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New Day

David Cameron Poised to Remain U.K. Prime Minister; FBI: ISIS Gaining Influence in U.S.; DOJ to Investigate Baltimore Police Department. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 08, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: ... public simply didn't want to tell that they were going to vote for Cameron, that actually they believed the Tories had done a good job.

[07:00:10] In Scotland, Labour was wiped out and the coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, they took all the bells. Ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for the Lib Dems today.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That is so good.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Did he plan -- I don't even understand how he could have planned that. He did that. So genius.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I want to figure out how he got a bus all to himself. You ever see how packed they are there at this time? This is rush hour.

CAMEROTA: I want to figure out a lot about what's happening there.

PEREIRA: The foot bridges that are there.

CUOMO: All right, Richard. Keep a hold of yourself. We'll be back to you in a little bit.

CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is outside the prime minister's office at 10 Downing Street. Of course, Nick, we're waiting for the ceremony of him going to the queen, but this is a surprising day on many levels, yes?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely it is. David Cameron now appears to have the numbers that he needs to form the government. The bells, if there are any chiming inside Downing Street, are ones in absolute celebration right now.

David Cameron in a few minutes will come out of that door. He'll go to Buckingham Palace. The queen had been in her castle at Windsor. A short while ago, we heard that the royal standard was flying again over Buckingham Palace, which meant the queen was in residence, which means David Cameron can drive those few minutes around the corner from here to Buckingham Palace, and he'll be able to tell the queen that he is going to form the next government in this country. He will be able to give the queen an idea of what shape it may take, of the policies it will pursue, and then he'll drive back here to Downing Street. And that's when we're expecting here that David Cameron will come

out, tell the hundreds of waiting journalists here precisely, or at least some of the precise details of what he plans over the next five years -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right. We'll be watching. Thanks so much for that.

FBI director James Comey delivering chilling news, that thousands of Americans are in contact with ISIS as we speak. Best-case scenario, they're being recruited. Worst-case scenario, they're receiving orders to attack the United States.

CNN's Barbara Starr live from the Pentagon. Neither sound at all what we want to hear.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. A very grim prospect indeed. And a lot of focus now on this recent attack in Garland, Texas.

Elton Simpson, one of the men killed there by a police officer, one of the alleged perpetrators, now federal law enforcement officials are telling reporters that he, Elton Simpson, was in contact with known jihadists overseas who were encouraging him to launch attacks.

So are these attacks that we see inspired by ISIS or directed by ISIS? The point is it may no longer make a difference because this activity is happening. It is happening on the Internet. It is happening in communications.

And FBI Director James Comey telling reporters quite an astounding assessment. I want you -- I want to just quote it directly so everybody can see it. Comey saying, and I quote, "I know there are other Elton Simpsons out there. It's almost as if there is a devil sitting on the shoulder saying, 'Kill, kill, kill, kill' all day long. They are recruiting and tasking at the same time."

This now the challenge for federal law enforcement and for the intelligence community. What Americans are in contact with ISIS or extremist elements overseas; what are those communications; what are they being inspired or directed to do?

The Garland, Texas, incident may only be one of many potential plots that the FBI and other federal agencies are trying to track down. Later today, there is going to be a phone call with local and state authorities, with federal law enforcement. It's called a routine phone call. But you can bet this entire topic is going to come up -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Barbara, thanks so much for that.

So just as the FBI chief warned Thursday that ISIS may have thousands of online followers in the U.S., a Senate homeland security panel was debating how to combat ISIS online. And Daveed Gartenstein- Ross testified before that committee. He is a counterterrorism analyst and a senior fellow for the Foundation of Defense of Democracies.

Daveed, great to see you this morning. Give us a taste of what you said in your testimony before Congress.

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: In the testimony, I talked about a few things. The primary thing is that the United States has been losing out to ISIS online for one particular reason, which is that ISIS is very nimble. It's able to push out its message to media and push out its message directly to its followers. It's a winners' message. So often the U.S.'s message and ISIS's have been identical. The U.S. will emphasize its brutality, and ISIS will also emphasize its brutality. Because brutality works for them, so long as they're winning.

The argument I made is that we have to diffuse that perception that this is a winning organization, and the way we need to do that is to be much more nimble. ISIS competes at the speed of global media. And the U.S. government in its bureaucratization is hard-pressed to compete at the speed of the Guttenberg Bible.

CAMEROTA: You also pointed out to Congress that ISIS does have some vulnerabilities. What are those?

[07:05:06] GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Absolutely. Their vulnerability is, as I said, that it has a winners' messaging, and the fact that it's been losing ground significantly in Iraq since August. It hasn't gained and held new ground. Recently, it has some offensives Baiji as well as in Anbar against Ramadi, but it hasn't been able to hold new ground since October.

It's lost Tikrit, of course. And increasingly, there's pressure on Mosul, which is the de facto capital of its holdings in Iraq.

Now, the way they've tried to disguise this is by moving into Africa, they picked up a couple major new affiliates there. And this has been a way to show that they still have strength. That's why, as I said, we need to understand what their message and understand how to counter it; how to counter this view they're putting forward of themselves, that they're still a winner even if they're losing ground in Iraq.

CAMEROTA: But see, Daveed, that was what was so stunning about what the FBI director said yesterday, was that we had heard about these military losses that they'd suffered, yet somehow they're gaining in thousands of devotees here in the U.S.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Right. This is the difference between the old kind of recruiting and the new kind. Social media is really a game- changer in terms of the ability of a group like ISIS, which has mastered the medium to inspire people to its cause, because social media is a very warm medium. It's different than sitting here and consuming, you know CNN or any other television show where you can yell at the television, but the television's not going to talk back to you.

Whereas in social media there's this perception of intimacy. Someone can be half a world away. Someone can be a fighter in Iraq or Syria or Somalia, and you really feel like you know them.

Furthermore, communities of interest in social media are able to converge over ideas that are extreme ideas. Just 15 years ago if you were a jihadist and you were living in Peoria, Illinois, you might never run into another jihadist in your life. Whereas now you can just hop online and right away be in contact with somebody.

This is something that moving forward is going to create much more extreme communities. Communities that converge around certain ideas that may inspire them to violence. And it's much easier to have these group on social media harden people's extremism and spur them onto action and not allow them to back out.

CAMEROTA: I want to show you what Barbara Starr was just reporting about the message, the chilling message that James Comey, the head of the FBI, said yesterday. He said, "I know there are other Elton Simpsons out there," referring to the Texas gunman. "It's almost as if there's a devil sitting on their shoulder, saying, 'Kill, kill, kill' all day long. They are recruiting and tasking at the same time."

What did you tell Congress about how to fix that problem?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: What I told Congress is we need to really look at the institutions of government that are trying to beat ISIS's message. I compared the U.S. government to a legacy industry. If you look at the way the entire landscape of industry in America is changing, there have been entire industries that have been disrupted. Look at the taxi cab industry and Uber.

And U.S. government operates in a way as though it has a monopoly type situation. Accountability is not expected. Often, you have people tasked with orders that are expected to completely fail or not at all live up to the money that you're pouring into them.

I argued that within government you need basically the equivalent to start-up initiatives. Things that are smaller, less bureaucratized and particularly in a situation like this.

And one thing I could say that was very encouraging. I think that this was the most receptive panel that I've ever testified before. In fact, Senator Johnson, who was chairing the panel, his staff had put together some draft legislation right away, which was trying to directly address this problem. It's one of those rare hearings that actually gives me somewhat more faith rather than less in the U.S. government.

CAMEROTA: Oh, Daveed, that is so heartening to hear. That they were sitting up and taking notice of all of the advice that you were giving them. That's great. Thanks so much for sharing it with us today on NEW DAY. Great to see you.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Great to see you.

CAMEROTA: All right. Let's get over to Michaela. All right, Alisyn, the Department of Justice launching a full-

scale civil rights probe into the Baltimore Police Department following the outrage over Freddie Gray's death. The action coming just a day after the city's mayor made that request.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux live now with the latest for us. Good morning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Michaela. Well, Attorney General Loretta Lynch is going to be conducting this full-out investigation of the entire Baltimore Police Department. And they're really looking into a history or a pattern of practice of excessive force, random stops, false arrests and other misconduct.

We have seen these kinds of things happen before with cities in Albuquerque, Cleveland as well as most recently Ferguson. But I want to tell you what makes this case different, a little bit of background here.

This was something that was asked for by the mayor, the mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, to the attorney general. So she has really been pushing this thing.

The second thing that makes it really different here is that this is investigation No. 2 from DOJ. It was back in October the mayor realized there was a problem here in Baltimore, because there was a report that came out from "The Baltimore Sun" that said $5.7 million the city had been spending on settling 102 cases of alleged misconduct. So they've been spending a lot of money on this.

She realized it's a big problem. So she asked DOJ to participate in a voluntary and collaborative review.

[07:10:14] This one is different. It is much broader. It is much bigger, and it will actually have some teeth to change this department and potentially get some things done.

So we've seen the mayor on the street addressing this. We've also seen some high leaders, high-profile leaders in Maryland, Senator Barbara Mikulski as recently as yesterday went before a Senate hearing, asking the attorney general, "Please do something about this. We need federal help."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D), MARYLAND: In communities primarily that have significant populations of color, there has been now a tattered, worn and even broken trust between the community and the police department. We've got to restore that trust. We need the police department.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: So don't expect this review to happen any time soon or be completed. We think it's going to take at least more than a year. Remember, Ferguson took at least eight months. Baltimore a much

bigger, more complex situation, a much bigger city. But in the meantime, we are still waiting that deadline two and a half weeks away to see if there are any indictments against those six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Suzanne, thank you very much.

Another headline this morning: a top terrorist commander killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, according to an online video by the AQAP terrorist organization. That's al Qaeda the Arabian peninsula. Now the man is Nasser bin al-Ansi. And he matters because he claimed responsibility for the "Charlie Hebdo" massacre in Paris. A U.S. official does confirm to CNN al-Ansi is dead but did not say if he was killed by a drone.

CAMEROTA: A natural gas well on fire in Denton, Texas. Police believe a lightning strike caused this explosion, as severe storms moved through the area Thursday night. No injuries reported. It appears that firefighters are letting this blaze burn itself out.

CUOMO: All right. As we just heard from Suzanne, Baltimore's mayor has made this big request: "Come, Justice Department, do a full- scale investigation into police practices just like Ferguson. Not a collaborative review." Our next guest is calling out the mayor. This guest says she's part of the problem in Baltimore. We test the case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:16:04] PEREIRA: Good to have you back here with us on NEW DAY on this Friday. In the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death, the mayor of Baltimore has asked the Justice Department to conduct a full- scale civil rights investigation into the patterns and practices of the Baltimore Police Department. Is the investigation necessary?

Here to weigh in, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and Harry Houck, a retired NYPD detective. Marc Lamont Hill is also here, CNN political commentator and Huff Post Live.

I had my Wheaties so I'm ready to intervene. I'm ready to go -- not with you two but stand in between the two of you. We know you often are on different sides of this, but I think it makes for a really robust conversation.

First of all, Marc, let's start with you. This is what the community and activists and leaders in Baltimore have been asking for. You think it's justified?

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's absolutely justified. Even before this incident happened, there was ample evidence to suggest that we needed some sort of investigation. When you talk to people on the ground that's what we hear. When we look at the amount of money that's been doled out for police cases. When we look at just the tensions between community. All of these things suggest that something needs to be done. This is one way to do it. And this isn't a quick fix. This is a 9- to 12-, maybe even 14-

month investigation. This is not a quick media fix.

PEREIRA: No.

HILL: This is something that's substantive that's really designed to fix the community. I think it's a great thing.

PEREIRA: And Harry, if there are a lot of people saying, "Hey, the unjust and excessive practices of a department need to be examined," it's worth taking at least a look at, is it not?

HARRY HOUCK, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Sure, but we're going to have another one-sided report like we did in Ferguson.

PEREIRA: Why do you say that?

HOUCK: I read the Ferguson, report, all right? And I went through it line by line. All right. It was completely one-sided. Officers weren't interviewed. They went -- they didn't check out the people that they spoke to, see if their stories were true. You can sit there and read it, and you could see that it was completely one- sided.

PEREIRA: You think thousands of people can be wrong if they felt that they have been unfairly treated?

HOUCK: First of all I don't think it was thousands of people that they -- that they spoke to.

PEREIRA: In Baltimore it is.

HOUCK: I mean, I know they looked -- well, you know, you're allowed to go ahead and you are allowed to demonstrate, but not riot. All right. See, the fact here is with the -- I believe that the mayor, all right, is responsible.

PEREIRA: Why?

HOUCK: Because -- well, first of all it's her leadership, all right, her direction where police officers went out and they allowed rioters to destroy property, correct? We have the video of her doing that. And then we also have the video showing that the police officers were inaction. It was under her leadership and direction that police officers went out there without helmets. OK?

PEREIRA: Marc.

HILL: Let's assume everything you said is true, and I believe everything you said is not true. But let's concede for one moment that it were. Wouldn't that be more evidence of why the DOJ should step in? If you have so little faith in her leadership isn't that why the federal government should step in and do an investigation?

HOUCK: Yes, but you think the federal government's going to come in, and they're going to point the finger at her? I don't think so. Not a liberal administration going to come in and they're going to point at the liberal mayor in Baltimore. And the fact is that I'm tired and tired of hearing, all right, that the big problem with Baltimore is the police department. And it's not.

HILL: Well, it's not the only problem.

HOUCK: There are lots of problems.

HILL: But there are lots of problems. And I don't think anyone...

HOUCK: But everything is directed towards the police department.

HILL: I disagree. I think there have been entire studies done. There's been lots of media coverage prior to this. There's even a show you may have heard of called "The Wire" that looked at five different dimensions of...

HOUCK: Yes.

HILL: So there are all sorts of ways to think about Baltimore.

But if law enforcement is one of them, let's investigate that at the same time that we try to do these other things. And I agree with you it's a complicated problem, but it precedes the mayor. There have been police -- there has been police departments -- police problems in Baltimore before she was in office. And with a DOJ investigation...

HOUCK: And there have been Baltimore -- you know, Baltimore has been under a Democratic rule for almost 50 years. All right. So why...

PEREIRA: You think this is a political battle?

HOUCK: This is all politics. Are you kidding me? It's all about politics and money.

HILL: But what...

HOUCK: How come they haven't taken care of that part of the city? Why are the youth centers closed there? Who closed those? All right?

HILL: OK. But that's not the argument for not doing a DOJ investigation. That's an argument for doing a DOJ investigation and opening community centers. We can do both of those things. We can walk, we can chew gum, we can do all of that.

HOUCK: Sure. Exactly.

HILL: But you started this by saying that you don't want to do a DOJ investigation. I'm saying let's do it.

HOUCK: No, I didn't say I didn't want it. See, you accuse me, and what I said was...

HILL: Are you OK with doing one?

HOUCK: Just as long as it's not one-sided, and we're going to see it.

HILL: OK.

HOUCK: The Ferguson case was completely one-sided. I mean, you know, you've got to do your due diligence. When you interview somebody, you've got to find out if somebody's telling you the truth. All right? They didn't do that in that report.

[07:20:07] PEREIRA: So who would you like to see come in to do an investigation? Because the fact is, if the police do an investigation, it's going to seem one-sided from the black community. You see what I mean? So how...

HOUCK: No, I understand. But when I read the report, I want to be able to read that report and say, listen, OK, this is not a one- sided report.

HILL: So for example in Ferguson...

HOUCK: There are problems within the police department.

HILL: I'm trying to understand what you're saying. So in the case of racist e-mails, they said there's a pattern of racist communication among police. When they put up the racist e-mails, you're saying they should have gone to the police and said, "Hey, did you really mean to be racist here?"

HOUCK: What? You know, you've got a couple e-mails that a couple crazy cops sent out doesn't make the whole police department..

HILL: There was only like 12 cops in Ferguson. It was like Mayberry. I mean, that's part of the issue here.

HOUCK: Let's go back to Baltimore here and let's not talk about Ferguson.

HILL: You brought up -- you brought up the report.

HOUCK: I brought up the report.

HILL: And so am I. I'm responding to you bringing up the report.

HOUCK: Another thing -- another thing I don't like is the fact that police officers, all right, are used as pawns in this political game.

PEREIRA: OK. So let's time out for a second.

HOUCK: Why are police officers going out there without helmets?

PEREIRA: So what about the idea of everyone owning their part of the problem? Because we will all agree that there is a problem in Baltimore. Part of it stems from...

HOUCK: I would love to see that. You think the mayor's going to come out and say, "I'm part of the problem?"

PEREIRA: Maybe she will.

HILL: Nobody -- but here...

HOUCK: I'd love to see that.

HILL: You know what allowed that to happen? An outside DOJ investigation. Because now they can look and say, "Hey, what's coming down top down? What's going on at the department level?"

HOUCK: I've got no problem with that, just as long as I can read the report and I say, "Listen, this is a fair report."

HILL: OK.

HOUCK: That's all I'm barely interested in. And if you read that Ferguson report, it's not a fair report. It's just not.

HILL: OK. We're back to Ferguson now. But again...

HOUCK: The report.

HILL: Right. And so if we're talking about the report in Ferguson, I mean, I think there were a few problems with the Ferguson report in terms of the number of police that are there.

HOUCK: Thank you, sir.

HILL: No, no, no. I mean, in terms of the process. But I never disputed the argument (UNINTELLIGIBLE) ever made.

But when we go back to Baltimore, I think there's a wider range of people to talk to. There's a much more complicated web of things we have to deal with. That's why the report is going to take much longer. I agree with you we need to get a lot of information from a lot of people. I think we all agree with that.

PEREIRA: We do. That is a premise we can at least agree on. Thank you so much for your passionate arguments.

If you'd like to get in on the conversation, you can use the hashtag on Twitter #NewDayCNN or also jump on Facebook -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. So we're dealing with the policing issue and what's going on in those communities and, of course, we also are dealing with a bigger problem of terror.

Now we have this new troubling question. ISIS, people here, sympathizers, how many are there? Are they just sympathizers or are they planning? Do we know how to track it? Wait until you hear the number that the government believes that they're dealing with. And we're going to bring in the White House to figure out what do we do to fight terror better.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:26:44] CUOMO: We're going to show you some live picture here of what's going on in the U.K. This is a trip that David Cameron may not have expected to make. He is going to see the queen to say, "I can bring together a government and rule."

He was supposed to lose, according to exit polls, because there was supposed to be this big change in power. That didn't happen. So that's Mr. Cameron going to see the queen. He posted big gains, in fact.

And the question now becomes what does this mean for the relationship with the U.S.? Will he be able to get the U.K. more involved in the war on terror? The Labour Party and Liberal Democrats took big losses, so big the leaders of both those parties have already resigned.

CAMEROTA: Well, the influence of ISIS growing here in the U.S. FBI Director James Comey warning that thousands of Americans are being poisoned by the terror group. Comey says the FBI's conducting hundreds of investigations into potential homegrown terrorists.

PEREIRA: A follow-up now to a disturbing story that we first told you about on Thursday. The mother of a baby found in a Nebraska Dumpster was found murdered. An Amber Alert now is issued for her other son, a 5-year-old little boy named Josue Ramirez-Manero -- Marinero, pardon me. He was last spotted at a day care Wednesday. Police say they have located a silver Jeep Cherokee in connection with the case, but that little 5-year-old remains missing. So far no suspects have been made.

Tense moments aboard a Delta flight for some passengers. The smoke filled the cabin of their flight from Ft. Lauderdale to New York. A passenger grabbed his cell phone to record what it was like onboard. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA (voice-over): You can hear the smoke alarms sounding off inside Delta Flight 2028, the cabin filling up with smoke so fast.

EILEEN GANGA (PH), PASSENGER: I was so scared. I started to scream.

PEREIRA: The FAA says more than an hour after takeoff from Ft. Lauderdale, the crew reported smoke in the cockpit and a problem with one of the jet's two engines.

JACK URBONT, PASSENGER: I started noticing at a certain point a mist coming through. And then I realized the mist coming through the cabin was smoke. I could smell the smoke. Then I looked back toward the rear of the plane, and it was dark.

PEREIRA: All 89 passengers were told to put their heads between their legs to limit the amount of smoke they inhaled.

GANGA (ph): We'll have to take something and go like this. Oh, my God, were my eyes burning.

URBONT: People were coughing. Some people were crying.

PEREIRA: The flight to New York immediately diverted to Charleston. The pilot telling passengers what went wrong.

FABIO DIAS, PASSENGER: Apparently, there was a malfunction in the engine, and it had something to do with oil being burned. And they were deciding to turn one of the engines off to avoid the extra smoke.

PEREIRA: The smoke clearing in five minutes and all the passengers are now back in New York, safe and sound this morning.

URBONT: I'm not religious, but I clenched my fist and I said, "OK, God, I'm with you now. Get us down please. And I promise to be a good boy."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Alright. We'll see if he keeps that promise.

CAMEROTA: We'll follow him.

CUOMO: Speaking of broken promises, that sounds like politics. So let's get to "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY with Mr. John King.

JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT/ANCHOR: Wow, what a great segue to me.

CUOMO: Thank you.

KING: Gee, thanks very much.

PEREIRA: Happy Friday.

KING: Happy Friday and all that. It's a great day to go "Inside Politics." With me this morning to share their reporting and their insights, Tamara Keith of NPR, Lisa Lerer of the A.P. Let's start with the Chris Christie comeback trail. It begins and...