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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Stopping the Spread of ISIS Recruiting; South Facing More Snow and Ice; Is Scott Walker New Leader Of GOP Pack?; Ron Paul "Food Stamp" Comment Raises Eyebrows

Aired February 25, 2015 - 16:30   ET

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

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R), ILLINOIS: It depends. I mean, I can't say I have been in all those detailed negotiations but I think we need to send whatever is necessary. By the way, that, Jake, that includes to the Peshmerga forces. A quarter of a million forces in the Kurdish Peshmerga that are defending a 1,000 kilometer border with ISIS and we are also asking them not just to defend that border, but also now to make gains into ISIS controlled territory.

So, both the Iraqis and the Peshmerga need to be directly armed by us. And we have to ensure with the Iraqi military that we have strong leadership embedded with them, which probably includes American forces, American advisers, because, with strong leadership, the Iraqis will fight. When their leadership melts away, like we saw in Mosul, your average soldier may have been eager to fight, but, if his captain runs away, he is going to run away, too.

TAPPER: Obviously, recruiting has been a big issue. And the West has been stymied at ISIS' ability to bring in recruits. I want you to listen to something that Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier today about ISIS recruits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: It's not just kids from Britain. There are several thousand people from Russia. There are multiple hundreds of people from France, from Germany, from Australia. The Australians are in the targets now. This is a spreading cancer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: The State Department clarified Kerry's remarks, went on to say that the number of Russians in ISIS is in the hundreds, not the thousands.

But if you include former Soviet states, then the number easily exceeds 1,000. The three men arrested today from Uzbekistan and Kazakstan -- the Tsarnaev brothers obviously had family roots in Dagestan. In the wake of the Paris attacks, a lot of attention on Western Europe's ties to ISIS. Does intelligence have enough assets, enough language speakers to deal with the threat in Eastern Europe?

KINZINGER: I would say no. And I think this has been part of our problem, frankly. We learned

this on 9/11, that we rely too much on not HUMINT, human intelligence. And I think even in the last few years, we have seemed to shy away from that. Look, I support the use of drone strikes against terrorists, but sometimes when you do a drone strike against a terrorist, you are unable to capture him and get even more intelligence from that. You don't have the language speakers. That's always been a tough thing.

And so I think we need to step that up. We need to understand, look, military force is going to be important in this. Military force isn't going to solve all this problem. Intelligence plays an extremely important role in that. And, again, showing to the folks that would be bent towards this kind of jihadism that if you join ISIS, it's going to cost you your life, or at least, no matter where you are, your life is at risk.

People start making different calculations at that point.

TAPPER: Congressman Adam Kinzinger, thank you so much.

KINZINGER: Yes. Thank you.

TAPPER: A big part of this country is feeling the impact of yet another major winter storm. A strong system is racing across the South. Some of you could get almost a foot of snow, others dangerous ice. It's a region that is not really all that used to dealing with this kind of weather. So, how are the leaders in the South preparing for it today? We will find out next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

The national lead now. If you're from part of the country where you were raised to believe that cheese grits should be its own food group, then you are probably one of the 20 million people in the path of a dangerous winter storm sweeping through the south, from Texas all the way to Virginia. This map shows the huge swathe of the country being impacted. In total, 11 states will get a taste of the snow, ice, sleet and/or freezing rain, with as much as eight inches of snow predicted for parts of Georgia and North Carolina.

And while that might sound like more of a light dusting to you folks in, say, Buffalo, in the South, history has shown us that even a couple of inches can bring major cities to a complete standstill. Remember this nightmare on the highways in metro Atlanta the last time a snowstorm hit?

CNN's Nick Valencia has been on the road tracking the snow. He's live now from Rome, Georgia, just outside Atlanta.

Nick, let's talk about lessons learned from last year's snow disaster by the governor and the mayor of Atlanta. What are Atlantans and Georgians doing differently this time around? NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly some big lessons

learned from last time around. Jake, it's almost a complete 180 of what we saw in that first storm that came in late January, January 28, 2014, last year, where you saw those images that you just showed, the gridlock, the traffic jams, stories of people trapped in their cars for up to 10 hours, sometimes more.

I myself was even trapped in my own car for about four hours, stuck on the road in that snarled traffic. And you see out here on the road right now -- some in the Northeast that may be looking at this picture, they could potentially say it's a little bit laughable.

We just went through one of those storm systems. Some light snow flurries started and it picked up into some more steady snow, and you can see the remnants of what was left behind here.

The good part about this time around, Jake, is that the governor got out right in front of it, the mayor of Atlanta also in front of it, community organizers and leaders trying to get people off of the roads, making sure that that was emphasized. And that's so far what we have seen. We haven't seen really any problems on the road. We have seen traffic moving smoothly, as we have been about 35 miles or more outside of Atlanta.

And so far, looks to be pretty good out there right now -- Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Nick Valencia, thanks so much.

Both the governor of Georgia and the mayor of Atlanta, as I mentioned, took a lot of flak for a seemingly flat-footed response to last year's storm, but state and local officials say now they are ready. In an effort to avoid some of the gridlock we saw on Atlanta highways last year, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed put out a schedule of sorts to determine which residents should hit the roads today and when.

Governor Deal has also been doing some things to prevent what happened last year.

Meteorologist Jennifer Gray is live in downtown Atlanta.

Jennifer, Atlanta is not expected to get hit hard with snow, but it doesn't really take much there to wreak the kind of havoc we have seen in the past.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You are so right. You saw what happened last year and it only took a little bit. It definitely helped with the staggered schedule, sending people home. You didn't have the masses going on the interstate all at the same time like you had last year.

Suburbs north of Atlanta definitely got quite a bit more snow than, say, downtown along the I-20 Corridor and south. We are right in downtown. We are getting a rain/sleet mixture around 2:00, 3:00 this afternoon. We had some pretty big flakes falling. It only lasted about 30 minutes and now it is just sleet. The problem will be when the temperature drops, though, in the next

couple hours and overnight. That's when we could see some issues and some freezing on the roads. It's good that everyone is home.

Let's go to the weather maps, though, because I want to show you what's going on. It's not just Atlanta, but, like you said, it is all over the south. And anywhere from Dallas, say through Shreveport, along the I-20 Corridor got it earlier today. Now most of it in Northern Mississippi, Alabama and even North Georgia. You can see Kennesaw, Marietta getting quite a bit of snow coming down, even Rome, Georgia as well.

So temperatures are right on that line. There's a very distinct snow/rain line. Anything south of that, temperatures are obviously going to be above freezing, 34 in Birmingham right now, getting a little bit of a mixture, Montgomery 39, Greenville at 32.

Timing this out, this is going to push to the east over the next couple of hours. It's a fast mover, which is good news. We are going to see some trouble spots, especially in North Carolina as we go through the overnight hours into tomorrow. Places like Raleigh and right outside of Raleigh could see up to eight inches of snow, and you can remember, they just got hit pretty hard just a couple days ago.

This is the fourth winter storm in about 10 or 11 days, Jake, so the South has really been hit hard, of course, giving the Northeast a bit of a break, but the South definitely not used to this kind of weather.

TAPPER: All right, Jennifer Gray, thank you so much.

Today's politics lead now, a possible GOP front-runner well before the 2016 presidential race -- how Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may have turned so-called media gotcha moments into energy to create a campaign surge, plus what his boost could mean for others looking to jump into the race.

And before you book your next airline ticket, how some Southwest planes are able to fly without required safety checks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. The politics lead now, a poll released today could have big implications on the race for the White House in 2016.

It shows Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker doing quite well among potential Republican candidates in Iowa, a state that plays a key role in the presidential primaries. It's a surprising showing that underlines that this is really anyone's race.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER (voice-over): To Democrats and some in the media, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker may have had a rough couple weeks, but don't tell that to Republican voters in first in the nation caucus state Iowa. There, Scott Walker leads the pack with 25 percent in a new Quinnipiac poll.

GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKER (R), WISCONSIN: You've got to be crazy to want to be president of the United States.

TAPPER: This comes after a wild past two weeks with Walker sniping with reporters over whether he should be asked whether President Obama is a Christian or if that's just media gotcha about an issue few Americans are wondering about.

Walker is also demurred taking a position on evolution, which a lot of Evangelical voters will love, and unlike some of his Republican rivals, Walker did not take issue with Rudy Giuliani's assertion that Obama does not love America.

WALKER: We are going to talk about the things that matter to every day Americans and we are going to leave the nonsense to the media on the side.

TAPPER: That seems to be working for now. In a dead heat for second place, Senator Rand Paul at 13 percent, Ben Carson and 2008 Iowa caucus winner, Mike Huckabee at 11 percent. What about that guy that Walker seemed to be jabbing at this Nashville appearance?

WALKER: Unlike some out there, I didn't inherit fame or fortune from my family.

TAPPER: Jeb Bush is in fifth place with 10 percent. That's the race with 622 days to go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: It's 622 days to go. Let's bring in CNN chief political analyst, Gloria Borger and Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor of the "National Review." Gloria, are you surprised by how well Walker is doing?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, he gave a good speech in Iowa in late January that jazzed up the base, and since then, he has done very well with the base, as you say we in the media think he did not so well on the Rudy Giuliani thing.

But it doesn't matter, because he made it about us and that's always a good political strategy. What struck me in these polls is his low unfavorable rating, 7 percent, who has a 7 percent unfavorable rating?

TAPPER: I don't even have that at home.

BORGER: Exactly. So what this shows is that either people like him in Iowa or they don't know him very well.

TAPPER: Right. He is a new quantity. Ramesh, how much do you think, obviously this is just your gut, we don't have science on this, how much do you think his fights with the media in the last couple weeks have actually helped fuel this rise in the polls among Republican likely caucus goers in Iowa? RAMESH PONNURU, SENIOR EDITOR, "NATIONAL REVIEW": They certainly don't seem to have hurt him. If there were any group of Republicans that would be most likely to help him, it's Iowa Republicans. This is shaping up to be a very different kind of race than we have seen in the past.

There is typically a establishment candidate and conservative candidate. What's interesting about Walker is he does seem to have appeal across the Republican Party. That's one thing.

The second thing is usually the anti-establishment candidates, the field is split. This time, Walker has become a kind of anti-Bush candidate in a way nobody really did against Romney last time.

BORGER: You know, I was talking to a conservative who is predisposed to support Jeb Bush because he thinks Jeb Bush can win the presidency against Hillary Clinton, but he said to me look, you have to take Walker very seriously, because he can unify the Republican coalition on economic reform.

He's also shown he's got a spine when he came back in the state of Wisconsin, right? He won a recall which is unprecedented in American history. And also, social conservatives like him and he doesn't pound it into the ground, but they know where he stands.

So he said it's like a Rubik's cube kind of lining up all the colors at the same time and Scott Walker looks very serious out there.

TAPPER: I agree with that. He does look like a serious candidate. I want to get your reaction to this quote from Senator Rand Paul's father, former Republican presidential candidate and congressman from Texas, Ron Paul, in a radio interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL (R), TEXAS: I was always annoyed with it in Congress, because we had an anti-war official group, a few libertarian Republicans and generally the Black Caucus and others did not, they are really against war because they want all that money to go to food stamps for people here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's Ron Paul, not Rand Paul saying that members of the Congressional Black Caucus oppose war not because they oppose the wars, but because they wanted the money to go to food stamps here. This is going to be an issue for Senator Rand Paul.

PONNURU: But certainly doesn't appear as though former Congressman Ron Paul is doing everything in his power to help his son become president and comments like this coupled with a history of problems on racial issues are going to hurt Senator Rand Paul.

TAPPER: Abjectly --

PONNURU: But he's going to say that's my dad and I love him, but I'm not him.

BORGER: It's at the same time that Rand Paul is trying to broaden the chance, reach out to minorities --

TAPPER: He's going to historically black colleges and universities.

BORGER: Exactly, reaching out to minorities. I talked to John Kasich, who may throw his hat in the ring, and I asked him about Rand Paul. He said, you mean Ron Paul? He said, I always get them confused. His fellow Republicans will do it --

TAPPER: I'm sure he really gets them confused.

BORGER: Yes, right. I don't think so.

TAPPER: Thank you so much. Look who's here. Wolf Blitzer is here with a preview of "The Situation Room."

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, "THE SITUATION ROOM": We have a good show coming up. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is talking about the arrest of these three guys from Brooklyn right now.

Supposedly getting ready to go off to Turkey, sneak into Syria, hook up with ISIS if you will. We are talking about that. And Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is going to be joining us live as well. There's a lot of stuff going on.

TAPPER: All right, Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM" coming up in about 8 minutes. We'll be watching. Thank you so much.

In the Money Lead, it bills itself as a low-cost carrier, but are you sacrificing your safety to fly on Southwest Airlines? CNN is looking into why some planes can still fly despite not having gotten their required safety inspections in time. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Our Money Lead today is of particular importance to anyone who might have a ticket to fly on the nation's fourth largest airline. The FAA says Southwest Airlines can keep flying 130 of its jets despite having missed key safety inspections.

Please recall this is the same airline that grounded jets after a six- foot hole ripped open in the fuselage of one of its planes during flight not too long ago.

CNN aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh joins me now. Rene, I'm a fan of Southwest Airlines. My mother-in-law used to work for Southwest Airlines, but how can the airline still fly these planes if they need to be checked out?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know that because of this issue, 80 flights yesterday were canceled but today, the FAA is saying that they can continue to fly the planes if the issue is addressed in the next five days.

Now if you have a flight booked on Southwest, you are probably asking the question, how can this be safe if these inspections were not done? Is it safe to fly on this plane?

The bottom line is this is bad. An airline should not miss a routine safety inspection but you know, what it indicates is sloppy recordkeeping, potentially sloppy safety record, safety culture.

I want to kind of show you what we are talking about here. The system we are talking about is a backup system which essentially powers the rudder. This is the rudder here which essentially helps the plane to turn.

So again, not a primary system, a backup system, but the reason why aviation is so safe is because you have all of these redundancies. When you don't address and keep up to date with the backup system that kind of strips away a layer of safety. The bottom line is if you do have a flight booked on Southwest --

TAPPER: I do not.

MARSH: I'm glad because we need you here Thursday and Friday. But if you did, the FAA would not allow these planes to fly if they felt that this issue would cause a crash.

TAPPER: How is Southwest's safety record when it comes to complying with FAA regulations?

MARSH: Well, we can say I think that's the bigger story here, because they don't have a squeaky clean past as it relates to following federal safety regulations.

Just look back at 2006, the FAA is proposing $12 million fine for a compliance issue there dating back to 2009. The FAA fined them $7.5 million for missing inspections in that case.

So although they have a very good safety record, when you look at all of their flights, no passengers have died as a result of a crash, but you have a reputation, and it doesn't look good when you're getting fined for missing inspections.

TAPPER: Now they need to get on that. Rene, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Speaking of flying, just one month after their country was rattled to its core by a terror siege, the U.S. Secret Service is now assisting French officials in the probe over those mysterious drones that have been spotted hovering above Paris landmarks over the last two nights.

This stunning footage is not from one of those unmanned vehicles, but several drones were seen flying above highly sensitive areas such as the Eiffel Tower and also the U.S. Embassy on Monday. Just last night, police are trying to figure out if last night's drones are connected to the flights on Monday night or just copycats. Make sure to follow me on Twitter. Check out our show page at CNN.com for videos, blogs and extras and you can also subscribe to our magazine on Flipboard.

That's it for THE LEAD today. I'm Jake Tapper. I turn you over to one Mr. Wolf Blitzer, who is right next door in a place we like to call "THE SITUATION ROOM."