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Istanbul Terror Bombers Identified As Three Men From Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan; Airport Security Heightened For July 4th Holiday; Trump: A.G. Meeting With Bill Clinton "Terrible". Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired July 01, 2016 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:31:00] MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN HOST: Breaking news now. Investigators revealing where the Istanbul suicide bombers came from and who directed their attack.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN HOST: Security increased at airports across the country as travelers head out for the Fourth of July weekend. Welcome back to EARLY START, I'm Alison Kosik.

MARQUEZ: Good morning to you, I'm Miguel Marquez.

KOSIK: Good morning.

MARQUEZ: It is 32 minutes past the hour. Breaking news overnight. New information on the three terrorists who bomb the Istanbul airport, killing 44 people and injuring hundreds more. Investigators identifying the men as citizens of Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Officials believe the bombers entered Turkey about a month ago from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, bringing with them their suicide vests and bombs used in the attack. The terrorists rented an apartment in an Istanbul neighborhood known for its pro-ISIS rallies.

For the very latest let's go to CNN's Alexandra Field, who is in Istanbul for us. Alexandra, where does the investigation stand now?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miguel. U.S. officials are actually saying that the ringleader of this attack, the planner of this attack, was a well-known ISIS militant from the Northern Caucasus region of Russia, Akhmed Chatayev. He was apparently in contact with these three men who had spent time in Raqqa, the ISIS-stronghold in Syria.

And sources telling CNN that the men had been in an apartment here in Istanbul for the last month. They had apparently rented that apartment. One of the men left his passport there and that was a big clue for investigators who have spent days trying to figure out who these men are and who they could be connected to.

From the beginning, intelligence officials here in Turkey and the U.S. have believed that ISIS was behind this attack. They said it bared all the markings of an ISIS attack and now they have uncovered these connections to Raqqa and to this well-known ISIS militant. The investigation is ongoing with the goal now being to find anyone else who could be connected to these three men who remains in Turkey today. To that end, we've seen these counterterrorism operations that have resulted in raids in both Istanbul and the coastal city of Izmir.

Police detained nine people in Izmir for questioning, another 13 people in Istanbul also being questioned. And we can very well expect that you'll see more of these raids in the coming days as they try to establish who could be a part of these men's network, Miguel.

MARQUEZ: One poignant story that we're hearing out of all of this is one of the victims of the shooters was a doctor, I believe, who was going there to try to save his son from joining ISIS and ended up getting killed in this attack. What do you know about that?

[05:35:00] FIELD: Forty-four people killed in the explosions at this airport and among them, as you point out, this Tunisian doctor. He has spent a couple of months, we understand, in Turkey. He was waiting for his wife, who was going to arrive here, and that's because they were hoping to pick up their son from Turkish officials.

Their son had been detained at the Syrian border after the father says his son had gone to join ISIS in Iraq as a medic and had left, come through Syria, landed in Turkey where he was detained, and the father has been here trying to seek his son's release. His wife was coming to meet him.

They were hoping that they would reunite with their son who had left, who had been working as a medic. Instead, the father killed in this blast. It is one of the 44 stories. So many more people who are injured, so many more still in the hospital right now, Miguel.

MARQUEZ: God, the irony of that. Thank you very much. Alexandra Field for us in Istanbul.

KOSIK: All right, there's a lot of new information to sort through about the attack, about the attackers. Let's bring in CNN military analyst, Col. Cedric Leighton. He's a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Good morning, again.

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER MEMBER, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Good morning, Alison.

KOSIK: So, you know, I want to talk more about these terrorists who carried out this horrific event at the airport in Istanbul. You know, they're from Russia, they're from the former Soviet states. These are already places where ISIS has recruited in the past, so why is it significant that the terror group is now using them for these terrible bombings, or these terrible attacks, and why is it a challenge for intelligence officials to get a handle on this?

LEIGHTON: Well, one of the big things, Alison, is the fact that these people blend in. They speak Turkic languages, which means they're related to Turkish, and they can fit in with some of the population that exists in Istanbul. There are fairly large communities of people from these places already

and because they blend in enough to go under the radar, they can actually exercise not only a great deal of surveillance, but they can also execute attacks in places like Istanbul, and that's one of the reasons that they're picking these people.

The other thing is that this is a ready pool of fighters. These people have a lot of experience fighting Russia in places like Chechnya and they have done so for several decades now. And the fact that they are out there, they're willing to fight, they have a lot of pressure on them in Russia and in their homelands, so the next thing that they do, of course, is find a cause, and one of those causes is ISIS.

MARQUEZ: It seems, perhaps, a tactical win for ISIS but maybe a huge strategic mistake. They're losing ground at home. They are, seemingly, ramping up operations in countries across the Middle East, Africa, and even into Southeast Asia now. What are we to draw from this particular blow against Turkey, a place that they had used as a transit point, that they had used as a grocery store, basically, for so many years now?

LEIGHTON: Well, Miguel, one of the things is that they are definitely biting a hand that fed them. They got a lot of logistical support through Turkey. One of the big markets for their oil prices, as well, was actually Turkey.

But they find it more important to actually go in and cause damage to Turkey because -- and especially the Turkish infrastructure because they see Turkey now as more on the side of the West of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and they believe that Turkey is a grand facilitator in this. And they feel that it's very incumbent upon them to go after the Turks and punish them for their support of the U.S. and its partners.

KOSIK: So, we are seeing so many similarities between what happened in Istanbul, what happened in Brussels. So, we're seeing ISIS go after these soft targets. Where else -- what sort of, symbolically, are they trying to say to the world at this point by going after not just soft targets, but these airports as well?

LEIGHTON: Any crowded place, Alison, is going to be one of those areas where there's a risk that ISIS will want to show its face, or show its flag, in essence. And so when you look at Istanbul's airport, an airport with a lot of security with some pretty good perimeters that are set up, good surveillance, and of course not only uniformed but plain clothes policeman, that is a difficult target for most terrorist groups to penetrate.

But, they are clearly looking at this as a way to show the vulnerabilities of Turkey, in this case, and of course, other countries such as Belgium and France. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to prove their strength in spite of their weakness. The fact that they're losing ground in places like Syria and Iraq makes them even more desperate to show a degree of strength and that strength can be shown in these asymmetric attacks against civilian targets.

KOSIK: All right, Col. Cedric Leighton, a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

MARQUEZ: Have a good weekend.

LEIGHTON: You bet, you too. Thank you so much. Happy fourth.

[05:40:00] KOSIK: Happy fourth to you. Happening now, heightened security as millions prepare to travel for the Fourth of July holiday in the wake of the Istanbul airport attack. Surveillance screening, patrols, all heightened in soft target areas outside secure TSA checkpoints.

For more on this let's bring in CNN's Rene Marsh. She's at Washington's Reagan National Airport.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION & GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alison and Miguel, it's projected some 43 million people will travel this holiday. That's the most on record for the Fourth of July weekend. The majority of those people will be driving, but some three million will be flying. And after the attack in Istanbul the concern is about the soft areas -- the soft target areas in airports across the country.

At many airports, this is the situation. The TSA checkpoint is the first line of defense. It leaves that other section of the airport, the perimeter -- that part is very vulnerable. We heard from the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Jay Johnson. He said that passengers will notice an increased presence of police officers in the soft target areas of airports across the country.

That includes the TSA's viper team, which is assigned to do random bag checks, random passenger checks, to prevent a terrorist attack. However, no changes have been made to the screening process for passengers. Back to you guys.

KOSIK: All right, thanks so much, Rene Marsh, for that.

MARQUEZ: Thanks. A political firestorm igniting for Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch after the two meet while the FBI investigates Hillary's use of email as the Secretary of State, coming up next.

[05:41:50]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:46:00] KOSIK: A new storm brewing for the Clinton presidential campaign over a meeting this week between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Lynch says the two met by chance when she and Bill Clinton found themselves on the same airport tarmac in Phoenix.

Republicans say the meeting undermines confidence in the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's email, but Lynch, the FBI's boss as head of the Justice Department, says she and Bill Clinton had only a social conversation about grandchildren and golf and did not talk about his wife's email.

The White House defending the integrity of the federal investigation as Donald Trump weighs in, calling the meeting "terrible".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think that was an appropriate conversation?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE: Well, it was shocking. It was shocking to me, but it was shocking, I think, to everybody that saw it take place. I was so surprised to see that. The system -- I guess it's the system, but it was very disappointing.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Both the president and the attorney general understand how important it is for the Department of Justice to conduct investigations that are free of political interference. She's made clear that that's the expectation that she has for the way that this investigation should be conducted. The president has made clear that certainly is consistent with his expectation about how this should be handled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: We turn now to CNN political reporter and safety net for all of this, Tal Kopan, live for us in Washington this morning.

KOSIK: Welcome back. Good morning, again.

MARQUEZ: Good morning.

TAL KOPAN, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Good morning.

MARQUEZ: All right, call it optics, call it perception, it just seems -- look, I'm not a smart guy, I'm not a politician, but it -- you just don't want to be caught talking to the attorney general while your wife is under all of this pressure. The campaign aside, does it make any sense whatsoever?

KOPAN: Yes, in some ways it almost doesn't even matter what they talked about, the second the meeting began it became a problem. You know, obviously, if they talked about something they shouldn't have been that does matter, but even if it was about grandchildren and golf it just -- it's not something you really can do under these circumstances.

In terms of the optics for the campaign, it's terrible. You have to imagine that Hillary Clinton and her inner circle were not pleased when they found out this took place. And, you know, more broadly, just in terms of giving the impression that there's propriety in this investigation and preserving the sort of sanctity of the independence of the Justice Department, even to some those regard it doesn't look good. So, it's hard to make the case that any of this was a good decision.

KOSIK: OK, meantime, you've got Donald Trump out there complaining that Republicans are breaking the GOP pledge, not supporting the candidate. He went onto a radio show complaining that GOP candidates aren't endorsing him. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know, it was a rough primary and they got beat up. But they went after me, too, and, you know, we beat them up and now they don't want to endorse. And, you know, it's almost in some ways like I'm running against two parties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, no kidding.

TRUMP: I'm not sure it matters because I think we're going to win. I mean, the people are so fed up with politics and politicians, but I think I'm going to win either way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: OK, so he's complaining, he's calling out Republicans in saying that GOP candidates broke their pledge. Trump saying that they should never be allowed to run for public office ever again. Is this really effective? I know that Trump is running as an anti- establishment candidate so he's looking more and more like an outsider, which he wants, but is this effective to really alienate the Republican Party even more?

KOPAN: Well, it's a question of whether it's actually alienating. If these people aren't going to endorse him, he doesn't really have that much to lose from calling them out on that. It's possible they could come around but that's going to be something they have to decide. Once they've made a statement, like I am not going to endorse Donald Trump, as some, like Lindsey Graham have done, they've backed themselves into a corner and Donald Trump can try to make hay of it.

[05:50:00] You know, if I were advising Donald Trump I would say stick to what works. This idea that he's suddenly going to transform into a different candidate overnight has puzzled me a little bit. If this is what has buoyed him over these 16 other candidates -- if it's what the Republican electorate has responded to, it makes sense to continue to appeal to them.

He's going to need that base of support even if he tries to go after any middle voters, which the polls show is a tough climb for him. He's going to at least need the people that brought him to the dance, so to speak.

MARQUEZ: Yes, but in a field of 16 he looks pretty good, but antagonizing Republicans across the board, the Chamber of Commerce, the trade deals that Republicans have long -- it just -- it does defy a little logic, yes, no?

KOPAN: Well, in going after someone like the Chamber of Commerce, I would say, is a little bit different. For Donald Trump to make disparaging remarks about Lindsey Graham, it's sort of his reputation as he calls himself a counterpuncher.

Going after something that has been the bedrock of Republican principles for some time, you know -- I was looking at the platform from 2012 the other day, preparing for what might be discussed this year, and it is remarkable how different Donald Trump sounds on some of what they had said was the Republican Party position on trade.

And to have the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is a very predictively Republican-leaning institution in terms of what they support -- and to have them going after him and live tweeting a speech going after the policies he's putting forward, it's remarkable. And so that type of fight, I think, is a little bit different and it's something troubling for Republicans coalescing behind Donald Trump.

KOSIK: All right, Tal Kopan, thanks so much for your analysis.

MARQUEZ: I love that she read the platform -- awesome. Happy Fourth.

KOPAN: Thanks, happy Fourth.

KOSIK: The stock market is riding a nice Brexit bounce following huge losses right after the vote. Will that continue today? We're going to get an early start on your money, next.

[05:52:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:56:10] KOSIK: And, welcome back. Let's get an early start on your money. Looking at Dow futures, they are slightly lower as investors start the month of July and the third quarter. So, it looks like investors are going to be taking a breather, taking a bit of a step back after having a three-day -- a huge three-day winning streak of almost 800 points for the Dow in three days -- incredible.

Stock markets in Europe, at the moment, are mixed. Shares in Asia -- they finished mostly higher overnight. We are seeing oil prices slip.

All right, if you missed out on the big stock market gains over the past three days there's still a way you can cash in. Mortgage rates -- they hit a three-year low this week. The average on the 30-year fixed is now sitting at 3.48 percent, that's nationwide. A year ago it was above four percent. The 15-year fixed, that stands at 2.78 percent. That's actually a popular refinancing tool.

So, everybody wants to know why are mortgage rates dropping again? Well, investors have been rushing into the safety of U.S. Treasury bonds in the midst of all this Brexit turmoil. They're especially rushing into the 10-year Treasury and that move winds up causing the yield on those bonds to fall, and mortgage rates are tied to those yields, so the mortgage rates fall.

So, even better news for homebuyers. The Brexit vote basically took a Fed rate hike off the table for the summer so you could actually expect that rate to stay low for the next few months, at the very least.

Forty-three million Americans are hitting the roads this holiday weekend. That's the highest tally on record. That's according to AAA. One big reason for the increase, low gas prices. The national average for a gallon of regular falling to $2.28 overnight. That marks the lowest July 4th weekend gas price average since 2005, so we are seeing prices down four cents over the past week and way below what drivers were paying last year.

Oil prices are the biggest factor in what you pay at the pump. Crude has been hovering around $50 a barrel for the past few weeks so that should keep prices stable through mid-July. That is good news. I like when I feel up and I see it at least under $3, I celebrate quietly.

MARQUEZ: I live in New York and I no longer have a car but, yes, I would be very excited if it was that cheap. We love cheap gas. Donald Trump at war with his own party. "NEW DAY" starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's almost, in some ways, like I'm running against two parties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump's big theme for his whole campaign is let's build walls.

TRUMP: That could be a Mexican plane up there. They're getting ready to attack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump was not my second choice, he was not my third choice.

TRUMP: We don't play the game the way they play the game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The three bombers came to Turkey a month ago from the ISIS stronghold city of Raqqa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are people who were committed to seeing this attack out to its completion.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A strong chemical smell emanating from the flat rented by the attackers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Security is being ramped up at U.S. airports.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're concerned at public events and public places across the nation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as I left the plane everything was going good. When it was time to open the parachute, I deployed it and it came out just spinning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: And that's why I'll never go skydiving, because of that. So, we'll tell you the outcome of that story shortly, but good morning, everyone. Welcome to your new day. It's Friday, July 1st. It's 6:00 in the east. Chris is off today. Jim Sciutto joins me this morning.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It's nice to be back --

CAMEROTA: Great to have you.

SCIUTTO: -- and a lot to talk about this morning, particularly with July 4th coming up.

CAMEROTA: We sure do so up first, Donald Trump continuing his riff with the GOP over trade policy. The presumptive Republican nominee says he feels like he's running against two parties.

SCIUTTO: This, as we learn more about who Trump is vetting to be his running mate. When will Trump makes his big announcement and will his choice help unite his party? Let's begin our complete coverage today with CNN's Jason Carroll. Jason, a lot to watch today coming from Trump nation.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A lot of watch today and a lot of questions there. Good morning to you, Jim.