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Ted Cruz Is First To Declare For 2016; U.S. Doing Enough To Protect Military?; ISIS Recruits And Pays Afghans To Join Syria Fight. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 23, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:12] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Remember she was an intern, all of what 20, 21 when this all happened, contextually that matters.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Sure. I mean, she's the face now for cyber bullying. She talks about this and I'm sure she is helping people. To hear somebody who went through it such a public way probably resonates.

CUOMO: She is helping other hopefully she is helping herself -- since Monica Lewinsky, you never see someone that young that, naive blamed for what happened with someone in position of authority.

PEREIRA: She owns her part in it. That's an important part of it too, right?

CUOMO: All right, one little bit of politics, but so much to discuss. So let's get to "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY with John King. Happy Monday.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Happy Monday, Chris, nice to see you back. Alisyn, Michaela, happy Monday to you. We turn a page today, with me to go inside politics, share their reporting and their insights, Jackie Kucinich of "The Daily Beast" and Lisa Lehr of the "Associated Press."

It begins today, we've had this unofficial campaign for a long time, but Ted Cruz today is going to make it official. He will be the first candidate to officially declare the candidacy for president. He is going to do down at Liberty University.

Jerry Falwell founded that school. It's an Evangelical college in Lynchburg, Virginia. Ted Cruz tweeted last night that he was going to run, finally a picture of an Iowa cornfield I think in that tweet. He has two videos online saying, I'm a candidate for president. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: I'm Ted Cruz. If you want more of the same, there will be plenty to choose from, but if you want real conservative change and a proven record, I hope I can earn your support.

ANNOUNCER: Ted Cruz for president. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So a little unorthodox, getting out ahead of his speech, which I guess is the new social media world we live in. Ted Cruz, yes, no? What do we make of this?

JACKIE KUCINICH, "THE DAILY BEAST": Everything Ted Cruz does, there seems to be a little mischief going on. We all know that Rand Paul is planning to announce in the next two weeks. Ted Cruz is kind of stepping all over that.

I think it's really interesting and there is a little bit of a rivalry there. He is trying to occupy a space, that is the anti-establishment candidate and you know, trying to beat out Huckabee, Santorum, Rand Paul and a couple others.

So it will be interesting to see what he does. Liberty University is an interesting space.

KING: A crowded space there, he's got younger voters that Rand Paul wants that slice so you go to the university, it's an Evangelical college. It is crowded on the right in this field. Is that a reason to try to get in early and say, wait, try to block some of the money maybe? I think Ted Cruz will have a fun raising challenge, because Speaker Boehner despises him. Leader McConnell despises him, a strong word, but that's true.

LISA LERER, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": Yes, I mean, I feel like the Republican primary is kind of like the "Game of Thrones" primary. He feels like getting out front, being the first to come out there. You can see the fundraising appeal is already in my inbox.

He thinks it can help him get some financial benefits. It will be rough. He certainly doesn't have the financial backing like more -- the folks more on the establishment side that Jeb Bush has. It's a really crowded field. He has Rand Paul pushing for libertarians. Here's Mike Huckabee trying to carve up the slice of Evangelicals.

He thinks he can kind of unite coalition of Evangelicals, Tea Party folks and libertarians and come out ahead.

KING: If you look at conservative media, conservative blogosphere, conservative buzz, the guy gets high marks and he has for a long time. He came to walk as a freshman center. He rode the Tea Party wave into Washington. Conservatives love him, not only because he opposes President Obama.

He has been out there saying repeal, defund, do anything to stop Obamacare. He fights his own leadership a lot even traveling from the Senate over to the House side to urge the Tea Party guys to fight Speaker Boehner.

But look at our polling, this is our polling going all the way back to 2013, 7 percent, 10 percent that's right after the government shutdown. Ted Cruz was part of the 16-day government shutdown over whether or not the health care law would pass and all that. You see, 10 percent there, then 7 percent, 5 percent, 4 percent. If he's so well-known among the conservative base and so well-liked for standing up against the president and his own leadership, why is Ted Cruz in the single digits?

KUCINICH: Ted Cruz doesn't usually have an end game when he stands up for these things. Nothing actually happens, he makes a fuss. It actually goes back to how it was. So you know the fact that he does kick up a lot of sand, at the end of the day, it's the same as always.

LERER: It's particularly interesting to look at where he travels in the mid-terms. He doesn't really go that many places. People weren't clamoring to have him. He did a couple races. He did Kansas, which he was funding support to Pat Roberts, who was running in the competitive primary sort of situation.

He didn't go to Colorado. He didn't go to these more middle of the states. I think there will be a real electability question once folks enter the general and Republicans want to win. They want a candidate that can go all the way.

KING: They want to win. Iowa has a history of taking somebody from the right. You saw Huckabee. Santorum last time there. It will be interesting to see that space on the right.

[07:35:06] I think his biggest challenge as he gets in officially is that a lot of even Republicans see him as a protester, see him as an opposition figure not as a president. I think that will be interesting to see if he can make that transformation.

As you noted, Rand Paul gets in on April 7th. I'm told Marco Rubio will likely to go the week after that. Now let's move to the Democratic side because we are waiting for Hillary Clinton's official announcement. We think that might come in April as well.

The "New York Times" with a story this morning on those e-mails, remember the Benghazi Select Committee on Capitol Hill has asked for Secretary of State Clinton's e-mails.

And "The New York Times" has a piece this morning talking about they were not able to see the e-mails, but the e-mails were described to them by four senior American officials. You can think hard and figure that one out yourself, I think.

But here we go, they did show that Mrs. Clinton's top aides at times corresponded with her about State Department matters from their personal email accounts raising questions about her recent assertions that she made it her practice to e-mail aides at their government addresses so the messages would be preserved in compliance with federal record-keeping regulations.

Lisa, this is going to be your beef and if you're a Democrat, you're a little nervous about this, again, she was using her personal account to e-mail top aides on their personal accounts. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the e-mails ever passed through a government server. Therefore, there is no guarantee they are preserved anywhere. LERER: Right, the fundamental problem with this story is that -- it sparks more questions than answers. So was she e-mailing people from her personal account to their personal account? What was she e- mailing about? Was she mentioning the foundation?

It can go on and on and on. It gives Republicans tons of questions to ask, to ask them with Benghazi in a formal congressional setting. That is not good for Secretary Clinton.

KING: Which is why Republicans from Speaker Boehner all the way down are saying give us your server, give us the private e-mail server. If you don't want to give it to us, you don't want us to issue a subpoena, give it to a retired judge, a retired inspector general, give it to somebody that the American people will say that's a credible person.

And let that person do the CSI on it. Will she be able resist pressure and will a Democrat at any point stand up and say, no, they are right, turn it over?

KUCINICH: Right now, she is resisting pressure. She can say these people are attacking me. Look at these e-mails, some of them were like please print to some of her aides or did we survive after she had that tough Benghazi hearing?

So I think until maybe some Democrats get involved, that's when you saw her come forward and do that press conference at the U.N., you had Dianne Feinstein saying she has to answer these questions, until you see top Democrats pressuring her release that server, I don't think she does it.

LERER: But with no real primary opponent when Democrats --

KING: That's the thing, Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland, has said I don't want to talk about it. He maybe an opponent, Bernie Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont may run for the Democratic nomination.

He says I don't want to talk about this. Let's close on that note, interestingly, we've all wondered Elizabeth Warren has said no, no, no, you get what I'm saying, no, but her hometown newspaper, "The Boston Globe" this weekend saying while Warren has repeatedly vowed she won't run for president herself, she ought to reconsider.

And if Warren sticks to her refusal, she should make it her responsibility to help recruit candidates to provide voters with a vigorous debate on her signature cause, reducing income and equality over the next year.

A lot of Massachusetts guys run for president, my first campaign was Dukakis. We had Kerry then we had Romney. Do they just need a Massachusetts candidate to fill the newspaper or is this a serious idea that? You know, don't give Hillary a pass, that's what they saying?

KUCINICH: I think a couple op-eds also supporting this. It wasn't like Senator Warren can win. It was like, no, no, give Hillary Clinton a challenge. You can be the sacrificial lamb. You're welcome.

KING: Go out there. You get chewed up. We need a better candidate. Alisyn, as we get back to you, it's finally official. Ted Cruz is in. It will be interesting to watch from here on out. You and I are a little struggling in the bracket, but we'll come back.

CAMEROTA: After my strong finish on Friday, I really had high hopes for the bracket that I know nothing about. They're razzing me over here.

KING: Cuomo moved into 3rd place. He's tough. He can't finish. He has Villanova.

CAMEROTA: I will let him know of your thoughts. John, thanks so much.

Well, no one's heard of them before so how real is a threat from a group claiming to be connected to ISIS, posting a so-called hit list of some 100 military personnel online. Our national security expert weighs in on that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:43:09]

PEREIRA: The Defense Department and FBI are looking into threats made a previously unknown group claiming ties to ISIS, the group calling themselves "Islamic State Hacking Organization." They released the names, pictures and even addresses of about 100 U.S. troops calling for attacks against them.

So we want to dig in to how real these threats are. We are going to bring in CNN national security commentator and former chair of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers. Mr. Chair, good to have you with us. We'll call you, Congressman, right off the bat, how much stock do you place in these threats?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Well, you have to take them seriously. We know ISIS that has an aspiration for events against military members in the United States because it has such a shock value.

We have seen in the past that they have used their ability to penetrate especially social sites that got on a DOD Twitter account a few months ago, if you recall that, and their goal again is to try to provide intimidation not only to the soldiers that serve but their families here at home.

So you have to take it very, very seriously. We know that they have elements in Syria and Iraq that have the capability cyber-wise to pull something like this off.

PEREIRA: Right. But the fact is that this wasn't nearly that sophisticated. Apparently, they accessed a lot of information that is readily available. We keep saying that they are previously unknown. Were they known?

Because I remember back in November, we were hearing, and we even told the story here on our air that military personnel were told to sort of stand down a little on their social media posting and to put more levels of security in.

ROGERS: Yes, exactly, and it's important to note. They didn't get in. They didn't breach any Department of Defense systems. What they did is they went out on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and other things and were able from all of that public information that's available out in the internet, pull that down to come to the conclusion and identify these 100 individuals with addresses.

[07:45:10] The dangerous part of this is, again, we are a social media society, these days everything goes up on there. That's why the military councils often about not putting personal information on there. People still do. They were able find it.

The concern is have they inspired someone here in the United States to try to act on this information? I think that's what the FBI's challenge is in the days and months ahead.

PEREIRA: But the fact is, we live in a particularly digital area. If you just even take social media out of the equation, there is so much information available about even you and I online, information on web sites like Zillow or any of the other public records so it's not so much the habits of the social media profile that is a concern here.

ROGERS: No, it's exactly right. I mean, this is this new cultural age of everything goes up on social media, and you have access to everything about everyone, and that makes it a little more dangerous. So these individuals we know in the past have tried to inspire people in Australia. It's worked in Canada and places in Europe.

They've even tried it here. This is a new level. So even though the group in itself by that name isn't known, the very fact that they can go out on what is public information and pull it together to try to inspire some danger is A, it's dangerous for the hundred people on the list clearly.

But it's also dangerous for those people who are vocal and open about trying to make sure that their opinions are heard on ISIS and other challenges around the world.

PEREIRA: Do you make a direct link from this group, this Islamic State Hacking Organization, who we haven't heard named before. We do know about the social media imprint and reach of ISIS, but do you link them directly to ISIS? Do you see cause for concern there?

ROGERS: I would believe that they have some nexus to ISIS. Again, this is probably some second or third order out of the social media attacks that you talked about that was covered on CNN a few months ago. This is probably that group and that's that loose affiliation of individuals likely to be in places like Syria and Iraq.

It could also be a group that is just trying to help out their fellow jihadists, if you will, like we saw the doctors who were in their last year of training going to Syria, which would make no sense to most of us.

But they're going to help the rebels. These folks could feel this is tear way to contribute to what they see is their philosophy coming true in Eastern Syria.

PEREIRA: So the big concern here is that this will inspire a sort of lone wolf or sympathizer here in the U.S. to launch an attack against men and women or a group of them in the military. How can the U.S. military protect its troops? What is the best course of action?

ROGERS: Well, it's important to know that we have cyber protections for the internal operations of bases and movements and troops and that they are constantly trying to make sure that those electronic communications are protected.

When you start getting outside of the physical support and security of the bases and what not, it gets a little dicer for the U.S. military. The best way for the military is to have disrupted activities where they find these cyber cells, cyber warriors, if you will, and take an immediate impact there as well as continuing on with a, coalition bill, a military disruption style into Eastern Syria.

Remember, they still believe that they're winning. We will see more of this, more empowered cyber warriors out there who decide they are going to take part in the ISIS campaign in a cyber-way. We will see more beheadings and marketing on social media about how they're sure terror and violence, and their commitment to their political cause.

The only way to do this really, Michaela, is to start disruptive activity in a way that doesn't allow them to get their message out and find them losing in the place that they think is their safe area, which is Eastern Syria.

PEREIRA: Mike Rogers, thanks for your expertise and for joining us on NEW DAY today.

ROGERS: Thanks, Michaela.

PEREIRA: Good to talk to you -- Chris.

CUOMO: Speaking of that terror threat, we have exclusive video that answers a confounding question about ISIS, how do they get people to join such a heinous cause? We will take you live to Kabul, Afghanistan, you will you see for yourself. Wait until you see how they work.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:52:59]

CAMEROTA: Now to this CNN exclusive, chilling video shows how ISIS recruits in Afghanistan. This is a wakeup call for the U.S. that ISIS is successfully expanding, this as Afghanistan's president prepares to meet with U.S. leaders in Washington. CNN senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh is in Kabul, Afghanistan with the exclusive -- Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A pivotal time for Afghanistan. You said the president will be meeting with Barack Obama tomorrow. They will be key talks about how assistance can be bolstered here and potentially an announcement that may discuss slowing of U.S. troop's withdrawal from here.

Perhaps because of rising violence and in the forefront the minds of many the clear evidence we are showing that ISIS are trying to get a foothold in Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH (voice-over): Where there has long been faith and war in Afghanistan serene hills, a new and modern plague has now come. You're seeing rare pictures filmed by our cameraman of what we are told is an ISIS recruitment session in Afghanistan.

Brothers, I'm here to tell you, the recruiter says, about the mujahideen in Syria. After a decade of war the Taliban is strong, but fractured and the U.S. is leaving.

The U.N. warns ISIS is getting a foothold in Afghanistan and this may be how. This Afghan says he's come back from fighting in Northern Syria and has won the five recruiters. His pitch is simple. Come fight true jihad for Baghdadi for a $500 wage.

Some listeners are driven. My aim is to fight infidels one says, in Syria, or if they ask me to, in Afghanistan, I will. Others unsure and just poor. I definitely need the money, but will stay here and hope peace comes, one adds.

There's a bit of theater here, ISIS application forms for them to complete on camera but also a clear message to angry young Afghans disillusioned with the Taliban's wars. There's now an even more ruthless choice you can make, ISIS.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[07:55:11] WALSH: You've seen the U.S. official telling me they are potentially concerned the disgruntled Taliban may look to ISIS for a different kind of ideology.

They're keeping a close eye on developments here, a key time for the Taliban potentially looking at peace talks in the months ahead and may leave some of their radical elements disgruntled and ISIS could step in there as a more radical alternative. Back to you, Chris.

CUOMO: Nick, thank you for showing us that. Really helps understand what's going on with ISIS. He was there in Afghanistan. You take that place, Iraq, Syria none may be as dangerous to you as Yemen.

The place is falling into civil war and that could be the least of your concerns. ISIS, al Qaeda, Iran, all seeing it as a potential home base and the U.S. is pulling out. What is next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)