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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Police: Gunman Killed Himself After Rampage; Jeb Bush Speaks At CPAC; Should Airlines Stop Underage Fliers?; ISIS Shown Destroying Artifacts In Iraq
Aired February 27, 2015 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: -- working theory now on possible motive?
SGT. JEFF KINDER, MISSOURI STATE HIGHWAY PATROL (via telephone): You know, we are examining a lot of different avenues now. You know, I hadn't heard that, but you know, I guess that probably is a motive, but that -- you know, it would be speculation for us to say that was the case.
TAPPER: Was this man on the radar of anyone in law enforcement before this killing spree?
KINDER: No, sir, not to my knowledge. We didn't -- we had had no dealings with him other than what the sheriff said years ago, he may have had some minor criminal incidents. Other than that, he wasn't.
TAPPER: The shooter was related to at least a few of the victims. This is a very small town. Is this family known for causing problems of any sort?
KINDER: No, sir. This particular family, they were respected within the community and you know, it's a shock to everyone. Nobody could ever anticipate this coming.
TAPPER: As Kathy told us just a few minutes ago, there was a victim who thankfully was able to survive the rampage. Is law enforcement able to talk with her yet?
KINDER: Yes, sir, I believe they talked with her at the scene last night, and she was able to give them some information and was able to point them in the right direction.
TAPPER: There are six separate crime scenes in a town of just about 50 people. Does your community have the resources for an investigation or does the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the organization you belong to, but also just the state in general, need to provide assistance?
KINDER: What actually happened was the Texas County Sheriff's Department called us and asked us for assistance. We assigned several road troopers to that and also several criminal investigators, who were there processing crime scenes and providing assistance there. So we were well covered there. We brought them in from different areas of the state, but we were able to overcome that problem. TAPPER: Lastly, sir, I can't even imagine, eight people dying, seven of them being killed in a situation like this, but especially in a town of 50 people. It must really, really shock everyone there because everybody knew everybody else. How are people coping?
KINDER: You know, everybody's in disbelief now and like you said, they are shocked. They will all, you know, just have to take care of each other, but it has shocked this community to its core. You know, we will just have to work our way through it.
TAPPER: Sergeant Jeff Kinder, thank you so much for talking to us. Our thoughts and prayers are with the community there.
KINDER: Thank you, sir.
TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, a rather chilly reception from a conservative crowd. Not long ago, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush wrapped up his big speech to his conservative base. Let's just say it took him a little while to warm up the room. Could this be a sign of the response he might get when it's time to win votes? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. We're back with some breaking news right now. Votes are coming in on the House floor in the balance, funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which will run out of money at midnight if this measure currently being considered does not pass in all likelihood.
It would put thousands of workers critical to keeping America safe temporarily out of work if it does not pass. We will come back to that in a second.
Also in politics, it is day two of the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside the nation's capital. Republican presidential hopefuls have been lining up hoping to rally the base, get some traction heading into 2016.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker seemed to be the breakout star yesterday even after having said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKER (R), WISCONSIN: I want a commander-in-chief who will do everything in their power to ensure that the threats from radical Islamic terrorists do not wash up on American soil, but we need a leader with that kind of confidence. If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Yes. You heard right. That was the governor of Wisconsin comparing a group of pro-union Americans including teachers protesting budget cuts to gang of terrorists who behead innocent people. Though to be fair, Governor Walker did try to walk that back, saying he was not comparing the two, just drawing from his experience.
Today, it was establishment favorite Jeb Bush's turn on the stage. Let's bring in CNN senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar live from the conference. Brianna, how did the former Florida governor fare today?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Jake, he did very well considering he's not a favorite of the right wing of the Republican Party.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR (voice-over): Jeb bush's appearance at CPAC began with a small group of people walking out as he took the stage. But Bush faced down one of his biggest vulnerabilities in a race for the Republican nomination, defending his stance on immigration.
JEB BUSH (R), FORMER FLORIDA GOVERNOR: There is no plan to deport 11 million people. We should give them a path to legal status where they work, where they don't receive government benefits, where they don't break the law, where they learn English and where they make a contribution to our society.
KEILAR: Applause followed, though, some of it no doubt was from supporters bussed in by Bush's PAC, according to a spokesperson who added they purchased their own tickets to the conference. At CPAC you won't find many moderates on the issue of immigration.
JACOB PRITCHELT, CPAC ATTENDEE: This is a tough crowd for Jeb Bush because this tends to be the more conservative part of the Republican Party.
KEILAR: But Bush rejected being labeled a centrist, emphasizing his views on a number of issues key to conservatives like same sex marriage.
BUSH: I believe in traditional marriage.
KEILAR: Abortion.
BUSH: I'm pro-life.
KEILAR: And marijuana.
BUSH: I thought it was a bad idea, but states ought to have the right to do it.
KEILAR: And he distanced himself from his family.
BUSH: If I get beyond that and I run for president, I have to show what's in my heart. I have to show that I care about people, about their future. It can't be about the past. It can't be about my mom and dad or my brother.
KEILAR: But many here at CPAC are looking for a new name.
SEBASTIAN TORRES, CPAC ATTENDEE: I think he's just another Republican honestly and part of the royal family, two royal families, the Clintons and Bushes.
KEILAR: Earlier in the day, an audience waiting for libertarian CPAC favorite, Rand Paul, showed their disdain for the establishment pick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jeb Bush, any supporters?
KEILAR: But Bush urged skeptics not to write him off.
BUSH: For those that made an ooh sound, that what it was, I'm marking them down as neutral. I want to be your second choice if I decide to go beyond this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: Maybe some wishful thinking there, but when Jeb Bush's interviewer, Fox News host, Sean Hannity, asked him to describe what kind of conservative he is, he said he's a practicing reform-minded conservative.
Certainly stood in contrast, Jake, to what Mitt Romney said in 2012 when he said he was conservative -- or pardon me, severely conservative. You see Jeb Bush really trying to outline his brand here today.
TAPPER: Into the lion's den he went. Brianna Keilar, thank you so much for that report.
In our other big political story today, where is my countdown clock? Thank you. There it is. We have seven hours and change until the Department of Homeland Security runs out of money. This is all, of course, over attempts by the House Republicans to strip funding for the president's executive action on immigration reform.
Here are some live pictures of the House floor. The Senate voted already on what's called a clean DHS funding bill. Now it's the House's turn. Joining me from Capitol Hill is CNN chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash. Dana, what's going to happen?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that it's great that we have that countdown clock, but it looks like it might not be needed because even though we are only a few hours away from the deadline, midnight tonight, when the Department of Homeland Security will run out of money.
If you look at the House floor right now, they are voting on a measure to keep it funded for three weeks. That is a far cry from what you just talked about that the Senate did earlier today, to actually fully fund the department through the end of the fiscal year as it is supposed to happen.
But House Republicans are holding back saying that they are not going to do that because they are still committed to at least trying one more time to find a way to include in any kind of funding a way to stop or at least mitigate the president's plan on immigration to allow millions of undocumented immigrants to stay in this country.
So that's why you are seeing on the House floor them at least do a three-week stopgap to make sure that the department doesn't run out of money. If you look at the vote right now, and it is ongoing, what is an interesting dynamic is that Democrats so far are overwhelmingly voting no.
Now, it's not that they don't want to fund the Department of Homeland Security. They just are voting no in protest to doing it in a short term way instead of actually fully funding the department.
We will see if they are actually need to keep the department going, if they do maybe they will throw a couple votes the Republicans' way.
TAPPER: All right, we will stay on top of the story and bring you the final vote when it happens. Dana Bash, thank you so much.
In our Pop Culture Lead, he will forever be Mr. Spock. The Vulcan first officer of the starship "Enterprise," but Leonard Nimoy had a personal mission to save humankind. How his life will be remembered next here on THE LEAD.
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TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. In the Money Lead today, we are taking a serious look at airlines and whether they have a responsibility to try and stop this pipeline of young potentially brainwashed westerners trying to get to Syria to fight with ISIS.
We saw the latest example today with Canadian authorities looking for at least four teenagers who may have flown to Turkey in a bid to join the terrorists.
Our aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh, joins us now. Rene, why aren't these kids because that's what they are, setting off any alarms?
RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDEN: Well, Jake, this is a serious question that's happening right now
within the aviation industry. You mentioned the Canadian teenagers and there are also the three U.K. teenagers, ages 15 and 16, who flew to Turkey with plans to fight for ISIS.
They were unaccompanied and raised no red flags. Now some are calling for airlines to step up its role in how it screens unaccompanied under-aged passengers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARSH (voice-over): The three British teens boarded a Turkish airlines flight from London's Gatwick Airport to Istanbul, Turkey before anyone noticed, they were gone.
GLEN WINN, AVIATION SECURITY CONSULTANT: They just managed to get tickets and get on an airplane and fly there and have since disappeared.
MARSH: Turkey has become a gateway into Syria for westerners looking to join the fight with terrorists. Western intelligence agencies say dozens of minors have traveled to Syria. Each airline determines rules for unaccompanied minors.
No laws are on the books, but industry guidelines say children aged 5 to 12 have to travel with airline assistance and be known to the crew, but unaccompanied teens older than 12 do not have to register with the airline.
Questions are now being raised about whether airlines should be more vigilant about screening underaged passengers, who are traveling alone and headed to destinations that are known territory for groups like ISIS and possibly stop them before they board the flights.
WINN: They have to have the destination and a person that's going to meet them at the destination point. Also could be required that the airlines have to provide an escort for that person once they exit the airline at the termination point and make sure that they meet the right people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARSH: All right, well, you know, if this keeps on happening, meaning these unaccompanied minors hopping on planes to go to these countries to fight for ISIS, one industry insider told me today perhaps we could see some action in which they tweak those guidelines.
TAPPER: Or legislation. Rene Marsh, thank you so much.
The Pop Culture Lead, Vulcans pride themselves on being emotionless but it will be hard for Vulcans not to shed any tears for the legendary actor and director, Leonard Nimoy.
He is in separable from his character, Spock, in the Star Trek TV series and movies. Nimoy's family says he died this morning in Bel-Air, California from lung disease.
He was very outspoken about the dangers of smoking in his final years. About a year ago, Nimoy joined Piers Morgan here on CNN and talked about how Mr. Spock's famous symbol and motto were born.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY NIMOY: My favorite episode was called "A Mock Time." In that episode we heard the words live long and prosper for the first time and we saw Spock do this for the first time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Today, Nimoy's longtime friend and onscreen partner, William Shatner, Captain Kirk himself, released a statement on Twitter saying, quote, "I loved him like a brother. We will all miss his humor, his talent and his capacity to love." Leonard Nimoy's final tweets may wrap up what so many are
feeling about losing him today. Posted on Sunday, it says, "A life is like a garden, perfect moments can be had, but not preserved except in memory. Live long and prosper."
President Obama also released a statement today thanking Nimoy for helping make nerdy cool. Leonard Nimoy was 83 years old. He lived long and he prospered.
The Holy Bible dates back centuries, but are the stories passed down truly accurate? How new discoveries could change the book forever.
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TAPPER: Welcome back. I'm Jake Tapper with our Buried Lead today, new videos from ISIS show the terrorist group toppling and destroying works of art that are thousands of years old and irreplaceable at the Mosul Museum in Iraq.
ISIS claims it destroyed the items because people looked to them as idols, but that's of course twisted reasoning when you tell the terror group that's selling some of the looted antiquities on the black market.
The artifacts and new treasures like them inspire the beliefs of billions of Christians and Jews around the world, and when new treasures turn up, it can deepen the mysteries of faith. CNN's Tom Foreman has more on how scholars sort out fact from forgery.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the center of faith for more than two billion Christians is a book pieced together over thousands of years from many scraps of parchment and papyrus.
A story of God, creation, Jesus and human history, and the Bible is still being intensely studied at places like Yale University where biblical scholars, Jewel Baden and Candida Moss, are poring over some of the earliest fragments.
CANDIDA MOSS, NEW TESTAMENT PROFESSOR: Here what we have is a beautiful copy. It's the Greek translation of the Hebrew bible.
FOREMAN: Some of these were produced within a few hundred years of the crucifixion. Yet already differing interpretations, omissions, and mistakes are apparent from one copy to the next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The amount of variation from original gospel to this is quite remarkable.
FOREMAN: So when a new fragment is discovered or an old one analyzed, how do researchers know it is an authentic part of biblical history? First, there is science. Carbon dating, the types of materials involved. JOEL BADEN, HEBREW BIBLE PROFESSOR: The papyrus itself, its age, there is the ink that is used to write which we can also analyze. If it's written in Bic pen, we know that's not going to do.
FOREMAN: The next test, history.
MOSS: You look at the handwriting and you try to match up the handwriting with the handwriting from other texts you know are from that period, then you look at the content and you say does this sound like the kind of thing that was written in this period.
FOREMAN: And lastly, there is provenance, the story of the fragments' original. That is becoming the trickiest part in a world where parts of ancient papyrus can be bought online and sold to collectors.
(On camera): Is it easy to fake this?
BADEN: It is increasingly easy to fake this.
FOREMAN (voice-over): And yet through all of that, new fragments are constantly being found, studied, authenticated or not.
(on camera): It's not inconceivable there could be a breakthrough text found some day that would radically change what we think of the Old Testament or the New Testament.
MOSS: It's not inconceivable. It's one of the reasons that scholars continue to look for texts.
FOREMAN (voice-over): That means the Bible you hold now may not be the same one your great, great grandchildren will read. Tom Foreman, CNN, New Haven, Connecticut.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: The new CNN original series "Finding Jesus" debuts this weekend. It blends science and archaeology possibly linked to Jesus. The series premieres Sunday night at 9:00 here on CNN.
Now to some breaking news on our Politics Lead, the House is voting for funding of the Department of Homeland Security. Let's go right to CNN's chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash. Dana, it looks like there may be trouble up there.
BASH: It is a nail-biter. Remember earlier in the hour, I said that Democrats are going to vote no unless they are needed in the end. They are need. They are trying to find votes right now, the Republican side just to keep the Department of Homeland Security open for three more weeks and they are not there yet.
You can see people scrambling on the floor and slowly, a couple of Democrats here and there have been going on the Republican side, but so far not enough for this to pass so it's a cliffhanger.
TAPPER: Thank you so much, Dana Bash. Wolf Blitzer will have much more on that coming up at the top of the hour. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. I turn you over to Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Live long and prosper.
