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Russia: MetroJet Plane Downed by Homemade Bomb; Cruz Defends Use of Religious Test for Syrian Refugees; Did Terrorists Use Gaming Consoles to Communicate? Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired November 17, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: -- and also a governmental role.

[06:30:02] And remember, just because you say your state doesn't want them, these people are accepted as citizens when they come, not full citizens but they have the rights of travel that all the rest of us do. So, they could simply go to a state anyway.

Complicated problem, Martin. Thank you for reporting on it.

We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, a global manhunt is going on for a Paris attack suspect. A stunning new details emerge about the alleged mastermind.

Also connected to this story: Russia confirming the downing of that MetroJet was done by terrorism. It was a homemade bomb.

We have details for you, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Russian officials confirming that the MetroJet passenger plane that crashed in the Sinai Peninsula was brought down by a bomb, a homemade bomb of one kilogram, about 2.2 pounds. They are offering a $50 million reward for information on who did it.

Meanwhile, here in France, the who-did-it answer comes down to a mastermind known to be in Syria, known to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, warnings went out about him.

[06:35:03] He was supposedly actively targeted for death but they could not find him in Syria in time to prevent what happened here on Friday.

Also, what happened in France, being felt in the U.S., certainly politically now with what to do with Syrian refugees? You have an overwhelming number of American governors saying they done the want Syrian refugees in their states.

So, let's take a closer look at the news here this morning. The big development, the Russian admission that it was a bomb that brought down that plane.

We have CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest joining us from Manila.

Now, Richard, it will not be a shocker to people to hear that a bomb brought down the plane but that it was homemade, it is recognized by Russia and now marshaling assets against who they believe did it, which seems to be ISIS, will have immediate impact. How do you see it?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely. That is exactly the point, Chris. According to the FSB, the Russian security services, they say it was roughly a kilogram of explosive, TNT. Fairly basic bomb but they found traces of those explosives on the wreckage of the aircraft.

And this in many ways is exactly what everybody has been waiting for. The Egyptians have refused to go anywhere near saying it was a bomb, saying they had to wait until the last possible moment before they would admit it. Now, Russia has said it was a bomb and that they called it to President Putin, a $50 million reward and they say they will search indefinitely for those ISIS people who were responsible.

But it does raise the very serious issue of how ISIS was able to pull off two daring, dastardly deeds in such a short period of time, bringing down a plane and the attacks in Paris.

CUOMO: Richard, what is the understandable explanation of why Russia took time in saying this was a bomb and why Egypt is so slow to coordinate the understanding of the same?

QUEST: Russia wanted the proof. Whatever else we may say, they need the hard evidence. They needed literally to find the residue. Only once you've got that, because at the end of the day, you've got to be able to hang your -- a peg to hang your coat and your hat on.

And now, they say they have it. Egypt, on the other side, of course, this is disastrous. At all sorts of levels for President al Sisi, it's disastrous because he came in as a strong man. Now, you have to question how this was able to happen. He has ISIS in the Sinai able to pull off such an act.

And, secondly, economically, the tourism industry. Remember right up until a few days ago, they were saying it was not possible for a terrorist to put a bomb on a plane at Sharm el-Sheikh airport. Now, the reality is there and there's got to be very hard explaining about the poor level of security that allowed this to take place.

CUOMO: So where do we look going forward? What needs to change because of this information?

QUEST: Well, in terms of the aviation industry, Chris, you really do have to look at all those airports worldwide where there can be vulnerabilities. Now, we've had CEOs of airlines like Emirates and EasyJet and frankly, every airline CEO that I have spoken to privately says the same thing. There are dozens of airports around the world which now need to be looked at where there could be security questions and vulnerabilities.

And the issue is, whose responsibility is it? Well, the airlines can only go so far. The west is going to clearly have to provide the resources, the money and the impetus for many of these airports to beef up the security, because if they don't, Chris, airlines will simply say, we are not sending our planes there.

Make no bones about it, the fact that this is a confirmed bomb has changed the scale and stakes in the aviation industry at many airports around the world.

CUOMO: Richard Quest, thank you very much.

What's going on no matter where it happens has created a much closer community in the world, everybody feels they are at risk for what happens anywhere else. We're seeing that in the United States, what happened here in France.

There are new questions about the reach of ISIS within the United States. There are new questions about how to deal with refugees. President Obama saying it is shameful and un-American to judge an entire religion or group of people based on the acts of a few.

But people like Senator Ted Cruz and governors from all over the country have a very different take.

[06:40:00] There's a much-need conversation to be had and we will have it here on CNN. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is defending himself against harsh criticism from President Obama for suggesting a religious test for Syrian refugees before they can settle in the U.S. Cruz responding with strong words of his own.

Dana Bash has been watching all of this back and forth.

You spoke with Ted Cruz here in Charleston, South Carolina, this morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Good morning.

Look, when you are running for the Republican presidential nomination and you are attacked in a not so veiled way by the president of the United States while he is abroad, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Senator, President Obama called you out when he was speaking in Turkey. And he said it was shameful for saying that there should be effectively a religious test for refugees, especially since you come from a family where there was political persecution and your family benefited from the policies of America, allowing refugees in.

[06:45:10] SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, you know, look, it's not surprising that the President Obama is attacking me personally. I'll tell you what's shameful is that we have a president who after seven years still refuses to utter the words "radical Islamic terrorism".

What Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are proposing is that we bring to this country tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees. I have to say, particularly in light of what happened in Paris, that's nothing short of lunacy.

BASH: What would have happened if your father was trying to get from Cuba to the United States and the political leaders here said, nope, we don't think so, because who knows, maybe you could be somebody who could, you know, commit crimes against America?

CRUZ: Well, see, that's why it's important to define what it is we're fighting. If my father were part of a theocratic and political movement, like radical Islamism, that promotes murdering anyone who doesn't share your extreme faith or forcibly converting them, then it would have made sense.

BASH: OK. But what about Muslims who are victims of the radical terrorists, who, you know, are taking their religion and hijacking it? What about protecting those people?

CRUZ: There is no doubt that millions of people are suffering from the rise of radical Islamic terrorism. Christians are suffering, Jews are suffering and other Muslims are suffering.

BASH: But you're saying Muslims shouldn't be allowed in the U.S.?

CRUZ: What I'm saying is Syrian Muslim refugees should be resettled in the Middle East, in majority Muslim countries.

BASH: You wanted to and want to continue to arm the Kurds and increase military strikes along with coalition partners. Is that enough?

CRUZ: Well, we need to start with a president that sets out a clear objective. We need a commander in chief who says we will defeat --

BASH: But if you were in commander-in-chief right now, what would be your clear objective?

CRUZ: If I were commander-in-chief or if I'm elected president, as commander in chief, I will say we will defeat radical Islamic terrorism.

President Obama is launching between 15 and 30 airstrikes a day. I've described this as a photo-op foreign policy. Actually, you like this, what I've said is they're launching bombs for CNN's credit, to show them on TV but not actually designed to take out ISIS. We need to use overwhelming airpower --

BASH: What about American boots on the ground in Syria?

CRUZ: You know, I think there are far too many politicians when it comes to boots on the ground, that are eager just to commit to boots on the ground to show how tough they are. I think the objective should be destroying ISIS and the question of the military tactics and strategy should be driven heavily by the expert judgment of our commanders and generals and admirals.

I've met with a great many, both active duty commanders and also retired commanders. And I believe that overwhelming air power plus arming the Kurds is sufficient to take out ISIS. Now it may well take some embedded Special Forces to direct some of that air power. But I don't think you should have politicians basically playing risk and saying, "I want to send in so many troops to show how tough I am." That's not how we should make these decisions.

BASH: Some of your competitors have said, the best thing to do right now is to invoke Article V of NATO, convene NATO allies and deal with it as an act of war on the coalition. Do you agree with that?

CRUZ: Listen, NATO may well go down that road. You know, President Obama recently said, we don't need American leadership. We don't need to talk about America winning.

What utter nonsense. Look, that sentence sums up everything that is wrong with the Obama/Clinton foreign policy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And as Senator Cruz told me that this week he is going back to the capital, back to the Senate and he is going to introduce legislation that will ban all Syrian Muslim refugees from this country -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Dana, fascinating interview there.

More now here from Paris and the developments on the terror attacks. Intelligence officials warning that ISIS appears to be able to plan attacks unnoticed. The new secret way that they're communicating with each other. Can law enforcement keep up with technology to fight the war on terror? We'll discuss that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:53:22] PEREIRA: There are growing concerns and questions about how ISIS plans to attack Paris on Friday, went undetected by intelligence officials. Experts say the terrorists have several ways of communicating that are completely under and off the radar.

Joining me now is Arik Hesseldahl. He's senior editor at Re/code.

Good to have you back here with us.

You probably heard that a PS4 gaming system was found in one of the raids in Belgium, leading some to believe that the terrorists could have been communicating through this PS4. That's a PlayStation4 gaming platform.

First of all, you think that's the case? B, is that possible?

ARIK HESSELDAHL, SENIOR EDITOR, RE/CODE.NET: Well, it's certainly possible. The evidence that a PS4 was involved in planning the plot as we know it is pretty thin. There may have been -- the reports are a little bit messy but there may have been a PS4 found in one of the raids. We're not 100 percent sure about that.

PEREIRA: Right.

HESSELDAHL: But what was a Belgian official was talking about three or four days before the attack. He was interviewed by "Politico". He said one of the places they have difficulty monitoring communication is on these game-to-game chats where you get together and, oh, let's go get those bad guys over here, I'll go this way. You go that way, or when, you know, thrash-talking in basketball game or whatever. And people can get on the messaging systems and talk about whatever.

So, it's just no more different than a chat app on a phone.

PEREIRA: Right. You say the bigger picture is the issue of legal future of encrypted communication. Things like iMessage. Things like WhatsApp. Many of us use that program to text with our friends. Help us understand that. Why is that less secure or more secure, I suppose, than a regular text message?

[06:55:03] HESSELDAHL: Right. So, a regular text -- well, it's the default iMessage for instance is the default text app on the iPhone and on the iPad.

PEREIRA: Right.

HESSELDAHL: And the way Apple and Google, they all have their chat apps. Facebook has WhatsApp. And they all generally view these apps as being encrypted. So, when I'm texting with you, it's going to be encrypted. There's no third key that can unlock that.

And even when the government shows up with a warrant and asks for a copy of that communication, the only thing that Google or Apple or WhatsApp can deliver to them is a block full of unreadable data.

PEREIRA: Unless they can crack that they're not forced to --

HESSELDAHL: They're not going to get anything.

PEREIRA: They're not going to get anything.

HESSELDAHL: What's going to happen and what has already really happened with these attacks in Paris, tragic as they are, it's going to reignite the debate as to whether or not government should have a back door. And the government --

PEREIRA: Well, because it brings up all sorts of security issues and privacy issues, right?

HESSELDAHL: Exactly, exactly. So, the way that the tech companies generally see this, I'll paint this in broad brush strokes. If you keep a third key that the government could use, where do you store it? Who holds on to it?

PEREIRA: Right.

HESSELDAHL: And once somebody has those keys, that becomes a great big target for some hacker to try and go after.

PEREIRA: Of course.

HESSELDAHL: So, it's a careful tension of liberty but also of privacy and also business concerns.

PEREIRA: I was going to say, it is the double edge sword.

HESSELDAHL: Yes.

PEREIRA: The fact is any of us, most of us do online banking now, that very encryption that keeps bad guys out of my account.

HESSELDAHL: Right.

PEREIRA: -- is the very type of thing that we're talking about, because on the flip side, that type of encryption is what's preventing law enforcement from getting at the communications of people that have nefarious plots.

HESSELDAHL: Right. And this has always been the case. I mean, way back on 9/11, I remember there were concerns about encrypted e- mail.

PEREIRA: I remember.

HESSELDAHL: We had this policy debate before. There's also -- terrorists take advantage of societal institutions. They take advantage of our infrastructure to plan their plots. And so, this is just going to be part of the way --

PEREIRA: OK, why does not -- OK. You tell me. Do you believe in the research you've been doing? Is law enforcement as aptly prepared and as savvy as, say, the "bad guys", quote, unquote? You know, it seems we always have to stay a step ahead of them or are we generally playing catch up?

HESSELDAHL: I think it's always a case of catch up. Communications migrate with terrorism, especially communication always migrates to places there's less surveillance. And so, I think there's going to be -- you know, wherever -- as the facts emerge in this case, I think the intelligence communities will have to relearn, you know, how they do gather their human intelligence. Intelligence gathering in law enforcement is always a human job.

PEREIRA: Sure it is.

HESSELDAHL: It's not so much a job without technology. We can't vacuum up communications.

PEREIRA: You can't ignore technology and this is evidence of it right here.

HESSELDAHL: You can't. They have to learn to penetrate these communities and figure out how 20 communicate.

PEREIRA: Arik, really good to see you. Thanks for walking us through this. I'm sure we'll be talking to you in the coming days, because this is not -- this is certainly not going away.

HESSELDAHL: Not a small thing.

PEREIRA: Not a small thing either.

All right. We're following a whole lot of breaking news today. So, let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: A doomed MetroJet flight was brought down by a bomb.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A one kilogram bomb.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a homemade explosive device inside the aircraft.

CUOMO: Intense round of air strikes overnight dropped about 16 bombs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The manhunt is on for the eighth suspected terrorist.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ISIS leaders may have been directly involved in planning the attacks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mastermind who has ties directly to the leader of ISIS itself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why can't we take out these bastards?

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We'll do what's required to keep the American people safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are some 11,000 jihadi suspects across France today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very surprised we haven't had this kind of attack in the United States yet.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CUOMO: To you in the United States and around the world, this is NEW DAY. Alisyn and I are in Paris, Michaela is in New York.

And we're following the latest developments in Friday's terror attacks.

Another ISIS attack also in focus: Russian officials confirming just hours ago, that will MetroJet flight that crashed in Egypt was in fact brought down by a homemade bomb.

CAMEROTA: Now, we are also learning that Russia has launched several air strikes, targeting ISIS in Syria. So, what do these attacks on Russia and France mean for the war on ISIS?

We have all the angles covered for you only the way CNN can. Let's begin with senior international correspondent Matthew Chance. He has the latest out of Moscow -- Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks very much.

Well, for the first time it's been acknowledged, confirmed that it was a bomb that brought down that MetroJet airliner, the Airbus A321, in October 31st, just last month, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian citizens taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai Peninsula en route back home to St. Petersburg.

The head of the Russian security sources, head of the Russian security services, Alexander Bortnikov, the head of FSB, the former KGB, telling Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, on state television that traces of foreign made explosives were found in parts of the fuselage.