viewers is that regardless where you are traveling to, you need to understand the destination that you are traveling to, the things that you as an individual can do to mitigate the risk based on your profile, based on your itinerary, but also as an organization, what you can do for your traveling population, particularly business travelers, to better equip them before they travel, in the preparation phase, but also so that they understand what to do if there is an incident. Over the course of the last couple of days, we had 150 cases from our members, whether they be travelers themselves or the organizations, the risk managers, advising them about whether they should stay, whether they should go, whether if you are intending to travel to Turkey, whether you can continue with that travel. And the overarching advice that we've given them is that travel can continue to Turkey with usual precautions.

VAUSE: One of the issues, though, even with increased security around an airport like you might have at Ataturk airport where they increased it -- markedly increased it in recent years, is that, you're not going to stop three suicide warriors in this case, three attackers who were determined to go in there and kill people and then die in the process. So the question is, how do you deal with that kind of security situation?

MORO: I'd like to reemphasize the fact that Turkey has an incredibly capable intelligence and security apparatus. While they were unable to prevent this attack from occurring, the reports that we have, that the security forces at the terminal at least prevented the attackers from entering the departures lounge, which of course, while it was still an incredibly impactful and terrible tragedy, it would have been far more significant if they'd been able to enter the terminal itself. So while the attack did occur, we believe that the security forces at least were able to prevent it from being even worse.

VAUSE: Julian, thank you for being with us. Julian Moro there from SOS International on the risks of traveling, especially the risk to some of the airports. Thank you, Julian. Back to you, Amara.

WALKER: Thank you, John. Well, the bombings at Istanbul's airport are reminding a lot of people of the coordinated terror attacks in Brussels back in March. Miguel Marquez looks at the similarities and the differences.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The plan of attack on Istanbul's airport seems ripped from the pages of the attack on Brussels. In both attacks, three bomb-toting terrorists all arriving by taxi, all targeting the main international terminal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just heard these screams. I turn around the corner and it's just this wall of people running towards me, tripping over themselves, police with guns out.

MARQUEZ: But there are critical differences. The Istanbul attackers were armed with Kalashnikov automatic weapons, shooting their way into the airport before setting off suicide vest bombs. The Brussels attackers had large suitcase bombs, no guns. The attackers set off two bombs packed with nails inside Brussels departure lounge and in the city's metro, killing 32 in all. A third attacker, who became known as the man in the hat, fled without setting off his bomb at the airport. He was caught weeks later.

As ISIS suffers setbacks, losing ground in both Iraq and Syria, high profile attacks hit other parts of the world. In November last year, 130 people killed across Paris in coordinated suicide attacks. Two weeks later, December 2, a husband and wife pledged allegiance to ISIS before killing 14 people in San Bernardino, California.

And then the massacre at an Orlando gay club, inspired at least in part by ISIS, that left 49 people dead.

JOHN BRENNAN, DIRECTOR, CIA: Being able to fabricate a plot, carry it out among a small group of individuals, one, two, or more, it is unfortunately a feature of our times that ISIL in particular has been determined to carry out these attacks.

MARQUEZ: In June 2015, nine countries suffered ISIS directed or linked attacks across the Middle East and Africa, says the Institute for the Study of War. Compare that to this June -- 14 countries were hit by ISIS in directed or linked attacks. The terror group now expanding its reach into southeast Asia.

The ISIS threat felt like never before. In the immediate aftermath of the attack in Istanbul, security at New York City airports raised.

[01:14:53] Security at New York airports has been heightened as well as the Turkish embassy in Manhattan. And as John Brennan, the director of the CIA said, our ability to travel across borders and communicate like never before only increases the possibility of an attack. Miguel Marquez, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: A short break. When we come back, we'll have more on the Brexit shockwaves, including the leave leader's bid to become prime minister. That's in a moment.

WALKER: Also, Donald Trump is renewing his call to use waterboarding. The criticism and condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans. We'll have that for you ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE RILEY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Kate Riley with your CNN WORLD SPORT headlines. British qualifier, Marcus Willis, had quite the experience at Wimbledon when he played seven time champion, Roger Federer on center court. The world number 772 had battled through six rounds of qualifying and the first round but was beaten, six-love, six-three, six-four. With only $300 in winnings this year, Willis will pocket a sizable $67,000 and should rise more than 300 places in the world rankings. There would be no fairy tale for the Frenchman, Adrian Mannarino, either. He was beaten by reigning Wimbledon champion, the world number one, Novak Djokovic, in straight sets.

The quarterfinals of Euro 2016 begin on Thursday with the first match taking place in Marseille between Poland and Portugal. The Poles will be hoping that the goal drought suffered by captain Robert Lewandowski will end as they attempt to reach the semifinal of a major tournament for only the second time. All eyes as ever will be on Portugal's talisman, Cristiano Ronaldo, at 31. It may be his last realistic opportunity to take glory with his country. And one player already eliminated from the Euro is Swedish star, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. (inaudible) reported he will complete his move to Manchester United by the end of the week. Zlatan is expected to sign a one-year deal which would make him the second signing for the new United boss, Jose Mourinho. That's a look at all your WORLD SPORT headlines. I'm Kate Riley.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: Welcome back, everyone. The death toll from the terror attack on Istanbul's Ataturk Airport is now at 42. More than 100 of the people wounded are still in the hospital. We get the latest on the investigation now from senior international correspondent, Clarissa Ward.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[01:19:49] CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, investigators in Turkey and the U.S. want to know if the brutal airport attack was coordinated and directed from abroad, or if the terrorists who killed 41 and wounded hundreds of others were acting alone. Sources say either way, the two-pronged assault had all of the hallmarks of an ISIS operation. Three men wearing explosive vests carrying AK-47s exiting a taxi curbside, shooting at panicked travelers before blowing themselves up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just heard these screams. I turn around the corner and it's just this wall of people running towards me, tripping over themselves, police with guns out. Just pure panic.

WARD: Much of the attack, the deadliest ever at an airport, was captured on video. Passengers seen fleeing bullets and hiding in stores. Security footage appears to have captured two of the blasts, this one outside an arrival terminal, the other, moments later, as an attacker runs through a departure hall. He is shot by police, then falls to the ground, dropping his weapon. Seconds later, he also detonates his suicide vest. Despite the carnage today just hours after the massacre, an eerie calm, and the veneer of a return to normal. The Turkish government quickly washing away the blood, repairing windows, and reopening one of the world's busiest airports to international flights. Today, the ISIS affiliated Amaq news agency posted this message, celebrating the two-year anniversary of the establishment of what it calls the caliphate, or Islamic state, pointedly saying that ISIS has covert units in Turkey and elsewhere. And while no group has officially claimed credit, tonight, officials in the U.S. and Turkey say they have few doubts about the motive.

BRENNAN: There is no credible claim of responsibility at this point, but that is not very surprising, because, at least in most instances, if not all, ISIS has not claimed credit and responsibility for attacks that are perpetrated inside Turkey.

WARD: ISIS has taken a lot of hits this year, losing precious oil revenue and territory which has really hurt their credibility. And it's important to remember, their actual motto is, (speaking in a foreign language), remaining and expanding. So if they're shrinking, that hurts them, and that is likely to be a key factor in what is driving them to these types of splashy, horrific attacks. Clarissa Ward, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: All right. Here with me now, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, an author, journalist, and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Also next to her, Steve Moore, a CNN law enforcement contributor and retired supervisory special agent with the FBI. Thank you both for coming on. Steve, I want to first start with you and the investigation. So how will investigators figure out who these attackers were and how will they ascertain that ISIS was truly behind it if that is the case?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: Well, you don't need to know who these guys were to see if it was ISIS or not. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, I mean, it's that M.O., the modus operandi they use. It is their goal, it is their motives. The fact that Turkey was hit like this -- it dovetails nicely with what they want to do. And as far as finding these people, the problem is -- or identifying them, you're not going to be able to go to their city, their homeland, something like this, and ask people. So what they're going to do is start with the bodies. You're going to find out what type of explosives were used, because it's still in the parts of the bodies that you find. That will lead you down the road to who might have made this stuff. You're going to find fingerprints, hopefully. You're going to get DNA which might give you an ethnic bloodline. And you're going to go back to that taxicab driver, find out where he picked them up, and check cameras in that area to find out where they're from.

WALKER: As Steve was saying, Gayle, this attack -- as U.S. officials and Turkish officials are saying too that this attack bears all the hallmarks of an ISIS attack. But why aren't we hearing ISIS claim responsibility for this attack or other attacks that happened in Turkey? You would think that they would want to use this as propaganda or embolden any sympathizers.

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Right. In fact, the only attacks really that ISIS has claimed are journalists, Syrian dissidents, journalists whom they have assassinated inside Turkish borders. The question is, for them, if this is ISIS, why would they claim credit? Instead, you can leave sort of this gray area where Turkey is already fighting Kurdish forces within its borders. Nobody's quite sure. So both chaos and confusion and discord. Exactly, absolutely, so why claim the attack if it is? In the meantime, you've sown a great deal of fear.

WALKER: Steve, is there concern that the mastermind or the bomb maker is still out there?

MOORE: Well, he certainly -- I don't know if the person who was actually hands on making the bomb is still out there. He could have been one of the three. Likely not, because they don't want to give up that resource. But in Turkey, and I'm sure you'll agree with this -- the border is so porous, he was probably out within hours. And really, this was not one of those lone wolf type attacks. This was probably directed right from Raqqah.

[01:25:02] And so now we have to find out where these people stayed, who they met with, and sooner or later, there's going to be a gap where somebody says, I found all this luggage in a hotel room, or something, and nobody's claimed it. There's going to be something like that.

WALKER: How do you expect, Gayle, that Turkey's going to -- how is Turkey going to respond? We've seen in the past, there's been criticism that Turkey's prioritized fighting the Kurdish separatists over ISIS. Do you think ISIS will now become threat number one to the country?

LEMMON: Well certainly the visibility is obviously now in the prime spot. But they have, several months ago, really turned a page in terms of at least allowing the U.S. to use air force base, allowing Americans to use southern Turkey, their special operations forces -- absolutely, and tightening the border some. But for years, this has been a way station, right. You would be in southern Turkey and people could tell you what the neighborhoods were, where the ISIS fighters were thought to be living. So this is years in the making in terms of people using Turkey as a base and a way station. And now we're really seeing Turkey try to just pull that back and see what can happen next in terms of cracking down.

WALKER: What about in terms of security? What kind of changes do you think we might see? Istanbul's airport has some of the tightest security measures -- there's several layers of it before you even get into the airport.

MOORE: Right. And they'll usually start the attack at the farthest most layer that they get stopped at. But I want to point out here that if you saw the terrorists running and getting shot by a very proficient officer with a firearm, took him down mid run, that was really a good -- as good a response as you can get. I mean, suicide bombers are not going to be stopped. Yet, if you look at the bomb when it blew up, nobody was within 50 feet of this guy. That has to be viewed as a success and it needs to be kind of a pattern here. We don't have that kind of resource for first responders at U.S. airports right now.

WALKER: You know, I talked about this with the U.S. congressman last hour about, how do you defeat an ideology? We just saw the air strikes on the convoy there in Fallujah and Iraq. So you can have advances on the battlefield. We're seeing that will only embolden ISIS to export its terror outside its borders. But where do you start? We've had this conversation a million times. How do you defeat an ideology? Should you start with the mosques, start with the communities, with being more accepting of each other?

LEMMON: This is always the big issue. Because you can counter terror and you talk to special operations community leaders in the U.S. They'll say, you can kill terrorists. But you cannot slay an ideology simply with drones, or even with night raids. You have to have much more to offer. And this is the whole question about a much longer term timeline than what Americans want to see, what people now in Turkey want to see, which is, how do you fight people from the very beginning, whether it's education, whether it's better governance, whether it's making people feel heard, whether it's economic development. All of those are much longer time horizons than this kind of counter terror operations to which we're all used to now.

WALKER: So many different layers of problems that we have to first address to get to the bottom of the problem. Good to have you both. Gayle Lemmon and Steve Moore. Thanks so much for both of your time. Appreciate that.

We're going to take a short break here. When we come back, Scotland's first minister is courting European leaders looking to stay in the E.U. after the Brexit vote. We'll see what happened after she visited Brussels. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:32:03] VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause, in London.

WALKER: And I'm Amara Walker, in Los Angeles.

We are following breaking news out of Iraq. ISIS appears to have suffered heavy losses in a series of air strikes. U.S. war planes hit an ISIS convoy. More than 500 vehicles trying to flee Fallujah all at once. The strikes needed to be precise because a lot of civilians were in the area. And Iraqi forces in recent days pushed ISIS out of Fallujah just west of Baghdad.

VAUSE: In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, the battle for the leadership of both major political parties is on. Leave leader, Boris Johnson, and Interior Minister Teresa May are hoping to succeed David Cameron as prime minister. And Andrea Eagle is expected to challenge Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn. He lost a non-binding no- confidence vote on Tuesday but is refusing to step down. The Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was in Brussels on Wednesday and she's fighting for her country to remain in the E.U.

Nic Robertson has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): Scotland's first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, getting a warm European welcome.

NICOLA STURGEON, SCOTTISH FIRST MINISTER: I set out very clearly Scotland's desire to protect our relationship with the European Union. I don't underestimate the challenges that lie ahead.

ROBERTSON: Door after door opening for Sturgeon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great to see you again.

STURGEON: Great to see you again.

ROBERTSON: Leaders here in the face of Britain's rejection relishing Scotland's pro-E.U. vote.

JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER, EUROPEAN UNION PRESIDENT: Scotland won the right to be heard in Brussels. So I will listen carefully to what the first minister will tell me.

ROBERTSON: A win-win possible, the E.U. loses Britain and maybe gains Scotland, and Sturgeon maybe finds a route to realize her life-long ambition, an independent Scotland.

STURGEON: I'm here to make the argument that Scotland should stay in the European Union. If it comes to the stage where the only way is we have to consider being independent then that's a choice I think the people in Scotland should have the right to take.

ROBERTSON: But for all Sturgeon's ambition, no formal steps will be taken to end Scotland's 300-year union with Britain until Britain triggers its European Union exit.

The battle lines for which Cameron laid as he left, access to the single market and changes to the free movement of E.U. migrants. The rift must be addressed.

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: There was a concern of the movement of people and immigration. We need to think about that and Europe needs to think about that.

[01:35:14] ROBERTSON: What Cameron got, the other 27 leaders firmed their bottom line.

DONALD TUSK, EUROPEAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT: We made it crystal clear today that access to the single market requires acceptance of all four freedoms, including the freedom of movement. There will be no single market a la carte.

ROBERTSON (on camera): Battle won't be joined until Britain has a new prime minister. Maybe then calmer heads might prevail. But for now, with frustrations running high, the scene is set for one of modern Europe's ugliest confrontations.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Brussels, Belgium.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Francesco Guerrera is with me in London. He is the associate editor and chief financial correspondent for "Politico" is here.

Francesco, thanks for joining us. Walk us through the process on the Labour side, and there's steps that have to happen and time deadlines if a Labour M.P. wants to replace Jeremy Corbyn.

FRANCESCO GUERRERA, ASSOCIATE EDITOR & CHIEF FINANCIAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Yes, it's a cumbersome process. First of all, everyone who needs to be nominated needs the support of the M.P.s in the Labour Party. And you get on the ballot and the party members decide. It's a very long process. We'll see people emerge who want to replace Jeremy Corbyn and then Jeremy Corbyn himself and the members will vote.

VAUSE: The time frame, the nominations have to be in by 9:30 this morning.

GUERRERA: 9:30 this morning.

VAUSE: Three hours from now.

GUERRERA: And it takes 10 weeks. The most important 10 weeks in British politics right now.

VAUSE: On the conservative side, there will be no idea who the next prime minister is until before September, right?

GUERRERA: Maybe October. A similar process. They want it done by September 9th. It is unclear if they will be able to do it. We are looking at a power vacuum and long campaign on both sides.

VAUSE: Possible two lame-duck leaders at the same time? Which is unheard of. OK.

So the result we say won't be known for a while. But there is one challenger for Jeremy Corbyn. Angela Eagle has the support of the elected party but maybe not so the members of the party.

GUERRERA: The Labour Party is in anything but Jeremy mode. They want someone to replace Jeremy. Corbyn, who lost this no-confidence vote recently. Angela Eagle has emerged as the leader of that party. The big issue for her and the positive for Jeremy Corbyn is he has the support of the members, with 60 percent of the vote. It is difficult for anyone to unseat him in this electoral system.

VAUSE: The Conservative side, the have until 12:00, about six hours from now and we are expecting to see Boris Johnson and Teresa May. They're the only two viable candidates.

(CROSSTALK)

GUERRERA: There's about six or seven. Those two are the front runners, one on the Brexit side, the Leave side, the victorious side. And Teresa May on the side of -- as they say -- the adults.

VAUSE: The adults in the room.

GUERRERA: They like to say that. She'll be the one who challenges Boris.

VAUSE: The problem with Boris Johnson is there seems to be a lot of anger in the Conservative Party in the parliamentary party for those who were the Remainers. And they are not in a forgiving mood right now.

GUERRERA: If you think about it, both parties are split. Corbyn versus anti-Corbyn, Brexit versus Leave in the Conservative Party. So we are seeing what we are -- almost in an existential battle between the two parties which will be played out in the next 10 weeks.

VAUSE: There is a history that the most popular candidate often doesn't win. That is Boris Johnson right now. He is the most popular. There is a Stop Boris campaign out there. Could we be looking at a situation where Teresa May, who was part of the Remain Campaign, could be the next prime minister?

GUERRERA: Yes. There is definitely a possibility of that, but let's say that Boris is popular with party members and has been identified with the winning side of the referendum and has a formidable team. He is a very retail politician. He touches people. And he has the team that does the important work for him. It is a tough campaign for Teresa May.

VAUSE: It's tough for Teresa May, too, because she is part of the Remain Campaign. And Cameron says that the next prime minister will have to negotiate the exit. It's a hard one to sell for her.

But, Francesco, thanks for coming in.

GUERRERA: Thank you.

[01:39:57] VAUSE: Appreciate it.

We'll take a short break. When we come back, fighting terrorism, well, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump agree on little, and now Donald Trump is again calling for the use of waterboarding. More on that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALKER: Americans want to know how their next president would fight terrorism. When voters look at the leading Democratic and Republican candidates, they see opposite sides of the spectrum.

Here's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The way the two presumptive presidential nominees are responding to Turkey's terror attacks shows the difference between them.

DONALD TRUMP, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: ISIS is signing up people over the Internet, they know how to use the Internet better than we do, and we do nothing about anything. BASH: Donald Trump is talking tough.

TRUMP: We have to give them a big, fat, ugly defeat.

(CHEERING)

BASH: While Hillary Clinton is so measured that she didn't even deliver public remarks. In an unusual move, she delivered a paper statement, saying, "The United States cannot retreat. Cooperation is essential to protecting the homeland and keeping our country safe."

But the most explosive difference is their policies on torture. Donald Trump wants to reinstate waterboarding.

TRUMP: Can you imagine them sitting around the table or where they are eating their dinner talking about the Americans don't do waterboarding but we chop off heads. They probably think we're weak. We're stupid and don't know what we're doing. We have no leadership. You know, you have to fight fire with fire.

BASH: An approach Clinton rejects.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Those are war crimes.

BASH: As does former GOP presidential nominee, John McCain.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R), ARIZONA: If you are not into academics and history -- it doesn't work.

BASH: A Vietnam prisoner of war who knows first hand about torture.

MCCAIN: It's not what we are all about. It's not what we are. It's not about them. It's about us.

[01:45:13] BASH: Still, Trump's renewed call for waterboarding as he is softening another controversial policy from the primaries.

TRUMP: A total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

(CHEERING)

BASH: Now he is limiting that to countries with known terror links.

TRUMP: I will suspend immigrations from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies.

BASH: A new Pew poll of people in 10 European countries shows 10 percent have confidence of what Trump would do the right thing regarding world affairs. But more important is what American voters think. And a new "Washington Post" poll shows people trust Clinton to handle terrorism more than Trump, 50 to 39 percent, a bigger lead for Clinton than last month when it was 47 to 44 percent. CLINTON: This approach isn't just wrong, it is dangerous.

BASH: Remarkable in that fighting terror is usually a Republican advantage in elections, which Trump is trying to reclaim, tweeting today, "ISIS exploded on Hillary Clinton's watch, she's done nothing about it and never will. Not capable."

(on camera): Trump and Clinton's huge differences about how to confront terrorism fit into the overall larger very stark choice for voters. Do they want a president who brings a blunt shoot-from-the- hip approach who will shake things up, or do they want someone with a more cautious approach running on her experience?

Dana Bash, CNN, Washington

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: A lot to talk about. Mo Kelly is joining me now, the host of "The Mo Kelly Show" and "The Mo Kelly Experience" radio program in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Good to see you. Thanks for coming in.

MO KELLY, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST, THE MO KELLY SHOW & THE MO KELLY EXPERIENCE: Thanks for having me.

WALKER: Let's talk about Trump and defeating ISIS. He is promising, if I become president, I will get rid of ISIS. What specific policy proposals has Trump talked about?

KELLY: There in your question lies the answer. There are no policy specifics. There's nothing in regard to specificity about how he would go about doing things. He is good about bluster and the projection of strength but he is not telling us how it is going to be done. Same with the economic policy and foreign policy. It's built around emotion.

WALKER: Let's talk more of his economic policy. We heard him give a speech yesterday and he bashed globalization and anti-free trade. And President Obama slammed his protectionist views on trade. This is giving Republicans another reason not to embrace him. Typically, the powerful business lobbyists lean Republican and are for trade and globalization.

KELLY: But you're almost making the assumption that Trump is a Republican. Historically, Trump has not been a Republican. He is not a conservative at heart. If anything that is why the Republicans are so fearful of Donald Trump. When it comes down to it they don't control him and he's not beholding to what they believe in. He doesn't espouse what is important to them. So going into the convention they are fearful. When it comes to business policies, he has been telling America a lie. He wants to boil down the economic status of America to just jobs. It's bigger than that. We are talking about GNP and GDP, the labor market, housing, all these things put together for an economy. He's not showing the full picture. WALKER: Let's look at new polls that are out. These are the latest

polls that show Hillary Clinton extending her lead over Trump. This is a FOX News poll released on Wednesday. You can see Hillary Clinton leading Trump by six points, 44 percent to 38 percent. And CNN's poll of polls, which is an average of the results of the five most recently released national polls. Clinton is leading by six percentage points. And you have pointed out polls that show the race is a little tighter. But can you explain why there is a dip in some of the polls?

KELLY: These are just snapshots. If I ask you at 12:00 what you want to eat it will be different at 6:00.

WALKER: Not reliable.

KELLY: I don't think they're reliable. History shows the polls are subject to change as much as the weather. When you a controversial figure that people are afraid to acknowledge of who they are going to vote for, I wonder how much people are being honest as far as who they will vote for in an election like this that is so contentious in nature and where you have two unlikable candidates. There is a lot of room for error.

WALKER: And I have to ask you about President Obama's triad against Trump. He didn't name him but I want to show you that he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[01:50:11] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They don't become a populist because they say something controversial in order to win votes. That's not the measure of populism. That's nativism, or xenophobia, or worse, or it's just cynicism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: President Obama after that, you know, basically admitted, I went on this rant, it's the end of my term and I can say what I want to say.

KELLY: But he stole his thunder. He is supposed to be talking about a trade agreement and is talking about Donald Trump. That is a win for Donald Trump.

WALKER: Got you.

Mo Kelly, great to have you. Thanks so much for that.

KELLY: Thank you.

WALKER: Coalition fighter jets light up an ISIS convoy in central Iraq. Just ahead, why U.S. officials say that only American planes could have done the job. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:54:57]WALKER: Let's get you updated on the breaking news out of Iraq where U.S. fighter jets are unleashing their fury on targets outside of Fallujah. Dozens of militants were killed when the planes hit a convoy of more than 500 vehicles. A U.S. source says the strike required the precision of American aircraft because there were a lot of civilians in the area.

VAUSE: The death toll from the terror attack on Istanbul's Ataturk Airport stands at 42. Friends and family are saying good-bye to those killed on the attack. Hundreds of mourners turned out for the funeral of an airport customs officer. And authorities are defending their decision to reopen the airport so quickly after the attacks. They say Ataturk's security far exceeds international standards.

WALKER: And that's it for this hour. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Amara Walker, in Los Angeles.

VAUSE: I'm John Vause, in London.

We'll be back after a short break. Stay with us. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:14] HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Hala Gorani.