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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Interview with Tennessee Senator Bob Corker; Interview with California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez; Scotland's Future; New Terror Threat; Australian Officials: Men Plotted "Random" Beheading; Rainfall in Texas Causes Massive Flooding

Aired September 18, 2014 - 16:00   ET

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

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Nothing gets Congress and the White House, all of Washington, really, to come together like a war.

I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD.

The world lead. The U.S. Senate could soon follow the House in approving a White House plan to arm and train what are called moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS on the ground, while Australian police say they have halted an ISIS-inspired plot to behead Australian victims randomly. Could something like that happen here?

The sports lead. Yet another NFL player, Jonathan Dwyer, facing domestic violence charges. CNN learned that the man who was line to replace Dwyer, he has a history of abuse, too. But scratch that. He was in line before CNN started asking questions about him.

Also, in world news, the future of Scotland will be sealed by the end of this hour, polls closing soon. Will the Scots break away?

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We will begin with the world lead.

Soon, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on a measure to arm and train so-called moderate Syrian rebels to fight the terrorists of ISIS a day after the House approved a similar plan with wide bipartisan support. The Senate vote comes after the two main salesmen for the administration strategy, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Hagel, testified on Capitol Hill, each for the second time this week.

Hagel was asked what this aid package will buy. Kerry was asked to defend his reluctance to use the word war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: The package of assistance that we initially provide would consist of small arms, vehicles and basic equipment like communications as well as tactical and more advanced training.

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: What I care about is not what we call it. I care about what we do. And I care about make sure we defeat ISIL. And if you're calling it a war against this enemy of Islam, then please do so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Today's hearings and the votes on supporting the so-called moderate Syrian rebels led to the fascinating sight of some Democrats openly questioning their own president and his strategy and the equally rare, perhaps rarer sight of some Republicans agreeing with President Obama, albeit begrudgingly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R), TEXAS: I'm glad that finally he came around on the issue, listened to General Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that basically told him that we cannot defeat ISIS unless we go into Syria.

What turned me around was the fact that we are going to train the moderate Sunni Muslim to combat the extreme Sunni Muslim. And it's their fight.

REP. LORETTA SANCHEZ (D), CALIFORNIA: I find it pretty disturbing that we're having this hearing after we have taken a vote. I have been through this, guys.

I saw the coalition in Iraq. And we used to sort of like chuckle at each other at seeing some of these countries with one person, I don't know, training dogs, maybe a bomb expert. But coalition of 40? Who, what, how much? Which are the combat troops? How are they going to get there? I would like to know those things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's bring in Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Democrat from California. She is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and Homeland Security Committee and she voted against the measure to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels in the House yesterday.

Congresswoman, thanks for joining us.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel once again today warned that ISIS presents an immediate threat to U.S. citizens in Iraq and American interests in the Middle East. Do you agree?

SANCHEZ: Certainly. ISIS does present a problem. They are a problem. We need to do something about it.

I just don't believe that the plan that they have put together to arm these moderates, as they call them, Syrians will work.

TAPPER: Why not? And what do you think should be done?

SANCHEZ: Well, for example, some of the moderates have gone over and become part of ISIS.

I was told by some of my Syrian-American community they won't be fighting each other. Some of these moderate Syrians supposedly will turn weapons on Assad. That's where their real focus is. Who are these moderates? Who will have a command-and-control structure? Who will be the commander in chief?

These are all questions that I would like answers to, and we certainly didn't get them yesterday before we voted, and I didn't get them out of Secretary Hagel yet.

TAPPER: But, Congresswoman, if it is a threat, ISIS, and you don't trust the so-called moderate Syrian rebels, then what should be done to stop ISIS, which you have acknowledged needs to be stopped?

SANCHEZ: It does need to be stopped.

But even a larger question, Jake, is, if we can stop it, and we really need the neighbors in that neighborhood to actually stop them with us -- it cannot just be ourselves. But when we stop them, there will be a void, just as when we thought we had eliminated, to a larger extent, al Qaeda.

So what comes into a void? Something else will come, unless people have rebuilt their lives, rebuilt their homes, gotten an education, have jobs. We can't do that in that area. The neighborhood has to do that.

And I do not believe that these countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others are willing to do that or are at the point where they have agreed to put aside their differences and work together to get their region into a better spot.

TAPPER: OK. But that doesn't really answer the question, with all due respect, of what needs to be done.

SANCHEZ: Well, what needs to be done is that we need to get buy-in from all of these countries, first and foremost. Otherwise, we're going to have the same problem we're having in Iraq. We're going to have the same problem that we're having in Afghanistan.

I don't believe that we should be there if that's the case. If these countries cannot sit down and get their act together with respect to this, we have no business being there.

TAPPER: You seem frustrated by the process. You noted that the vote was yesterday, while the hearing was today. Do you think there's a rush to war here? Are you colleagues, is the Obama administration giving this enough consideration?

SANCHEZ: Look, certainly, we're in an election time. Some people want to get back to campaign.

But we have got seven weeks now. We're leaving early. We're leaving tonight. We could have stayed. We could have stayed over the weekend. We could stay next week, as we're supposed to be here still on the 1st of October. So, yes, I do believe that this is a rush.

TAPPER: A rush to war?

SANCHEZ: By any other -- you know, a rose by any other name. I believe that we are getting ourselves into another war.

TAPPER: Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: Thank you.

TAPPER: And now I want to turn to senator Bob Corker, Republican from Tennessee. He's the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

You just heard your colleague from across the Capitol there saying there's a rush to war in the Congress right now. Do you think that's fair?

SEN. BOB CORKER (R), TENNESSEE: Not really, Jake.

I don't think there's a plan. I think there's been a rush for the president to appear to be addressing this ISIL threat, but it's evident to me that really don't have the pieces put together. The hearing yesterday was just very clear that that's the case.

And on this arming the moderate opposition, I have been a longtime supporter of making that happen. We have tried to push the president towards that back at a time when the efficacy of this would have been much greater.

But I think that they have done is, on this one little element which is, you know, clearly not the way we're going to have a ground effort in Syria that really matters, they are trying to take this little thing and make it look like it's a really major component of what it's going to take to deal with ISIL.

So, it's all kind of convoluted. I think it's, unfortunately, mostly being done for optics. And I do hope at some point, they get serious about giving us the details of how we are going to deal with ISIL so that the planning and the cooperation and the operations match the rhetoric that they have laid out, which was laid out really to address the American people's disdain with what is happening over there.

TAPPER: Senator, if you were commander in chief right now, would you send in U.S. combat forces?

CORKER: Well, you know, here's what I would not do.

I wouldn't say that we're never going to do that. I just think that we know that the Joint Chiefs have recommended special ops. We know that. In some ways, we kind of have boots on the ground. I know they are not necessarily in combat positions in Iraq.

But I think, if you're serious, if you say the kind of things that he said on television a week-and-a-half ago and then his Cabinet members continue to repeat, I don't think you say all these things that are very strong rhetoric, but then have all these caveats about what is not going to happen. So, it just makes it all appear, Jake, not very serious. Look, I

don't want to see boots on the ground. At the same time, when you're sitting down and laying out how you're going to defeat an enemy like this, you don't start caveating everything. So I just think this whole thing, to me, I hate to say it, has not been very serious.

TAPPER: A top leader of the Free Syrian Army who will be armed and trained by this package wrote a letter yesterday indicating that they will use U.S. aid not just to fight ISIS, but also to fight Syria's Assad's regime as well.

Do you think your colleagues know that, that they are voting to give money to people who are not only going to fight ISIS, but they're going to try to get rid of Assad?

CORKER: Well, I think, look, Jake, I have been to these refugee camps. I met General Idris right across the Syrian border in Turkey, who was the first general there that we were -- quote -- "supposedly supporting."

We never did support him the way we said. We have left the Syrian people out to hang. We have allowed them to be butchered and slaughtered. We encouraged them and yet, again, never followed through. And so the rallying point to them is, they want the freedoms that Americans have and they want to overturn Assad because we had no Syria policy because the administration was just...

TAPPER: Right.

CORKER: ... had no policy.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: No, and I get that, Senator.

CORKER: But my point is, of course, they are going to fight Assad. My point is, that's the rallying. That's the reason they are doing what they are doing.

They're not doing it -- the base reason is Assad. So, I would think anybody who is paying any attention to this at all would understand, that's what is driving them. While they are on the battlefield, they are having to deal with this other element, but it's Assad that they care about.

TAPPER: All right, Senator Bob Corker, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

CORKER: Thank you.

TAPPER: Coming up, a plot to behead random civilians foiled in a country with close ties to the U.S., the chilling plan to spread ISIS- style terror beyond Iraq and Syria. Could the U.S. be next?

Plus, she radioed for help, and she was never heard from again. The desperate search mission under way right now for a police officer swept away in a flash flood here in the U.S., and more rain is on the way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

We're going to continue with our world lead right now. The threat from the Islamist terrorists of ISIS, a plot said to be inspired by ISIS to behead more innocent people. Not on their knees in the desert but in the streets of one of our closest allies.

Authorities raided a number of homes in Australia rounding up suspected ISIS supporters and accusing them of planning to mutilate randomly selected victims. Australian's prime minister said that they wanted to fulfill a nightmarish vision of a senior ISIS figure who is calling on supporters to spread the ISIS message through so-called demonstration killings.

Here is CNN's Ivan Watson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As the Obama administration works to gather up an international coalition to combat ISIS, a key American ally, Australia, announced that it foiled an alleged homegrown terrorist plot that Australian authorities say was linked to the ISIS militant group.

Predawn raids across Australia's largest city, authorities are calling it the country's biggest ever anti-terror operation in this country. Armed with dozens of search warrants, Australian security forces detained at least 15 suspects. The Australian media reporting disturbing details, the suspects allegedly planned to film the public beheading of a random individual and then drape the body in the black flag of ISIS.

ANDREW SCIPIONE, NSW POLICE COMMISSIONER: This is of serious concern right at the heart of the communities we have people planning to conduct random attacks and today, we've worked together to make sure that that didn't happen. We have, in fact, disrupted that particular attack.

WATSON: Among the suspects detained, a man named Omarjan Azari, who appeared briefly in a Sydney court, charged with a terrorism-related offense. He did not enter a plea. His neighbors shocked that a suspected terrorist lived next door.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I never thought I will see anything like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's actually quite frightening. My heart is actually pounding.

WATSON: Prime Minister Tony Abbott says he believes at least 60 Australians are fighting alongside ISIS and other militant groups in the Middle East. He's repeatedly voiced fears these Australian jihadists could pose a threat if they ever come home. Australian intelligence revealed ISIS was urging homegrown sympathizers to carry out attacks in Australia.

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Quite direct exhortations were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to network some support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country.

WATSON: Last week, Australia raised its threat level to high for the first time in the country's history, warning a terrorist attack is likely. On Thursday, the Australian prime minister addressed Australian troops that are about to deploy for what he described as combat operations in the Middle East. He argued that by fighting ISIS in Iraq, they would be protecting Iraqi people and by extension, protecting the people of Australia.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: CNN's Ivan Watson, thank you so much.

When we come back, it was supposed to be a relaxing beach vacation until hurricane Odile slammed into a hotel a young couple was staying. And now, four days later, they are still missing.

And later, yet another NFL player accused of domestic abuse. The father of his alleged victim speaks out, saying he begged NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for help and got nowhere. Will more victims now come forward?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.

The national lead now, as heavy rains and mass of flooding move across the southeast at this hour, a California family is begging for answers about their loved ones, an American couple still missing after Hurricane Odile hit the Pacific coast.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH VASQUEZ, MOTHER OF MISSING AMERICAN WOMAN: Please let us know. We are desperate to know whether they are safe or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Lisa Vasquez and her fiance David Arden (ph) were vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, when the hurricane hit.

Lisa's last contact was a text message to her parents moments before landfall on Sunday. It read, "Mom, I can hear the wind now. I hear all kinds of things hitting the building." Since then, her parents have called, e-mailed, and texted with no response. The situation in Cabo remains dire with phone lines down and limited access to resources.

The remnants of Odile are bringing more rain to already water-logged Texas and more flooding could be in the forecast. The wet weather is closing roads and endangering lives.

Overnight, a Travis County deputy's car was swept away in a flash flood as he checked on the road crossing. Her empty patrol car was pulled from the water this afternoon.

Joining us on the phone to discuss this is Roger Wade, a public information officer with the Travis County sheriff's office.

Officer Wade, thanks so much for joining us.

Can you walk us through what exactly happened last night?

ROGER WADE, TRAVIS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE (via telephone): It was a very harrowing experience. The deputy called in, said that she was being swept down the creek in her patrol car just before 2:00 this morning when rescue units arrived, they found a submerged car. They had to wait for the water to go down in order to get to it. And then they found that she was not in the car. We have been frantically searching since then to try to find her downstream.

TAPPER: And these are -- she was conducting what are routine checks for a situation like this?

WADE: Yes. Every time we get heavy downpours of rain, we know that some of the local water crossings will flood. We have our deputies go out and check those.

And the rural parts of the county, especially because a lot of them don't have arms that come down or barricades to block them. We go down and check those to make sure nobody is in the water and if there needs to be barricades, that we get barricades out to them.

TAPPER: For people who are not familiar with Lubbock, Texas, or with the area, is this common places or is this a scene you've never seen before?

WADE: This is not as unusual as you would think. And it didn't get as much rain in this instance as we did during the Halloween floods last year where several people perished. The creeks rose so fast in that one that people actually swept away before they could even see where they were on a lower crossing or not. There wasn't as much rain this time and it was just nothing but 5 inches of rain in particular areas.

TAPPER: Well, that sounds horrible. Roger Wade with the Travis County Sheriff's office in Austin, Texas, thank you so much. And best of luck in the search.

Coming up next, he has a long history of abuse, including several arrests, but that did not stop the Arizona Cardinals from signing this running back after the Ray Rice scandal broke. So, how did the team respond today after we started asking questions?

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