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New Twist in Road Rage Case; Battling ISIS; Bill O'Reilly Under Fire

Aired February 20, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, hour two with me here on CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Right now, an international manhunt is under way for those three teenage girls who are feared to now be headed toward ISIS-controlled territory. We have pictures of them. I want you to take a good, close look. They're young, young women here.

These are women the U.K. now frantically trying to find, one of them 16, the other two 15 years of age, bags in tow. They were last seen boarding a plane from London to Istanbul. And now we can't say for sure at this stage whether these girls are planning to join ISIS, but, you know, context-wise, this definitely bears the hall marks of recruiting we have seen right here in the United States.

A couple examples, a few months ago, those three teenage girls from Colorado were intercepted at Frankfurt Airport in Germany trying to make their way to Syria to join ISIS. Then there was that other woman from Colorado. She's now facing four years in prison, arrested heading to Syria to marry an ISIS militant she met online.

CNN's Nima Elbagir is following this for us from London.

Nima, so two 15-year-olds and a 16-year-old, what more do we know about them?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Scotland Yard has now told us that they are on their way to join another friend of theirs who successfully evaded capture by police back in December. Two other teenage girls from the same part of London back in December were responsible for a plane being stopped on the runway here in the U.K. after it had become begun taxiing, I should say, on its way to Istanbul.

The police managed to get one girl off the flight, get her home safe to her family. The second girl was friends with these other three, is believed to have made it into Syria. So you have the concern already of what could be a broader network, but also the ability of girls in Syria to remain in contact with those back here in the U.K.

The worry for Scotland Yard is only growing because they say this is a trend that is growing, Brooke. The numbers are extremely concerning, the counterterror operation commander told us. And it doesn't look like it's something that they're getting a handle on any time soon. The only way that they're trying to work through this is through the parents. They're asking parent to remain vigilant.

But as the minutes and the hours go by, time is ticking for these girls. They're believed to still be in Istanbul, but for how long?

BALDWIN: Nima Elbagir, thank you. We know your watching.

Also, we're watching this, new video just in from the front lines of the war on ISIS, the battle in a town nine miles from an Iraqi air base where some U.S. 400 military personnel are based posted by ISIS. This is a video that shows the militants using -- you see them -- armored vehicles, these Humvees, heavy machine guns. And it also includes graphic pictures that appear to show a number of Iraqi security forces killed during this battle.

Let me be clear. CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of this video. But that's what you're looking at, we believe. Meantime, the United States has done something that has a lot of people questioning. This is a revealing piece of its own war plan, an official laying out the framework of an offensive to retake Iraq's second largest city from ISIS control.

U.S.-trained Iraqi forces, as many as 25,000 of them, preparing to launch attacks to win back the key city of Mosul in Northern Iraq.

Let's talk about this with Brigadier General Anthony Tata, retired U.S. Army, deputy commanding general of all coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and author of "Foreign and Domestic."

General, nice to have you on. Welcome, sir.

BRIG. GEN. ANTHONY TATA (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Great to be here, Brooke. Thank you.

BALDWIN: First, just we shouldn't forget the reason ISIS is even in Mosul. We know Iraqi troops abandoned their posts and just ran essentially when ISIS arrived. How confident are you, sir, that the Iraqi army can retake, can rise to the challenge this go-round?

TATA: Well, it's important to note, Brooke, that ISIS wants Mosul specifically because it's got a power generation source. ISIS is establishing all the means of a nation state.

They have got oil revenue that's going to Turkey. They're making about $2 million a day. They want Mosul. They want to control that northern -- northwestern tier of Iraq as a logistics hub and to have a power generation capability with the lake there. And, you know, they probed -- they probed Al Asad air base, and they had gotten inside the wire.

So they're a serious threat to Iraqi forces, to coalition forces, and as we look at the plan going forward, I'm glad that we have got a plan. I'm not glad that we're actually openly discussing what that plan might be.

BALDWIN: That's my next question, General. Listen, I talked to some experts last hour. They said, listen, Brooke, this would have leaked eventually. But maybe it wouldn't have. I mean, why is this out there in the public sphere that CENTCOM is saying we're going in and we're going in, in the spring?

TATA: Yes. You know, that's a mystery that we would be giving something away like this.

When you want to fight an enemy, the first thing you got to do is define that enemy. And it's a good thing that we're trying to neck that down. This is Islamic extremism. They are ISIS. They know who they are. We know who they are. We have got to get after them.

And why we're talking about this publicly, I'm not real sure. Perhaps it's part of a campaign, information campaign to say, hey, we're coming to get you. But as an operational commander in combat, it's much better to keep your plan secret, to protect your forces, protect your troops, and to surprise the enemy both strategically, tactically. And so if indeed we are coming in the spring, that's a good thing, but it's not a good thing that we're openly discussing it right now.

BALDWIN: OK. OK. Let me play some sound, sir. This is Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich. He was talking to CNN about U.S. troops. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOHN KASICH (R), OHIO: At this point in dealing with ISIS, you mark my word, whether John Kasich, you ever hear from him again, at some point it will require boots on the ground from the world to be able to deal with this problem. And I would rather we will do it sooner than later. But you just don't go running over there.

You have got to have a bad plan. You have got to figure out exactly what you're going to do. But I would never suggest that we should engage in nation-building or trying to convert all these people to our way of life. We need stability and we need to stop this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Listen, General, this is a conversation we have certainly had for many months. You know, should there be ground troops, U.S. ground troops or not? You heard Governor Kasich, and I would love to have you weigh in on that.

TATA: Yes, Brooke. Really what we're talking about, they don't have to be our boots on the ground. We need all the infrastructure that we have got from an intelligence and a communication standpoint.

That's what's important from a U.S. characteristic standpoint. And we have advisers on the ground. What's really important here is to leverage all of our elements of national power. We have political power. We have diplomatic power. We have economic power. We have information power. And, yes, we have military power.

And it's the synchronization of all of those. Think back to the first Gulf War, when we had about 40 nations, many of them Arab, lined up on the border to retake Kuwait. That's the kind of finesse that we need here where you're leveraging all those Arab nations to come together, to work together to defeat this enemy that is bleeding over throughout all of the northern tier of Africa and into Turkey.

BALDWIN: They would like more than that. Brigadier General Anthony Tata, thank you, sir, for your expertise. I really appreciate it.

TATA: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Just ahead here on CNN, a new twist in the road rage case involving that mother shot and killed. The suspect, we watched this unfold this time yesterday live on our air. She knew him. This information just 24 hours after the dramatic standoff.

Also ahead, Bill O'Reilly, he's firing back after accusations that he exaggerated his own experiences in war, the media outlet making those accusations' response live next.

And breaking now, after a judge put the president's executive immigration action on hold, the Obama administration heading back to court for another round. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Just in to us here, it appears the White House will be fighting a ruling again the president's executive action on immigration. The Department of Justice saying it will seek an emergency stay against the ruling by a judge in Texas. He put immigration programs under the president's executive order on hold.

Our justice correspondent, Evan Perez, is with me now from D.C. with this news.

Tell me what's happened.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke.

We expect the Justice Department will file this request for a stay by Monday. Now I must say this is something of a long shot because they're going to ask the same judge that just made the ruling just earlier this week to basically put his own order on hold and allow the Homeland Security Department to continue to prepare to implement the president's executive order.

This Islamist executive order that protected about five million, up to five million illegal immigrants from deportation. Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, addressed what the strategy here is. Here's what he had to say

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: In addition to the stay that we do anticipate will be filed on Monday at the latest, the U.S. government will be appealing the decision. And the reason for that is we continue to believe that there's a solid legal foundation for the steps the president has taken to bring some accountability to our broken immigration system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: You know, Brooke, this is something of an uphill climb for the administration, to be honest, because not only do they have to ask the judge for permission to continue to prepare for this, but then they they're going to appeal to the Fifth Circuit, which is in New Orleans, and is considered a very conservative court.

In the end, what they're going to ask for is for the court to give an expedited hearing for their appeal. They're really up again the clock here because the Obama administration, obviously, the president, his term ends next year. And they're hoping to try to implement this before he leaves office, Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Evan Perez, thank you for the update in Washington.

Coming up here, this tense standoff with this road rage suspect in Las Vegas. I mean, that whole thing unfolded for an hour yesterday. We were all watching. Now we're getting our first look at this young suspect's photo here. This is the mug shot, as we learning about another twist in this case that left this mother of four dead. We have that for you.

Also, Bill O'Reilly firing back against these claims he exaggerated some reporting in a war zone. But are these allegations comparable to the Brian Williams scandal? Is that a fair comparison? Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: FOX News' Bill O'Reilly's firing back after this report in "Mother Jones" magazine claiming that he exaggerated his reporting experience while at CBS News while covering the 1982 Falklands War in Argentina.

Let me play first for you, this is what O'Reilly has said on FOX News about some of his war experience in Argentina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O'REILLY, HOST, "THE O'REILLY FACTOR": That was a situation once I'm in a war zone in Argentina in the Falklands where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete, and the army was chasing us.

I had to make a decision and I dragged him off, you know. But at the same time, I'm looking around and trying to do my job. But I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: "Mother Jones" magazine claims O'Reilly was hundreds of miles away from the fighting and not near any combat. In an interview with Howard Kurtz, O'Reilly said about the author of the report -- quote -- "David Corn is a liar, a smear merchant, and will do anything he can to injure me and the network."

He goes: "Everybody knows that. Everybody -- everything I have reported about my journalistic career is true."

Let's dig into this.

Joining me now is Monika Bauerlein. She's the co-editor of "Mother Jones" magazine, and also with me is our senior correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES" Brian Stelter.

Welcome to both of you.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Monika, let me just begin with you.

How did "Mother Jones" begin to know about the possibility of a story in O'Reilly's background? How did this come to you?

MONIKA BAUERLEIN, CO-EDITOR, "MOTHER JONES": This has really been discussed for years.

There have been stories over the years challenging Bill O'Reilly's assertions about some of the things he says he has seen and done. But it became relevant in the wake of Brian Williams and in the wake of Bill O'Reilly lashing out at Brian Williams and everybody else in the media for distorting coverage.

That prompted us to take a really close look at what he has said about his own work.

BALDWIN: OK. More questions for you, but, first, Brian Stelter, I think this is so different from Brian Williams' story for multiple reasons. Just the roles they play on the shows, the opinion, obviously on FOX News Channel, especially at night with Bill O'Reilly.

And I'm wondering because he says it, I'm bloviating, right? That's kind of an O'Reilly word, that people -- do you really think his viewers care?

STELTER: I don't think his loyal fans necessarily will care.

They will view this as an attempt by "Mother Jones," a left-leaning magazine, to come after O'Reilly and try to take him down. But the facts are the facts. And the facts are that it does seem like O'Reilly exaggerated his tale about being in Argentina and having covered that conflict in the Falkland Islands.

Yes, he was in Argentina, and yes, there was a riot. And yes, he was present for the riot. But there are some questions about whether you could really call that a combat situation and really call that a war zone. I think "Mother Jones" is on to something when they pointed that out.

But is it going to change people's minds? I don't think so. I think what Williams and O'Reilly have in common, I think they're the number- one people in their respective groups. O'Reilly is number one on cable news. Williams is number one on network news. But network news is so different. And Williams is so different than O'Reilly.

I would be surprised if we saw this become a weeks-long crisis for FOX the way it has for NBC.

BALDWIN: OK. With regard to his experience in the Falkland War and some the exaggerations that, Monika, you and the magazine have been pointing out, I just want to play some sound. This is Frank Sesno. He used to be with us at CNN. He was a Washington correspondent some moons ago, and he is the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.

He was there. And I want to just play his experience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK SESNO, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: We never got anywhere near it. I covered the war from Buenos Aires. There were demonstrations. There were some disturbances that he talked about. I never saw troops open fire in a big way on crowds.

This can be scrutinized on, but I just don't think that this is on a par of the issues, the exaggerations, and the trouble that Brian Williams is in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Monika, let me have just you respond to with these exaggerations that your magazine have been pointing out, what response if any yet have you gotten from Bill O'Reilly?

BAUERLEIN: We asked Bill O'Reilly to explain what he said. We sent e-mail after e-mail and called before we published the story.

We thought, well, maybe there's something he wants to say about it. Maybe there's a perfectly logical explanation for having said he was in the war zone, when he was in fact in been Buenos Aires. And we never heard back from him. But within about 30 minutes of when we published our story, he was talking to other multiple reporters, calling David Corn garbage and an assassin and calling for him to be in the kill zone.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: That threatening nature. I understand Brian Stelter was telling me this is what he covers day in and day out. He was saying, you all have asked for an apology. Have you gotten it?

BAUERLEIN: We have not heard back.

BALDWIN: OK. Brian Stelter, any final thoughts from you?

STELTER: Well, that's FOX 101. It works very well sometimes to be on the offense like that going after someone like David Corn. He used to be a FOX News contributor. And now he's a contributor at MSNBC. So, some might paint this as a simple network rivalry. But if you look at the substance of the matter, O'Reilly said some things that aren't quite true. He said he was at Falkland Islands. He wasn't. And I think we should underscore that. Is it a career-ending offense? No, it's not going to be a career-ending offense for Bill O'Reilly.

But it is something that is going to deserve scrutiny. And I wonder if there will be other stories people are going to bring up about other conflict zones he was in. I'm not saying there's anything out there now, but that's what we thought with Brian Williams. There was one story and then there was another and then there was another.

BALDWIN: All right, Brian Stelter, we will see you Sunday morning, sir.

And Monika Bauerlein with "Mother Jones" magazine, appreciate your time. Thank you.

BAUERLEIN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: We are also now getting our first look at the young suspect in the apparent road rage murder. Las Vegas police just released Erich Nowsch's mug shot. The 19-year-old faces murder and two other charges in connection to the shooting death of his neighbor, Tammy Meyers.

The young man was taken into custody after a police standoff that played out live on the show this entire hour this time yesterday. As it unfolded, the victim's husband confronted police, confronted reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT MEYERS, WIDOWER OF TAMMY MEYERS: There's the animal a block away! Are you happy?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was around this time.

Ana Cabrera is there outside the police department in Las Vegas.

What really struck me, there are a lot of questions, a lot of dots that have yet to be connected on this. But we have seen the mug shot. He's obviously very young. You have taken a look at the police arrest report. Tell me what you're finding out.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We just got our hands on this arrest report within the last hour.

I just had a chance to finish reading through. We did learn several new details about what happened, and as well as why police believe Nowsch is the suspect in this case. We learned there were two separate shooting scenes in which detectives were able to find 17 different shell casings. And as you read through these documents, the story becomes a little

bit clearer. Apparently after Tammy Meyers left the family's home with her 22-year-old son in the car who had grabbed his gun, and they were leaving after the initial road rage confrontation, when they encountered this additional vehicle for a second time on the road, that's where shots were initially fired.

However, it's still unclear if shots were exchanged or only fired from the suspect's vehicle. Now at that time, Tammy Meyers and her son raced back to the house. That's when they were followed apparently by this second vehicle, and shots were fired again, ultimately where Tammy Meyers was shot and killed.

We understand Nowsch's name came up pretty early in the investigation, although the arrest report doesn't specify who said his name. Then they interviewed him. He was already in custody on an unrelated warrant apparently. And at that time, he denied having any knowledge of this shooting and said he was with a friend at a recording studio. That friend later said that was false. He wasn't with me.

Now detectives interviewed a couple other friends of Nowsch. They told detectives that Nowsch admitted to the shooting and he even showed them the gun that was involved, a .45-caliber handgun. And that was the big clue into Nowsch being their prime suspect. Nowsch also told his friends that he was a passenger in that vehicle.

Presumably, this other person police have said they are still looking for may have been the driver of that suspect vehicle -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: We heard from Theresa (sic) Meyers' husband also later yesterday. He was saying, listen, she tried to help him. She tried to feed him. So, there's more connection there, it appears, than we knew before. Ana Cabrera, thank you very much in Las Vegas.

A bodybuilder goes from lifting weights, working on his six-pack -- this is according to him to -- to going overseas to fight with ISIS, going to Syria specifically. His family is baffled. Next, people who knew him quickly explain how he became an extremist and why.

Plus, a bill is on the table in Oklahoma that could ban A.P. American history. And some lawmakers say the particular class portrays some of America's history in a more negative light. Coming up, we will talk to someone who agrees with the bill and someone who does not. Stay here.

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