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Interview With White House Coordinator For the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk; President Biden Targets Gun Violence; Winter Storm; U.S. Forces Kill ISIS Leader. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 03, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're the reviewing the information, but still no word on how things would proceed federally as of now -- Victor, Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK. Omar Jimenez, thank you for the update.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Top of a brand-new hour. Good to be with you. I'm Victor Blackwell.

CAMEROTA: And I'm Alisyn Camerota.

A major winter storm is already crippling large parts of the country. Ice, sleet and snow stretch across more than 2,000 miles, and at least 260,000 customers are currently stuck without electricity.

More than 4,000 flights have been canceled today. And roads are icing over. We're getting reports of car accidents, jackknifed trucks and trees down.

BLACKWELL: A lot of his mess is happening in places that are not used to functioning through icy conditions. We're talking Memphis, parts of Arkansas, Texas. And this could be a problem well into the weekend.

CNN is covering every angle of this storm.

Pete Muntean is at Reagan National Airport outside D.C. Ed Lavandera is in Dallas. Meteorologist Jennifer Gray will bring us the latest forecast.

Pete, you're up first.

Bad day to fly. Bad day for travel.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Really bad day for travel, Victor.

This is the worst day for flight cancellations that we have seen in the last year. Look at the latest numbers from FlightAware, more than 4,800 flights now canceled nationwide. The last time we saw numbers close to this was during the big ice storm that hit Texas around this time last year.

This time, the storm is crippling airports from Texas all the way into the Northeast, including some of the mega-hubs for the airlines. Just look at the airport-by-airport breakdown, about 80 percent of all flights canceled departing Dallas Love Field. That's the headquarters for Southwest Airlines. About three-quarters of all departures canceled out of Austin. Two-thirds of departures canceled out of DFW, Dallas/Fort Worth. That's the biggest hub for American Airlines.

And about a quarter of all flights canceled out of Chicago O'Hare. The list goes on, Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio, St. Louis, where Southwest Airlines suspended operations just yesterday. A bit of good news here. Airlines are trying to proactively cancel these flights before folks show up in the airport, trying to avoid some of the frustration there and then getting stranded inside the terminal.

Also, airlines have imposed travel waivers, meaning you can rebook your flight even if you think you're going to be impacted by the storm completely free of charge. But we are not out of the woods here yet, Victor and Alisyn, about 1,100 flights already canceled tomorrow.

CAMEROTA: Pete, you're so right. It would be great if people could know before leaving home that their flight was canceled. That would be huge progress.

Thanks so much for that, Pete.

Now let's go to Ed Lavandera in Dallas, Texas, where some people have been on edge after last year's ice storm that completely, we remember, overwhelmed the state's power grid.

Ed, have they fixed the problem since then? And is there any chance this could happen again?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: To as you know people are on edge is to put it mildly, given what so -- millions of people experienced last year with those power outages that lasted several days.

Nearly 250 people died in that winter storm just almost a year ago back in February. And whether or not they have fixed the problem here of the power grid in Texas is still very much up for debate. Republicans here in Texas have said that a lot was done in the last legislative session to fix the problem.

But many of the critics say it is really kind of like window dressing that -- what was done. The bottom line is, right now, the power grid here in the state of Texas seems to be holding up rather well. The governor of Texas this afternoon says there is plenty of power to get through this storm. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The power grid is performing very well at this time. It shows that there is plenty of power available at this time, as well as plenty of power expected over the remainder of today and early tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: So, as you heard the governor there allude to, the peak of this isn't going to happen until tomorrow morning, but, so far, all indications are is that most people will be good.

That's not to say that there are not people without power in the state, about 54,000 customers across the state without power right now, Alisyn and Victor. They say that a lot of that has less to do with the power grid than just power lines being knocked down or trees falling on power lines, more isolated local problems, not necessarily a problem with the grid.

But, clearly, the experience that millions of people in this state had last year is affecting how they're thinking about what's happening here today.

BLACKWELL: It was horrible, horrible for the people there.

LAVANDERA: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Hopefully, the grid holds up.

Ed Lavandera in Dallas, thanks so much.

Let's now get your forecast.

CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray is here with us.

All right, who's going to get it and when?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Victor, we have winter storm alerts stretching all the way from South Texas all the way up through Maine.

[15:05:00]

And this is not only going to last today. We're going to see huge issues tomorrow as well for some of the big cities along the I-95 Corridor. Add to that a tornado watch on the south side, and that just proves how Putin the system is.

The problem with this one is the slow movement of it. You can see how incredibly slow it's moving. Those shades of purple and pink, that indicates freezing rain and sleet. So, with a typical system, you would only see a couple of hours of this. With this slow moving system, we are seeing 12 or more hours of freezing rain and sleet.

And that is just creating huge problems, including big cities like Memphis. We have seen a lot of ice in places like -- Cincinnati has seen a lot of it as well. On the backside, we have incredibly cold temperatures. So people that have lost power could be without power for several days in brutally cold temperatures.

You can see 18 in St. Louis. We're seeing temperatures in the single digits across portions of the Dakotas, very cold windchills for tomorrow morning. And then, as this progresses to the east, we're going to potentially see a lot of icing in places like Boston and Pittsburgh tomorrow. Those are going to be two cities we need to watch out, for sure, before this thing finally wraps up, guys, by Saturday.

CAMEROTA: OK, we will brace ourselves,

Jennifer Gray, thank you.

BLACKWELL: The global leader of ISIS is dead after U.S. special forces raided a building in Syria overnight, an operation that was months in the planning.

Today, President Biden said the death of al-Qurashi, also known as Hajji Abdullah, sends a message to terrorists across the world. Biden also detailed what happened during that raid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last night, operating on my orders, United States military forces successfully removed a major terrorist threat to the world, the global leader of ISIS.

We do know that as our troops approached to capture the terrorist, in a final act of desperate cowardice, he -- and with no regard to the lives of his own family or others in the building, he chose to blow himself up, not just with a vest, but to blow up that third floor, rather than face justice for the crimes he has committed, taking several members of his family with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: U.S. special forces also killed a lieutenant of the terror leader after he barricaded himself on the building's second floor.

CNN senior international correspondent Arwa Damon joins us now from Istanbul. As you know, she has spent years covering the war in Syria.

So, Arwa, tell us more about this ISIS leader and the significance of this.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, he took over after the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He has long been close to the senior ISIS leadership, even before he ended up taking over the entire organization.

He's also believed to have played a significant role in the horrible mass killing, kidnapping, rape, sale of Yazidis back in 2014, and more recently also believed to have orchestrated the attack that happened on a prison complex in Northeastern Syria, an attack that ended up lasting for days, when hundreds of ISIS fighters stormed that prison, an attack that the U.S. ultimately also did need to get involved in.

Now, what does this actually mean for an organization like ISIS? Look, as we have seen time and time again, these organizations just get new leaders who come in, they grow, they morph, they adapt.

One thing to point out, though, about al-Qurashi himself, as opposed to al-Baghdadi, is that he didn't necessarily have that personal charisma or that pull that al-Baghdadi did. And so the organization was perhaps struggling in that sense when it came to getting more recruits, especially when it came to getting more foreign recruits.

It is worth noting at this stage, though, that ISIS has yet to acknowledge his death.

CAMEROTA: Arwa, thank you very much for all of that context.

BLACKWELL: All right, let's turn now to Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. He was also in the Situation Room with the president as this operation against the ISIS leader happened.

Thank you so much for being with us.

Let's start there in the Situation Room. Give us, as it's called, the color. We understand that there were some very tense moments. Describe what happened.

BRETT MCGURK, WHITE HOUSE COORDINATOR FOR THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA: Well, thanks so much for having me, Victor.

Of course, the president was involved in this operation really over the course of many months. We developed the intelligence over the summer. The president got his first full operational briefing in December, about six weeks ago.

And, really, just focus on the complexity of this operation, because Hajji Abdullah, the ISIS leader, this is a guy who was, as Arwa just mentioned, instrumental in a genocide against Yazidis, killing tens of thousands of people. And, here, he kind of took cover, surrounded by families, some of whom were unwitting of who the resident was on the third floor.

[15:10:02]

So, in that first briefing in December, we went through in exquisite detail what would have to take place in order to do all we possibly could to care for those families on the first floor. And, as the operation unfolded, of course, last night, the president, all of us, we knew step by step, what the plan was, how it was supposed to proceed.

And I have to say it did proceed almost exactly according to plan. Of course, one helicopter had a mechanical malfunction, and that was taken care of, but very early in the operation, the family on the first floor came out, were taken to safety. And then, of course, we had the explosion the third floor, which was

Hajji Abdullah basically murdering his family and threatening the lives of everyone else in the building. But, fortunately, we were able to -- 10 civilians from this house were taken to safety and our forces just performed magnificently, exactly as the plan have been developed over many months.

BLACKWELL: Yes, the deaths of any civilian is always tragic, but, as you reiterate, that those were the result of the blast from his explosions, not from U.S. gunfire.

Let me move here to the significance. We have heard from our analysts and reporters that, as I described it earlier, ISIS leaders are like shark's teeth. When one drops out, another one just moves up.

So, as it relates to the strengths, operationally, how much does this elimination really mean to the organization?

MCGURK: Well, Hajji Abdullah from this house was running day-to-day operations and overseeing the entire global organization through couriers and liaisons, including his lieutenant who was killed after barricading himself in the second floor of the house last night.

So this will be a significant blow. Look, it's true, they will name somebody else. But this ISIS organization, not long ago, it controlled eight million people in a caliphate, and was conducting attacks all around the world. It has significantly degraded.

But nobody here who works on these issues is taking a victory lap. In fact, our intelligence community is collecting what was taken off the compound last night. There will be surely be follow-up operations to make sure that we can continue to degrade this network.

The president mentioned our partners in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces. We are there to make sure that ISIS cannot reconstitute and do all we can to protect our homeland and the homelands of our partners.

BLACKWELL: So, let's talk about that.

We saw just about a week ago an ISIS attack on that prison in Syria, also attacks in Raqqa, attacks on military in Iraq as well. Are we seeing a resurgence of ISIS?

MCGURK: Well, Victor, it's a good question.

I wouldn't call it a resurgence. We do see sporadic attacks. Of course, the attack on the prison facility was quite significant. And the Syrian Democratic Forces, in coordination with our forces, were able to respond to that.

But there's one reason that we have a small number of U.S. forces with a coalition on the ground in Syria, and trainers, advisers on the ground in Iraq, so that we can make sure that ISIS really cannot resurge, cannot reconstitute.

And we saw last night the professionalism and dedication under the command of the president and our military team, just what they can do. And make no mistake. Whoever ISIS names after Hajji Abdullah, he is sure to meet the same fate.

BLACKWELL: You mentioned the SDF, Syrian defense forces.

Are the SDF, the Iraqi government, Kurdish fighters, are they equipped well enough coordinating in some cases well enough to prevent that reconstitution, resurgence without U.S. troops going in to do it again?

MCGURK: Well, again, U.S. troops -- very rarely do U.S. troops go and conduct operations like this.

Of course, last night was a unique circumstance with the leader of ISIS. We are there really to train advise, really not in a combat role day to day. And I think that that is going quite well with a coalition of over 80 partners.

This was a coalition, of course, that was put together during the Obama/Biden administration. And now it's carried forward over three administrations. And I think it's been a bipartisan success, and we're determined to see it continue.

BLACKWELL: All right, Brett McGurk, thank you so much for your time.

MCGURK: Victor, thank you.

BLACKWELL: All right.

A source tells CNN that the U.S. has new intelligence about a possible false flag operation in Russia. Now, the source says Moscow has been preparing a fake propaganda video that would in turn help justify why Putin would invade Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: This same source says the U.S. believes the officials already hired actors to pose as corpses or Russian victims in mourning.

Russia's ambassador to the E.U. denied any Kremlin involvement in such an operation when speaking with CNN's Christiane Amanpour,.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand is following the story for us.

So, Natasha, where would this video, this false flag video with fake actors and explosions and everything, where would this had been distributed and seen?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: You know, it's a great question, Alisyn. And we don't actually know the answer to that.

The administration officials that we spoke to did not outline the way that this would be distributed. And it's a great question, because it remains to be seen whether the mainstream media and the West in particular would actually pick up and carry this video, knowing that it is propaganda, knowing that it is unlikely to be a trustworthy.

[15:15:04]

The other option, of course, is that it's just uploaded to social media and it wreaks havoc there and it takes on a life of its own. We just don't know.

And the administration officials did tell us that there is no evidence that this video has actually been made yet. What they have is intelligence that Russia was planning and taking all the steps that would be necessary to actually make the video.

That includes, as you said, hiring these fake actors, staging explosions, kind of making it seem as though Ukraine had conducted a provocation against Russia. And Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby outlined in detail what that video might have looked like.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: As part of this fake attack, we believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations, as well as military equipment, at the hands of Ukraine or the West, even to the point where some of this equipment would be made to look like it was Western-supplied Ukrainian -- to Ukraine equipment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: So this is part of a series of disclosures that the U.S. and its allies have made in recent weeks to try to blunt the impact of any potential Russian provocation that would justify, in its mind, an attack on Ukraine.

They say that Russia has been planning a number of scenarios to justify, to create a pretext for that invasion of Ukraine, because, of course, it's been building up those forces on Ukraine's border for months, sparking fears of a renewed invasion -- Alisyn, Victor.

CAMEROTA: OK, Natasha Bertrand, thanks for explaining that.

Well, President Biden announces new steps to combat gun violence in the U.S., calling for enhanced training and funding for police and saying -- quote -- "The answer is not to defund the police."

BLACKWELL: Plus, a resolution calling for the expulsion of GOP lawmakers Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican Conference has been watered down by the RNC.

We have got some new details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:23]

BLACKWELL: President Biden announced new steps to combat gun violence across the country. He emphasized the importance of getting rid of ghost guns and stopping illegal gun trafficking.

He also-called on Congress to, in his words, do its job and pass legislation that could save lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: It's enough. Enough is enough, because we know we can do things about this, but for the resistance we're getting from some sectors of the government and the Congress and the state legislatures and the organizational structures out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: CNN law enforcement analyst and former acting Police -- Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Barksdale is with us. Also, Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins is here as well.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here.

Commissioner, I want to start with you.

One of the things that President Biden is zeroing in on are these ghost guns. These ghost guns are privately made, very hard to track. How does law enforcement even begin to go about getting those off the street?

ANTHONY BARKSDALE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, you're going to have to have an enforcement component, whether it be federal with local agencies or just federal alone and local alone.

But you can focus on where violence is occurring in a community. You can deploy there. You can work to street. You can make Title 3 wiretap cases on perhaps those making these illegal weapons. It can be done. And this speech today was a sign that we're heading in the right direction, after watching too much violence continue in the United States.

BLACKWELL: Chief, I know that there is no singular cure here. There's no magic wand.

But is this primarily a problem that can be fixed with more personnel, with legislation changes, with more money? What's your thought?

ERIC HAWKINS, ALBANY, NEW YORK, POLICE CHIEF: I think it's all of the above.

What we have learned over the last 30 years or so is that it really will take a comprehensive, holistic approach in order to address these.

And what I was so pleased to hear from the president today is that he really conveyed the idea that we have to address the root causes of some of the violence in our communities, mental health and substance abuse and extreme poverty and education, lack of opportunities for kids. And so we really have to address this in a lot of different -- from a

lot of different directions. And, clearly, enforcement is a piece of it, but also addressing and really identifying and addressing the root causes of violence.

CAMEROTA: Chief, one more question to you, because your city of Albany and you have been touted as having some success with bringing down violent crime.

I believe that the number of victims of gun violence has gone down since last year and the year before in your city. So what's made the biggest difference?

HAWKINS: Community engagement.

We have learned over the years that law enforcement law can't do it. There are so many issues associated with crime and violence and social disorder in our communities.

And so what we really understood early on is that we needed our community to help us. We needed our community to be involved in the planning and the strategies involved in fighting crime in our communities, because they're involved in it.

And so we have got great community involvement. We have great partners in this area in terms of our law enforcement partners, and our officers have just done a whale of a job in getting out there and addressing what's happening.

BLACKWELL: Commissioner, the obvious concern, and for some communities real palpable, acute fear, is that being more aggressive on ghost guns and illegal guns means more aggressive policing and overpolicing, often of communities of color.

[15:25:10]

Is there any evidence that more departments like the one in Albany, that they are learning how to do one without doing the other, that they're getting better at it?

BARKSDALE: I think there is evidence.

I mean, we can just look at New York. Mayor Adams and Commissioner Sewell are talking about going back to plainclothes policing. But they're saying there are corrections that need to be made in how this is done, from the technology used, the body cameras, to tighter supervision.

We also see that in Baltimore, where it is tighter supervision on plainclothes. The worst thing that can happen is that any police chief says, just go get them. Just go into those communities and lock them up.

We cannot afford that in the U.S. at a time like this. And, actually, we should have never had it in the first place. But people like Chief Hawkins, seeing how it's done, bringing in the community, while at the same time deploying against the criminals in the right area at the right times, can change the pace of violence.

CAMEROTA: Chief, the numbers that President Biden was talking about are staggering; 316 people a day are shot in this country; 106 are killed.

And then there's what's happening with police officers. I mean, six NYPD officers have been victims of gun violence just this year. We're only in February. I think there have been seven officers across the country killed, 28 injured. I can only imagine -- OK, 29 injured.

I can only imagine how hard it is to keep your officers working, I mean, to -- and to find good people and to recruit good people. How much of an effect is this having on your force?

HAWKINS: Well, it's tough emotionally, because these young men and women out here are really going through a lot right now.

We understand that changes needed to be made in law enforcement. We understand that there needed to be a reimagining and reform movement. But we also understood that there's a lot of good in law enforcement that needed to be preserved.

And so we're trying to recruit and retain these young men and women who understand that. And when there's this idea that there is an assault on police officers across the country, and that individuals are emboldened to attack police officers, it has an impact.

But we have some very bright and enterprising and conscientious young men and women who are in this profession and who want to come into this profession. They get it. They understand that this is not everybody.

And it's been said before. We have got to make sure that we address those individuals who are committing this sort of violence, that we have a precision-type approach in terms of identifying them and taking them off the streets.

And that's what we want. And, at the same time, we will continue to motivate our young men and women and let them know that this is still an honorable profession, and there's still a lot of people who support them.

CAMEROTA: Yes, great points.

Thank you both so much, Commissioner Barksdale, Chief Eric Hawkins. Great to talk to you.

BARKSDALE: Thank you for having me.

HAWKINS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: OK, as you all know, former President Trump is obsessing about the past election. Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is already strategizing for the next one.

What this means for the GOP heading into the midterms and then 2024. BLACKWELL: Plus, Rudy Giuliani -- I can't keep a straight face.

CAMEROTA: I know. You can't even read this.

BLACKWELL: Rudy Giuliani on "The Masked Singer." So many questions. I want to know the costume. That's what I want to know, and the song.

We will try to make sense of it -- no promises -- next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)