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Erin Burnett Outfront

Ravens Knew Extent of Rice Incident Hours After Punch; Major Break in Case of Missing UVA Student; New Video Release By ISIS: Alibaba Pulled Off Biggest IPO in History Today; Wendy Davis Hoping to Become First Democratic Governor of Texas in 20 Years

Aired September 19, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next, breaking news, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell breaks his silence while a source tells CNN the Baltimore Ravens knew about the Ray Rice video the same night the runningback knocked out his now wife.

Plus more breaking news in the case of the missing UVA student. Police zero in on the person they say could be responsible.

And Alibaba's record IPO. The Chinese company raised more than $20 billion today. The stock jumped almost 40 percent so why are some saying run. Let's go OUTFRONT.

Good Friday evening. I'm Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, breaking news on the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. A source within the Baltimore Ravens organization tells CNN a Ravens' official knew that Rice knocked out his now-wife and knew that there was video evidence of it hours after the incident occurred.

That is stunning. This is, as the NFL commissioner broke his silence this afternoon to talk about the crisis that has consumed the league over the past ten days.

The crisis started with the elevator video with Ray Rice abusing the woman that is now his wife. It is a crime that initially cost him two games. Today, Goodell apologized for failing the fans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: I'm not satisfied with the way we've handled it from the get-go. As I told you, and this statement indicates, I made a mistake. I'm not satisfied with the process that we went through, I'm not satisfied with the conclusions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Goodell went on to promise the league it will get its house in order. Miguel Marquez is OUTFRONT.

Miguel, I want to start with the breaking news. Because as Roger Goodell tries to put this behind him, damning news that the Ravens knew blow by blow, a horrible phrase to use, of what happened in that video hours after it was filmed. MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It really turns everything up on its head of what Roger Goodell said today during his press conference. CNN has a source within the Ravens organization who has said that the head of security hours after that February 15th incident.

The now famous February 15th incident where Rice hit Janay Palmer, his then-fiancee knocking her out. That hours after that Raven security had contacted a police officer in Atlantic City who described the video to him in fine detail.

And that this individual then passed this on -- now this is according to an ESPN report, that this individual passed this on to the Ravens' management. It is not clear whether that ever went to the NFL, but everybody assumed along the way that Goodell had seen the video. Today Goodell went in front of the world's media claiming he did not.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Roger Goodell finally breaks his silence trying to re-set the button on domestic violence. Over and again, he blamed himself.

GOODELL: We acknowledge the mistake, my mistake. I made a mistake. That wasn't sufficient as I said. That was a mistake.

MARQUEZ: Accepting blame only after that second video showing what happened inside the Atlantic City Casino elevator came to light and made him initialize his initial two-game suspension was insufficient. Goodell insisted that what Ray Rice told him on June 16 was different from what he saw on that video.

GOODELL: It was clear there was an act of domestic violence, but it was inconsistent with the way he described what happened. When we had that new information, we had the ability to say, we're going to take additional action and that is what we did.

MARQUEZ: But all of the information the commissioner needed was on the initial police report, readily available from day one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Regardless of what Mr. Rice said on June 16th or regardless of what was on the second video tape, on the initial summons it clearly says that Mr. Rice struck Janay Palmer with his hand rendering her unconscious. Why wasn't it enough then to put this right?

GOODELL: Well, it was. And we saw, obviously the original video, and it was clear that domestic violence violation had occurred. That was clear to us and it was horrifying.

MARQUEZ: Moving forward, the NFL, he said, will partner with domestic violence groups educate the entire organization from players to team presidents about domestic and sexual violence and rewrite the rules of conduct and punishment for the league.

GOODELL: We need to change our policies and our procedures and we need some help in trying to identify how to do that. We have state laws that are different from state to state and even locally. We need to make sure that we have looked at when the NFL should be involved in the investigative process.

MARQUEZ: Despite it all, the commissioner said he has never considered resigning and has the confidence of the owners, advertisers and sponsors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you feel like you should be able to continue in this role?

GOODELL: Because I acknowledge my mistake, August 28th I said we didn't get this right. We're going to make changes. How do we do this better as the NFL and make sure that we keep everything on the table.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Now if Mr. Goodell was trying to quiet the number of questions, it seems they are only to get louder now. ESPN's investigative team outside of the lines has a very lengthy report and in that they indicate that the Ravens' upper management certainly knew about this.

And from the moment they knew about the horrors of what was on that inside the elevator video tape they went about trying to get the result that they wanted, which was to save Ray Rice's career, to keep him on the team and to only have a two-game suspension, which as ESPN reports was what happened. Roger Goodell did initially until the second video tape came out -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Miguel, thank you very much.

I want to bring in now the host of CNN's "UNGUARDED" Rachel Nichols and our legal analyst, Mel Robbins and Paul Callan along with NFL Hall of Famer, Fran Tankerton, also the founder of gosmallbiz.com.

OK, great to have all of you with us. Fran, let me start with you. Goodell, adamant, he has no plans to step down. He says I've acknowledged my mistakes. I'm making changes. Are you satisfied?

FRAN TANKERTON, NFL HALL OF FAMER: No. He is a good man and a good leader. He doesn't run the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. The 32 billionaire owners run the National Football League. He answers to them. If we are going to get change, it has to come from them.

He reminded me today, he was so nervous, of Alan Paulsen a few years ago when we had the financial breakdown on this country and once I saw him at a press conference, I got frightened.

I saw Roger Goodell today at the press conference and I was frightened. When I heard the rest of it, there is no sense of urgency. We're going to have a committee here and give money here and have a plan after the Super Bowl. That doesn't solve problems.

BURNETT: The plan after the Super Bowl, I mean, they think it has gotten quiet now, Rachel, they could wait. You were there. You held the commissioner's feet to the fire about what he knew and when he knew it and you went through that excruciating detail with him. Do you believe he was telling the truth when he said he didn't know.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN HOST, "UNGUARDED": I mean, look, the problem here is how much does it matter? We have seen with so many steps of the investigation that they do freely admit and acknowledge that they screwed up.

So the fact they have shown some lazy investigating and how lazy was that investigating, that they've shown they ignored evidence and how much and to what degree did they ignore evidence, to me the baseline is the same.

The initial police report in the Ray Rice incident said that Ray Rice struck his wife with his hand, knocking her unconscious. So does it matter just quite at what point they saw the video? Does it matter just when they decided to interview Janay Rice with her husband and all of his bosses sitting next to her? No.

They screwed this up the whole way through. The degree to which they screwed it up, you could argue over degrees, but the bottom line is they screwed up.

BURNETT: Paul, can you defend the commissioner for seeing a police report that says someone knocked their wife unconscious and then saying it was ambiguous what happened, which is the word he originally used until you see video.

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: A lot of people forget his father was a U.S. senator so he has politics in his blood, but not too much politics in the way he has handled this situation. But I think he can be defended because initially, of course, the wife came forward, she never pressed charges.

NICHOLS: But it is not up to her to press charges, right?

CALLAN: Well, please let me finish. Charges were brought by the DA. So the commissioner can look in two directions. He looks at the wife and she says please, do not come after my husband, he is the bread winner.

He is the father of my child so then Goodell looks at the prosecutor. Here's the expert in criminal law. What does the prosecutor in Atlantic City --

BURNETT: He says go to a class.

CALLAN: Go to a class and we'll dismiss the charges. You will have no record. So Goodell comes back and says, well, under the circumstances, a two-day suspension.

Now in retrospect, big mistake, but he can't resentence, there is something called double jeopardy. It doesn't really apply in civil cases, but there is a collective bargaining agreement with all of the players and they are going to get up in arms. So he is kind of in a box now.

BURNETT: That's interesting. You are making the case that would defend him and how he handled. I'm not saying it wasn't wrong when he looked back --

(CROSSOVER)

BURNETT: Does this convince you at all, you, who have been a very big critique of the commissioner?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: He didn't get it right to begin with, Erin. He didn't get the press conference right for crying out loud. Nothing says zero tolerance policy on domestic violence like saying we're going to send some pamphlets to the teams.

We are going to give them some phone numbers to call and we are going to give them a little class that tells them not to hit women in the future. What a flipping joke. This has been an issue in the NFL since February.

That is seven months ago. And did you notice, Erin, the date by when he said they would figure this out, 134 days from now, they need, for the Super Bowl. So once again they've just told you the thing that the matters is the game goes on.

That we continue to make money and that in the meantime, we'll figure out what to do.

BURNETT: Let me just bring up something that I noticed overnight, all right. You have to think about this for a second. The NFL with all of the money that it has announced it is going to be providing unlimited funds for the next five years for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

A hotline which last year had 77,000 calls that they couldn't answer, and whose call volume go up 84 percent since this incident. Is that something that makes you say, maybe the NFL, because this happened to the NFL, the point Roger Goodell made about its cultural influence.

That there could be something good that comes out of this because this commissioner is handling it, because he will forever feel morally horrible about what happened?

ROBBINS: That is fantastic outcome. However let's not let that be a distraction. Look over here, we are giving a lot of money so don't look over there at Ray McDonald who is still on the field. I think we need to hold their feet to the fire.

What happens between now and the Super Bowl when somebody is arrested? What happens? We don't know and that is a problem for the NFL.

CALLAN: You can't instantly change the rule book. If you are going to change the rule book and force players to comply with it, you have to put them on notice that we are not tolerating this anymore.

BURNETT: Again the point though of when they knew it, Rachel, which is the new ESPN report brings this to light. This is a damning report. They are reporting the Ravens director of security was walked through a video that he knew it was a video by the Atlantic City police officer detailing what happened from the video that night in the elevator within hours.

NICHOLS: Yes, the ESPN report basically alleges a cover-up by the Baltimore Ravens.

BURNETT: Because here's what the Raven's coach and owner have been saying. Let me play it out. Rachel says cover up. Here's why. Here's what the Ravens coach and owner have been saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BISCOTTI, BALTIMORE RAVENS OWNER: I will kind of speak for the league, but I'm speaking about us as the Ravens, that we sat back and let others do it. It is easy to say now that if the league can't get it, the team can't get it. But I know the effort that we put in.

JOHN HARBAUGH, BALTIMORE RAVENS HEAD COACH: It wasn't made available. It wasn't there from us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From a legal standpoint?

HARBAUGH: As far as I know, yes. It was never something we ever saw or had access to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Maybe he didn't see it, but someone else saw it and walked them through it. Did they not want to get it because they didn't want to say they technically say they saw it?

NICHOLS: Here's another detail that ESPN report, you just saw John Harbaugh, the coach of the team. He is someone who publicly came out and said we support Ray Rice. This is a guy who is a generally good guy who made a mistake, that sort of thing.

There is a line in that ESPN report that says that John Harbaugh, the day after the Ravens allegedly were walked through this video in February, right at the beginning, said cut him. He doesn't belong on this team. Cut him. So something happened to change his mind as well. Towing the company line, that is fascinating that the coach of the team --

BURNETT: The coach said cut him.

NICHOLS: The coach wants him out according to the report and then there was such a cover up within the organization then a few months later --

BURNETT: That was pretty interesting that he is one right there who denied the video. Fran, what do you think?

TANKERTON: Well, I've been in the National Football League since 1961. They covered up drugs, amphetamines, then steroids, then performance enhancing drugs came, and everything else. A massive cover-up.

This is the same league that covered up concussions not until 2009. Before 2009, their doctor said there is no correlation between concussions and cognitive effects of the brain, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrigs or whatever.

And then some of my teammates who died from those diseases, their brains were sent to institutions, medical institutions and they found out without a shadow of a doubt that concussions led to brain damage.

And now there is a -- the NFL in a defensive move came out with a statement this week, NFL says a quarter of the players that play today will end up with brain problems.

They covered that up until they had to pay $800 million in fines to my generation of players. What do you think of the family of Junior Seau who committed suicide at 45 years old and he had CTE. It is a bigger issue that the NFL has practiced covering up, protecting star players and the game.

BURNETT: For a long time.

TANKERTON: For a long time. And that is what the press have dodged. You people in the press have not talked about this. You watch these big athletes with big bulging arms that are twice the size of my generation of players and you think it is really great and neat that they are so big, strong and powerful.

They are drugged. They are juicy and the coaches and the owners know it and the doctors know it and none of you covered it.

BURNETT: All right, thank you very much and thanks to all of you. Rachel is going to have a lot more on the breaking news tonight on "UNGUARDED." Her guest tonight is the executive director of the NFL Players Association, Demorris Smith. That is tonight right here on CNN at 10:30.

And OUTFRONT next, breaking news, the case of a missing UVA student. Police tonight identifying a man searching his apartment and seizing his car. So why is he still free tonight?

And a new ISIS video. Is the executioner on this an American? The United States intelligence chief admits America underestimated ISIS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: A major break in the disappearance of University of Virginia student, Hannah Graham. Investigators searched an apartment and a car today of a man that police say is a person of interest. No one has been detained though.

But according to the Charlottesville police chief, one of the man in the apartment matched a description of an individual who was seen with the University of Virginia student the night she disappeared.

Our Jean Casarez is OUTFRONT in Charlottesville. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TIMONTHY LONGO, CHARLOTTESVILLE POLICE CHIEF: I want to make one thing absolutely clear, this press conference and every press conference here after is about one thing and one thing only and that is finding Hannah.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was one week ago tonight, University of Virginia sophomore, Hannah Graham, suddenly vanished. Today forensic investigators spent all day searching an apartment complex, carrying out a number of sealed paper bags. Police also searched and seized a vehicle at that same complex.

LONGO: We have every reason to believe that Miss Graham was in that vehicle.

CASAREZ: They believe the man driving was a man seen in video surveillance early last Saturday morning.

LONGO: An additional video shows the same black male with dreadlocks with his hands around Hannah Graham's waist.

CASAREZ: Authorities say the two went into the Tempo Restaurant.

LONGO: He purchases alcohol there and we know that Hannah Graham was with him. We also know that within 15 minutes, they were gone from that bar and that his car was seen leaving the area on video.

CASAREZ: Police describe the man as black, 32 years old, 6'2", 270 pounds with dreadlocks. Meanwhile, as investigators continue to pour over any leads, Hannah's friends focused on seeing her again.

LONI GALLOWAY, HANNA GRAHAM'S FRIEND: We can't really wrap our heads around all of this because you are such a vibrant presence and full of joyous love and life. We want to bring you home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: So law enforcement is saying tonight that the investigation, witnesses, video surveillance led them to this vehicle that they believe Hannah was the passenger in. They executed the search warrant this morning at about 4:00 a.m.

And whatever they found in that car, and they are not saying, but that gave them the probable cause to go back to a judge or magistrate and got another search warrant and all day they were searching that apartment that they say this person they are interested in was there.

They say they don't have probable cause to arrest him or detain him, but I watched myself as bag after bag was taken out of that apartment, it was sealed and forensic investigators had gloves on.

They had their cameras. They went in the backyard. They were all over the place. But at this point, the investigation they say will simply broaden. BURNETT: Jean, thank you very much. And as you are seeing in Jean's reporting, some of the most crucial evidence in this case has come from surveillance video that show where and when Hannah Graham was the night she was missing.

And I want to bring in former FBI assistant director and our law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes. So Tom, the police released a description of a man who was seen with Hannah Graham the night she disappeared.

You just heard Jean reporting. Witnesses saw them together. They had enough to get search warrants. They searched the apartment. They don't have enough to arrest him. How does is that happen?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I don't know, Erin. I'm a little bit confused by all of this because it sounds like at the press conference, when they went to the apartment last night, this person, the person of interest was at the apartment. They talked to him and met him in person.

They towed away his car. They took evidence out of the apartment or least bags of material to determine if it is evidence. They took bags of materials from the vehicle plus they took the vehicle itself.

And now they are putting out a description of what this guy looks like. They know what he looks like. They met him. So that sounds mysterious to me that if they didn't have quite enough probable cause to arrest him last night or go beyond declaring him a person of interest.

They certainly could bumper lock him, as we used to say, and just put a massive surveillance on him that he is not out of their sight pending the analysis of the forensic material that they seized, pending any other eyewitness accounts or other video counts.

And it sounds like they had him and talked to him and he vanished and is somewhere else. And it is a little confusing to me why that happened that way.

BURNETT: And the question is could he flee to your point? They didn't bring him in. He could go, right, theoretically?

FUENTES: I guess so. I don't know. I don't know if they are aware of his current whereabouts and they are just watching him to wait and see what happens if they go back and grab him or if they've lost track of him.

If they do have him, if they do have eyes on him in one way or another, then the description that is put out there, it almost made it sound like they are looking for him.

Now I understand they would be looking for other people that -- from that description, other people to give information, but you would think at this point, one week into this that they would have every possible video that could have been taken in downtown Charlottesville. And they would have the whole town abuzz with information of this guy and her and the situation last week, a week ago tonight, to report in. So in a way, some of the requests to the public are almost the type of things you would say day one, which would have been six days ago.

BURNETT: All right. I hope it is not valuable time being lost. Tom Fuentes, thank you.

FUENTES: Thank you.

Well, next, analyst pouring over a new ISIS video. We are going to show you trying to identify the man carrying out a mass execution. This will be a very significant development because he might be American.

Plus Alibaba's record setting IPO, the man behind it who was a high school teacher and then became a billionaire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Tonight, an American ISIS executioner, we have new ISIS video tonight at CNN. This time the executioner appears to speak with a North American accent as he appears to shoot six people.

The 55-minute English language video warns America that the fighting has just begun. It shows ISIS on the battlefield and like other ISIS videos, it is well produced. Jim Sciutto has more on the new video tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The 55 minute propaganda video follows the militants as they overtake a Syrian base. It is ISIS' latest violent production, but it comes with a hunting new twist. The killer speaks with what sounds like an American or Canadian accent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here with the soldiers of Bashar. You can see them now digging their own graves in the very place where they were stationed.

SCIUTTO: (INAUDIBLE) six Syrian soldiers on camera. The revelation of what could be a North American ISIS executioner comes as the nation's top intelligence officials make a startling admission. U.S. intelligence underestimates the threat of ISIS.

Director of national intelligence James Clapper first telling "the Washington Post" quote "what we didn't do was predict the will to fight. That is always a problem. We didn't do it in Vietnam. And in this case we under estimated the Islamic state and overestimated the fighting capability of the Iraqi army."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

SCIUTTO: Intelligence officials tell CNN that the CIA issued multiple intelligence reports on ISIS in the months before its lightning advance across Iraq, detailing its growing capability and ambitions. The key surprise those officials say was the sudden dissolution of the Iraqi security forces, even though they greatly outnumbered ISIS fighters.

JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: One of the things to do is to determine the will to fight and I guess it is the issue of almost of a tenth. I think they were just totally overwhelmed.

SCIUTTO: One key contributing factor, the American withdrew from Iraq in 2011.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over.

SCIUTTO: U.S. sought intelligence capabilities there shrink dramatically. The administration's critics say the President did not do enough to maintain a U.S. military presence in Iraq.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: The fact that they didn't leave a residual force in Iraq, overruling all of his military advisors is the reason we're facing ISIS today.

SCIUTTO: Syria represents an even bigger intelligence hole, made worse by the very limited U.S. movement on the ground, a situation that is only now changing significantly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: U.S. intelligent officials tell me that now the Intel community is confident it has a better handle on is, including inside Syria. So why is that? Because simply it has become a priority and the U.S. has been able to focus its, quote, "robust capabilities in ISIS' direction -- Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Jim Sciutto, thank you.

And joining me now our terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank and David Gergen who served as an advisor to President Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

Paul, let me start with you in this executioner in this new video that we have. That it sounds like a North American accent. It could be the U.S. or Canada. Obviously that is deliberate as we look at the video. When you see it, what do you hear?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well this whole video is ISIS saying that this war that the Americans are fighting against, it will be disastrous for the United States. And by using a fighter with a North American accent, they are really amplifying that point and they are driving it home for a very specific American audience.

BURNETT: So Paul, how are they going to be able to determine. I mean, when we saw the executioner in the beheading videos, they were able to get to a point by voicing out, that's what they said, this is British, this is from London, this is from south London, are they going to be able to do that with this voice, to say well, this is American and from where or this is someone who is trying to mimic being American.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, American intelligence are going to be looking at the facial features, listening to the voice and try to match it up to what they know about the hundred Americans that they know have gone to travel to fight in Syria with the various jihadist groups. They believe about a dozen or more have joined ISIS. The Canadian intelligence south will be doing the same. There are about 30 Canadian fighters out there in Syria.

BURNETT: Right. So David Gergen, when you see this latest video, again, with the high production value that ISIS has now become known for, and you think about those beheading videos, those horrible beheadings of two Americans, there is no question hose videos had a huge impact on the public opinion in the United States. Did they also have an undue influence on the Obama administration, on the administration's decision to quickly move toward war?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think it is pretty clear now that those videos of the beheadings accelerated the move toward war on the behalf of the Obama administration. They were under pressure already. But as of American public opinion got whipped up and turned against ISIS, I think it put pressure on Congress started asking for action. So yes, I do think it accelerated our battle to war. But I think we would have been there anyway. I'm sure -- I don't think it really change the outcome. I think it changed the timing of going to war.

BURNETT: Right. And what about this issue, David, about the director of the national intelligence? We just heard Jim Sciutto reporting. You know, he told the "Washington Post" and when I read this morning, my jaw dropped, that when it comes to ISIS, the U.S. failed to predict the will to fight, the U.S. underestimated ISIS. That is clear because when you look at the President this year, to the New Yorker, right; in January he called ISIS a J.V. team. That -- now that is the intelligence he was probably receiving. So what do you do about this? Does somebody lose their job?

GERGEN: Well you wonder about that. But I'm not sure that has to be in the intelligence community.

Listen. We've had massive intelligence failures with regard to the Middle East for awhile now. After all, way back when we thought there were weapons of massive destruction, that they may have nuclear capability.

So once again, we -- but, you know, to go back to the fundamental point, I hate to go over well-trodden ground, but the fact is had the President done what the military commander, current commander, CENTCOM, General Austin proposed and that was to keep 24,000 troops on the ground there, we would have had better intelligence. We would have known, we would have paid for attention to it. But what is done is done. Now the question is do we have better intelligence? I'm sure we do have massive resources there in the CIA and national intelligence. I'm sure intelligence is better.

BURNETT: Yes. GERGEN: But, Erin, do we have the kind of intelligence on the ground

that it takes to win? That is the new question the military is trying to sort out with the President. And clearly there are differences of opinion about that.

BURNETT: There clearly are with many in the military. Of course, Paul saying, you can't take boots on the ground off the table, at the least. Some saying that they would want them, you know, specifically on the table at this point. But it is the least they seem to agree don't take them off the table.

But instead the U.S. government is going out with its plan to arm and train the Syrian rebels. Today, the press secretary for the Pentagon, John Kirby, said three to five months to vet the Syrian. They are going to Vet them and then another eight to 12 months to train them. Is this realistic? I mean, this sounds -- this is an urgent threat to the United States and we are now looking at, at least, a year.

CRUICKSHANK: Yes, they know. (INAUDIBLE) that I see on to the table in Syria from these moderate groups, for up to a year, and these moderate groups, they have to stay down lines support in places like in Aleppo right now.

The other problem is that the leaders of some of these groups are saying we don't want to fight ISIS. We are not going to fight ISIS.

BURNETT: So, they are going to take the training weapons and go fight Assad.

CRUICKSHANK: Exactly. That's what they say. And some of these groups are also cooperating with al-Qaeda affiliate's tasks (ph). So there are all sorts of problems here with the strategy.

BURNETT: So does it seem realistic to you at all? This hope that ground forces, whether they be moderate Syrian rebels or Iraqi army members who, of course, as you know, we've talked about, $25 billion of U.S. money to train them for years and vast numbers of them ran when confronted with ISIS?

CRUICKSHANK: I think it is more realistic in Iraq, that the Iraqi army, the Kurds can sort of make some advances against ISIS. That is going to be very, very different. It is very difficult for them to go into cities like Mosul. You remember with U.S. forces to get al-Qaeda out of places like Fallujah. That was a very, very difficult operation back in the day. That is going to be difficult in Iraq, but even more difficult in Syria.

BURNETT: Right. And you know, David Gergen, there is also the issue that you talk about it now is a priority for intelligence. So now, it is as if -- I'm sort of thinking in the Lord of Rings, you know, the eye of Saran (ph). It is now on Syria and Iraq, but as a result, it is not looking anywhere else. It is not looking at Libya. IT is not looking at a lot of other places. It is not looking there. How big of a risk is that?

GERGEN: This is a really good question, Erin. It is exactly what some of our friends in the Arab nations are asking. Are you guys only going after ISIS or you go look at the bigger threat? Whether it is in Libya or maybe in Egypt, you have to be -- or Jordan or some of these other countries, there is a lot of concern that we are only looking at one place.

And I must say one other thing, Erin. The story about that is now in both the "Washington Post" and "The New York Times" about this widening rift, if somebody in the White House has got a good book in him, it would be entitled how not to do rollouts. The rollout here for this war has beginning to rival the roll out of Obamacare. You know, we've had confusion over what war means. Are we at war? Are we not at war? About the role of the troops and now about, you know, differences between the President and the general. They have to get a-hold of this in order to inspire confident.

BURNETT: All right, David Gergen, thank you very much. Paul Cruickshank.

And next, Alibaba, the Chinese company that has pulled off the biggest IPO in the world history today, the man behind it, a former English teacher now one of the richest men in the world. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news. Part of the White House is being evacuated right now. I want to show you a photo of the scene. White House producer Becky Brittain is there and she join me on the phone. Becky, what is happening?

BECKY BRITTAIN, CNN WHITE HOUSE PRODUCER (via phone): Well, just about 7:20 this evening, the President had just departed to go to Camp David with his daughters and a friend of theirs. We were coming back inside to feed our tapes. And as we were walking inside we noticed there is a large commotion on the north lawn of the White House. Somebody, we haven't been able to confirm who that is and how they got there, was clearly not supposed to be there. The secret service seemed to have tackled him or gotten to him somewhere near the north portico. It is really hard to see from where we were. But we could see the commotion. We saw the snipers from the roof come out.

It appeared that whoever this was, and like I said, we haven't been able to confirm if it was a fence jumper or how the person got there was somehow detained somewhere close to the north portico. This is the first time that I have been -- I've done this for nine years, but this is the first time that right afterwards they evacuated all of us, including the press.

BURNETT: All right, Becky Britain reporting there. As you can just hear, the siren, obviously seem (INAUDIBLE) intruder must have gotten closer to the White House than prior intruders. But the President and his daughters had left just prior to this incident. As we get more, we'll let you know.

And now, the money and power of Alibaba, today, the Chinese Internet company had Wall Street's biggest ever first day. Alibaba's stock was priced to start trading at $68 a share and close nearly $94. In terms of the increase, that was 38 percent. Now, that company is worth $231 billion, more than Amazon or facebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT (voice-over): Alibaba ringing the biggest IPO in history at the New York stock exchange. For the founder Jack Ma, the crowding moment of a once improbable dream. But what is Alibaba?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really it is like 12 companies. It is the e-bay and Amazon and PayPal, but it is a Netflix, it is a GroupOn, they have a money market fund business.

BURNETT: The value of the Chinese e-commerce giant is bigger than Amazon and e-bay combined, 24,000 employees and $8.5 billion in revenue.

Ma said to be the wealthiest man in China. Even before today's multibillion dollar bonanza, Bloomberg estimated he was worth nearly $22 billion, 49-years-old and just five feet tall, his story, an echo of the American.

My dream from America took forth 50 years ago. When I came to America, when I visited Silicon Valley, I saw (INAUDIBLE) of the road that was full of cars, all of the buildings with lights, that is the passion and I -- the hero I had was Forrest Gump.

BURNETT: At first he taught English. His salary, $20 a month. After his trip to America, he saw opportunity in bringing Chinese goods to the U.S. He asked friends for money. And Alibaba was born in Mass (ph), one bedroom apartment.

JACK MA, FOUNDER, ALIBABA: I visited his stereotypical Alibaba business in Hong Kong, just a few rooms and a few employees. One of millions that now sell to the world.

But not everyone is buying in. U.S. billionaire Peter Thiel who cofounded PayPal said be weary.

Would you buy it at $66 to $68 a share?

PETER THIEL, CO-FOUNDER, PAYPAL: I would not. Although I think it is probably going to up some. You will get a pop and you will do well if it continues to stay in good Grace of the Chinese government but it is fundamentally a political investment.

BURNETT: But for investor who are nervous, Jack Ma asks for just one thing.

MA: Trust. Trust us, trust the market.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: I want to bring in Brent Wilsey of Wilsey Asset management.

All right, Brent, you heard the words there of Jack Ma. Trust. Trust me. What do you say?

BRENT WILSEY, WILSEY ASSET MANAGEMENT: I'm sorry, was that Erin?

BURNETT: Yes, that is me. Do I trust him?

WILSEY: Do I trust him? You know, no, I would not. And nothing -- hard to say that, but when you think about what is behind the scenes here on this, people are going to realize this is a Chinese company and I hope you bought the stock, you know, congratulations and so forth. But this is a Chinese company. And I would not trust him with this because I've seen so many companies over the years of doing this, they have all of the different businesses and they can't manage them and control them. And what do we know about Alibaba? I mean, do they have quality control? I mean, do they have the right to use what manufacturing plants? I think people got so caught up in the hype, they are missing what is this business really?

BURNETT: So you wouldn't -- I mean, obviously, they priced it perfectly and it gets big a big surge but you are with Peter Thiel on don't get into it now if you miss it?

BURNETT: I'm -- I'm sorry I had a hard time hearing you.

BURNETT: You wouldn't buy it now, right?

WILSEY: I wouldn't buy it now, no. I mean, even when it came out $68 -- their net is about $7 billion, they're expected to go through the next year at 20 billion. What sounds great once I grow? But again, do we know the accounting systems for China? You know, China, you here, we get used to have the Costcos and the Walmarts and they say yes, we'll take the product back. You know, Alibaba doesn't do that. Say no, you bought it in to that. I mean, people are buying this based on what they think an American company is. This is a Chinese company. And they do business differently than we do here.

BURNETT: All right, Brent Wilsey, thank you very much.

And OUTFRONT next, the woman who wants to be the first democratic governor of Texas in two decades. So why is she turning away help from President Obama?

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BURNETT: Wendy Davis is hoping to become the first democratic governor of Texas in 20 years. Today, Hillary Clinton turned the spotlight on her and others women running in the midterms.

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HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: We have so many reasons to be hopeful. Mary Burke gives me hope, Maggie Hassey (ph) gives me hope, Martha Copley (ph) and Wendy Davis gives me hope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Davis' memoir is a portrait of a woman unafraid to go it alone, whether taking on the Texas senate or turning her back on the President of the United States. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STATE SEN. WENDY DAVIS (D), TEXAS: Good morning, San Antonio.

BURNETT (voice-over): State senator Wendy Davis is looking to turn around the traditionally red state of Texas. She burst onto the national spotlight last summer, sporting pink tennis shoes and a back brace.

DAVIS: I do still have the pink sneakers, I saved that pair.

BURNETT: Davis stood on the Senate chamber floor for nearly 11 straight hours, no food or bathroom breaks, waging a filibuster against the bill that included strict restrictions against abortion in Texas.

DAVIS: I intend to speak for an extended period of time on the bill.

BURNETT: She ultimately lost that battle but has not given up the fight. And in a new memoir, Davis revealed for the first time what fuelled her passion that night. Davis had two abortions, the first she says was due to an ectopic pregnancy, neither she nor the baby would have survived.

DAVIS: It was not a viable pregnancy. And my health was in danger.

BURNETT: Two years later, Davis was pregnant again, this time she was farther along, she knew it was a daughter and named her Tate Elise (ph), then doctors found another problem.

DAVIS: They told us that she probably wouldn't survive delivery. If she did, she would likely be in a vegetative state. And we had to garble with that decision and do what we felt was in the best interest of her and out of our love for her.

BURNETT: The pain Davis describes is achingly similar to another woman's story, one Davis shared during the filibuster.

That night you read a letter home (INAUDIBLE), talked about 20 weeks of her pregnancy. She weren't -- her daughter had a fatal condition. And this was very personal to you. You had come through this. But that night you didn't share your story. Why was that?

DAVIS: I thought about it. In that moment, her story was like reading my owned story. And made a decision that if I shared my story that day, the day would become about me. And wanted the day to be about protecting women's health and our state --

BURNETT: Now, critics are questioning the timing of Davis' revelation, asking why she waited to share her personal story to the middle of the biggest political campaign of her life.

"National Review," when they heard your story, they called quote- unquote "convenient unverifiable."

DAVIS: I was very disappointed to hear that that's statement was made. My family would have given anything for this story not to have been a reality in our lives, but it was.

BURNETT: Others judged Davis' abortion decision altogether. A Texas light to life group said quote "encourages women facing difficult or unexpected diagnoses to carry their children to term, celebrate the precious baby's life, and if needed provide life-sustaining care to the child until he or she reaches the point of natural death."

When you hear that and think about the choice that you made, what do you think?

DAVIS: I respect that other people might make a different choice in that situation. I have always believed that these are very individual, personal decisions for a woman to make.

BURNETT: Polls showed Davis trailing Republican attorney general Greg Abbott in the governor's race by double digit, but Davis is not asking for help.

Do you want the President to help campaign for you in the final stretch in the final days?

DAVIS: I am running for governor. I am running as Wendy Davis on my platform and my plans for what I'll do for the state. And I will be my own spokesperson for what I will do in that role.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: Pretty amazing story there. No matter what you think politically.

We'll be right back.

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BURNETT: Thanks so much for watching and have a wonderful weekend. We will see you back here on Monday night. Anderson Cooper 360 begins right now.