Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Suspected Terrorist Killed in Confrontation with Police; Trial of Accused Killer James Holmes Continues; Sheryl Sandberg Writes Facebook Post about Deceased Husband; Interview with Presidential Candidate Lincoln Chafee. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 04, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] ALEXANDRA FIELD, CORRESPONDENT: -- Rahim in the parking lot of a CVS. They had been following him for years. So why did they act in a public place so suddenly, some people have asked? Well, we've learned in court documents that investigators believe that Usaama Rahim had two different plans he was working on, one to behead a prominent figure, as he suggested, another to attack police officers. He now explains why he appeared to have switch plans at the last minutes and accelerated his timeline, according to authorities.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: The original plot was allegedly sinister and gruesome according to law enforcement officials. The FBI believes Boston terror suspect's Usaama Rahim's original plan was to behead Pamela Geller, a controversial activist and conservative blogger. According to an FBI affidavit 26-year-old Rahim purchases this marine fighting knife on Amazon on May 25th. The following day on the 26th, he allegedly makes a phone call to 25-year-old David Wright. Wright is now being charged with destroying evidence on Rahim's smartphone.

The FBI says Rahim told his nephew about the knife over the phone and that Wright later responded with a reference, investigators say, to terrorists beheadings. The next day on May 27th, the FBI intercepts the package, x-rays the package and finds the knife and the knife sharpener. But then abruptly, this week on Tuesday the FBI says Rahim called his nephew, saying he is changing the plan because he can't wait that long. Instead he will go after the boys in blue, and Rahim reveals his plan to randomly kill police officers in Massachusetts on Tuesday or Wednesday. This supposed escalation investigators says is what prompted them to approach Rahim at the shopping center Tuesday morning.

WILLIAM EVANS, BOSTON POLICE COMMISSIONER: The video clearly shows four or five officers backtracking away from the suspect as he is coming at them.

FIELD: On Wednesday, investigators showed the surveillance video of the shooting to community leaders.

IMAM ABDULLAH FAARUQ, MOSQUE FOR THE PRAISING OF ALLAH: Based on the video that we saw, I would 150 percent collaborate what the commissioner just stated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: At the time when those community leaders watched that surveillance video here at the Boston Police headquarters, the Rahim family had not seen that video. The video isn't likely to be made public until the death investigation is complete. But as the investigation into the alleged terror plot, authorities believe that Rahim and Wright were in touch with a third person in Rhode Island. That person is unnamed in court documents. Alisyn, Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alexandra, thank you very much. We're going to talk with the target of one of those plots, Pamela Geller. She is the woman this man was thinking about beheading, and she is here now to talk about what she is going to do about it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, new this morning, ISIS closing the Ramadi dam in Iraq, cutting off the water supply to civilians. Meanwhile, U.S. secretary of state Tony Blinken, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, I should say, said that 10,000 ISIS terrorists have been killed by American-led air strikes. That death toll is causing controversy. Tony Blinken just returned from an anti-ISIS coalition meeting in Paris and he joins us live from the State Department. Secretary Blinken, thanks so much for being here.

ANTHONY BLINKEN, U.S. DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, let me read to you and to our viewers what you said this week that has gotten a lot of attention about ISIS. You said "We recorded an enormous loss for Daesh, also known as ISIS, more than 10,000 since this campaign started, and this will eventually have an effect." Do you still stand by that number?

BLINKEN: I do, but the number in and of itself alone doesn't mean much. Here's what's going on. We had 22 countries, the core of the 62-country coalition, come together in Paris to see where we are in this campaign. The coalition has being together for nine months. And we have seen some setbacks including in Ramadi, but we have seen significant progress. Part of that progress is the fact that ISIL now controls 25 percent less territory in Iraq than it did when the coalition got together. And part of that progress is the serious damage that's been inflicted on it in terms of its loss of men and its loss of material. So that's a big part of the equation.

But equally important is what the Iraqis are doing to take advantage of that, and what the entire coalition is doing to stop foreign fighters from getting into Iraq in the first place to stop them from radicalizing. So all of these things taken together are important elements. The number is just one piece of them.

CAMEROTA: But it is that number that's getting so much attention because nobody has given a number until you did. Where did you get that number?

BLINKEN: This is our best assessment. We have talked about this for months. We've talked about the thousands of ISIL fighters that have been taken off the battlefield. But again, what is important here is that we have the right strategy and we're making the right adjustments to deal with any setbacks.

Here's what's going on. In Anbar, which is where Ramadi is and where Ramadi fell, you have a predominantly Sunni presence and you had an Iraqi military that is predominantly Shiite that was under siege in Ramadi for 18 months.

[08:05:04] What the prime minister in Iraq is doing now and the plan he presented to the coalition is to mobilize local fighters because they will fight for their towns, they will fight for their families, they will fight for their lives. Getting more arms to them more quickly and getting them mobilized and getting them paid, and that is moving forward, and that is something the coalition supports.

CAMEROTA: And that would certainly help. However, Pentagon officials tell CNN just this morning that they are upset that you used a number. They say it's their policy not to give exact numbers. So why did you feel it was important to talk about that number?

BLINKEN: This was in the larger context of putting all of this in context, because we've had the setback in Ramadi, but it's also very important that people understand that over the course of the last nine months with this coalition coming together we inflicted serious damage on ISIL, because keep in mind, part of their strategy is a propaganda strategy. They are trying to tell young, impressionable people around the world who are recruited as foreign fighters, and they are on the march, they are succeeding, they're moving forward, and we are not, and in fact it's just the opposite.

One element, and I emphasize it's just one element, is the fact that a serious number of people have been taken off the battlefield. They need to understand, people need to understand that signing up for ISIL is a one-way ticket to a very bad place.

CAMEROTA: And part of the reason that number is getting attention is because for months we have heard the number of ISIS fighters is only about 20,000. In fact, our counterterrorism officials on CNN have said told us that. And then here's the CIA spokesman who on September 11, 2014, said this, "ISIS can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria. So are you saying half of ISIL has been taken out by the air strikes?

BLINKEN: No. What we're saying is two thing. One, the coalition, has been the Iraqis themselves have done serious damage and taken a lot of territory away from ISIL. But second, as important as that is dealing with the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq and in Syria, dealing with their recruitment, because if you wind up taking a lot of people off the battlefield but they are simply replaced by others, you are not going to wind up in a better place. That's why this coalition is focused on that. We have more than 30 countries that have passed new laws criminalizing foreign fighters. We have had 23 countries make arrests, break up cells. And we have Turkey that has created a significant database and is sharing information to try and get control of the border, and all of that is vitally important.

CAMEROTA: But, Mr. Blinken, is the current thinking that they have just been replaced, and that now the numbers are actually larger than 20,000 or 30,000 in terms of ISIS? I mean, as you know, I don't have to tell you there is a huge debate going on here in this country about whether the strategy of air strikes is working and whether or not it's time to beef that up.

BLINKEN: So it's not just the strategy of air strikes. It's the strategy on the one hand of air strikes, of training, equipping, and advising the local forces on the ground. And then it's the local forces on the ground themselves. Both of those parts of that equation have to be present. What we talked about in Paris was strengthening both sides of that equation.

CAMEROTA: And what does that look like? Is it time to send more arms to the people on the ground and do more training, because as you know, the training on the ground for the Iraqi army did not work in places like Ramadi?

BLINKEN: So what it means in particular in Anbar where Ramadi is, is again mobilizing local people, not just the Iraq military itself, but local people who are going to fight for their communities and for their own lives. So the prime minister's plan that the coalition fully backed just a couple of days ago in Paris is to mobilize the tribes, is to get them weapons more quickly and more efficiently, is to get them the information and the training that they need and to ramp all of that up. That's exactly what is happening.

CAMEROTA: OK, thank you for sharing that strategy with us. That is new information for us. We appreciate it. Secretary Tony Blinken, thank you for being on NEW DAY.

BLINKEN: Thank you. Thanks very much.

CUOMO: Mistrial in the Colorado movie theater massacre? No, says the judge, for the second time. At issue, a video shown in court of suspect James Holmes speaking to a psychiatrist. CNN's Ana Cabrera joins us live from Centennial, Colorado with the latest details. What do we know?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. This is a sanity case and also a death penalty trial. And now the jury has been given some of the most important evidence in the case, a glimpse inside the mind of this accused mass murder as he tells a court- appointed psychiatrist how he killed and why he did it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES HOLMES: I only count fatalities.

CABRERA: Accused killer James Holmes says he was on a mission to kill when he opened fire inside a crowded movie theater in July of 2012.

DR. REID: At that time did you have any doubt you would end up killing a lot of people?

HOLMES: No.

CABRERA: Holmes describes the shooting in this 22 hour videotapes mental evaluation ordered by the court last year. It's the latest evidence shown to a jury who will decide his fate. Holmes said he felt calm and collected as he entered the theater with a plethora of ammunition and firearms.

HOLMES: Then I raised the shotgun and saw the people that were getting up like in the back corner, so I shot in that direction.

[08:10:06] CABRERA: It was a moment Holmes says he had been planning for months, an attack he also details in a notebook sent to a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado just before the shooting. He writes, "The obsession to kill since I was a kid with age became more and more realistic," and he writes specifically about his plan of mass murder at the movies, maximum casualties, easily performed with firearms, being caught 99 percent certain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Insights into the mind of madness.

CABRERA: The defense claims Holmes was mentally ill, was spiraling into insanity, and had tried to get help. Holmes tells Dr. William Reid he dialed the university's mental health hotline right before entering the theater.

HOLMES: I didn't hear anything for nine seconds.

DR. REID: What was your thought when the phone call ended?

HOLMES: I'm really going to do this.

CABRERA: In the end, Holmes surrendered to police after shooting dozens of people and killing 12.

LONNIE PHILLIPS, PARENT OF VICTIM: He wanted to protect himself and it's all about him.

SANDY PHILLIPS, PARENT OF VICTIM: Our kids didn't get that chance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Now, Holmes says he killed to increase his own self0worth. He says he believed that the value of the lives he took were transferred to him. He called his mission a success. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Ana, thank you for that reporting.

At this hour, rescue workers cutting holes in the haul of that capsized cruise in China's Yangtze River, though no further signs of life today. The body count of 77 is growing, hundreds of people still missing three days after the Eastern Star overturned during a violent storm.

CUOMO: Riots in a Los Angeles jail, one inmate stabbed, three others wounded in the melee. Officials immediately put the facility on lockdown. They, however, say the incident lasted about 10 minutes before deputies were able to gain control. All four inmates treated for non-life-threatening injuries. The big question is why? No reason offered yet for what set off the madness. CAMEROTA: Sheryl Sandberg opening up about the loss of her husband.

The Facebook COO marking the end of the official 30-day Jewish period of mourning with an emotional online post. CNN's Jean Casarez joins us now with Sandberg's words.

JEAN CASAREZ: This is really something. When we think of Sandberg, we think of someone who is such a mentor for so many in this country, especially women. Her accomplishments ranging from high ranking executive at Google and now Facebook. In 2012 "TIME" magazine tapped as one of the world's most influential people, but what we are learning also now is that she was very human.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: A heartfelt and poignant essay posted to Facebook by the company's number two executive Sheryl Sandberg, expressing the nearly all-consuming grief she is experiencing since her husband Dave died May 1st after a sudden and tragic treadmill accident while on vacation in Mexico.

The private and always poised chief operating officer and 45-year-old mother of two penned the emotional post to mark the end of the traditional Jewish 30 day period of mourning for a spouse, writing that she wants to give back "some of what others have given me and choose life and meaning among her profound loss. I have lived 30 years in the 30 days. I am 30 years sadder. I feel like I am 30 years wiser."

The couple who married in 2004 have two young children together. Sandberg's raw honesty at times heart-wrenching. "I have gained a more profound understanding of what it is to be a mother both through the depth of the agony I feel when my children scream and cry, and from the connection my mother has to my pain. She has tried to fill the empty space in my bed, holding me each night until I cry myself to sleep. She has fought to hold back her own tears to make room for mine."

Sandberg's intimate essay ends on the final heartbreaking anecdote as she tries to navigate her new normal. "I was talking to one of these friends about a father-child activity that Dave is not here to do. We came up with a plan to fill in for Dave. I cried to him, "But I want Dave. I want option A. He put his arm around me and said option A is not available, so let's kick the -- out of option B."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: She signed off the lengthy post by tagging it "With Dave Goldberg," and quoting lyrics from Bono who sang at Goldberg's memorial service last month.

CAMEROTA: Oh, boy.

CASAREZ: As she does with everything, she helps others in the process.

CAMEROTA: That is nice. That's so nice that she is being open and giving about this. How tough, just for anyone, it's tough, and then that he was such a figure in her whole narrative about how it's important to choose the right spouse and to have a supportive husband to help your own career. I mean, we came to know him through her.

[08:15:00] CASAREZ: We did. We did. And now we also see how fragile life is.

CUOMO: He was so young.

CASAREZ: So young, and it was so instant.

CUOMO: Thirty-day mourning period, obviously, that's the tradition. But it's not nearly enough. I mean, this is going to be something she deals with for a long time, and maybe helping others will help her as well.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Jean, thank you.

CASAREZ: You're welcome.

CUOMO: All right. So, if you are a Democrat and you don't want Hillary Clinton as your president, who is your second choice? Lincoln Chafee says he is, and he's going to tell you why ahead on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINCOLN CHAFEE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I enjoy challenges, and certainly, we have many facing America. Today, I'm formally entering the race for the Democratic nomination for president. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Who is that, you say? That is former Rhode Island governor, Lincoln Chafee, formerly announcing he is running for president. As opposed to announcing that he's announcing, which is what we just saw from Jeb Bush, he will be the third Democratic candidate to challenge frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

So, where does Chafee stand on some of the major issues facing the country today?

Let's ask him to answer for himself. Lincoln Chafee joining us live on NEW DAY from Providence, Rhode Island.

It's very good to have you, Governor.

[08:20:00] A key distinction that you may claim as your own going into this race is you may be the only person in the race who's been a member of all three major parties. How do you explain that? CHAFEE: Well, yes, I started out as a liberal, moderate Republican,

and then I was the mayor of my city, and a United States senator and then I became an independent and got elected governor as an independent, and then while governor became a Democrat.

But my convictions have never changed over the 30-year period. I've always been convicted and strong on the environment, protecting clean air and clean water, certainly fiscal responsibility, protecting civil liberties, and aversions to quagmires overseas -- these are -- building the middle class -- these are all convictions that never changed over 30 years.

CUOMO: All right. Governor, so if you are going to get into the race now, Hillary Clinton is there, you must beat Hillary Clinton to move on and face the Republican. I know that sounds obvious, but the question is, how do you do it? How do you beat Hillary?

CHAFEE: Well, in the previous clip in your show, all the problems we have in the Middle East and North Africa with ISIS and rise of ISIS and taking of Ramadi, and so, how did we get into the endless tragic quagmire? Who made the mistakes that got us there? What are we doing there?

And so, that's a big issue I think in 2016. This should be a Republican war, a Republican mess. And we can't have a Democrats our nominee having supported the war resolution back in 2002, because we live with all the problems today, as we saw on your show earlier. I would submit to the Democrats across the country, we are going to be compromised in trying to win the election in 2016 if our nominee supported the war in Iraq. This is a big issue for Democrats in 2016.

CUOMO: Understood. It is a big issue for everybody, every political stripe, what's going on overseas. However, the biggest knock on Hillary right now in the polls is trustworthiness, questions about conflict of interest with the CGI, the charity that the family runs.

Do you share those concerns?

CHAFEE: Absolutely. Anytime you run for office, at local level or any level, trustworthiness is a main concern of the voters, and seeing the poll numbers should be a concern to her. The election is a long way away, but those poll numbers and that perception of untrustworthiness, it's something you cannot sweep away. It's something very, very important, no matter what office you run for.

CUOMO: Is it just the perception? Or do you believe it could be the reality? Should there be an investigation of conflicts of interest? What gives you the post pause for concern when you hear the allegations about the emails and the conflict of interest with CGI, what stands out to you?

CHAFEE: I think it's the record just going back over decades of questionable ethical practices, and people bringing up Whitewater and all these things, the Rose Law Firm record. It just seems like it never stops. So, now, we are in the tenure of secretary of state and the e-mails and, of course, the Clinton Foundation donations at the same time the State Department is making critical conditions that are combined with those donations by the Clinton Foundation. It's just too close and too many ethical questions.

CUOMO: What is --

CHAFEE: I will say over my 30-year record in public office, I never had any ethical questions about my behavior in 30 years at the state, local and federal levels.

CUOMO: What is one thing that Lincoln Chafee would do as president that Hillary Clinton would not?

CHAFEE: Mostly foreign policy. We agree on a lot of domestic and national issues. And I served with her in the United States Senate for six years and we agree on many things domestically, but internationally we are very different. She is a hawk. She's more the unilateral approach to the world, which is not working, obviously. And we just have to change that.

I'm more of the strong diplomatic corps, working to prevent peace -- to prevent war, like I say, wage peace is what I want to be talking about in this campaign, and averting war, and we can do that. We've got to change the way we approach the world.

Senator Clinton is too much of a hawk, and that's a big difference.

CUOMO: What's up with the metric system, Governor Chafee? Why are you bringing up that metric system, that you're bringing us up to the metric system? I like it, powers of 10 and all that, my kids are teaching about it.

But why are you making that an issue?

CHAFEE: It's one of many things I think we should do in the United States to become more international. There's only three countries that are not metric. United States, Liberia and Myanmar, in all the world.

And so, it's time to join the international community. It's kind of symbolic, and I happen to live in Canada when they went metric, and it's not that hard, 34 degrees, over all of a sudden, you get used to that being outside when it's 34, and people say it's expensive. But the economic benefits outweigh the cost of changing the signs and the like.

Once we join the international community, the economic benefits -- I think the Chamber of Commerce, the scientific community that defends on metric, would agree with that.

[08:25:03] There are big economic benefits by going metric, but also symbolic of us joining the rest of the world.

CUOMO: Us, Liberia and Myanmar? Those are the three countries?

CHAFEE: That's right. That's right. That's right. Yes. I think --

CUOMO: You've already added to the discussion just by introducing that fact to people.

So, you have been a member of all three political parties, you lived in Canada as well, you've really been all over the map in terms of finding yourself in this process of politics. What do you think was the big revelatory moment for you when you realized this is who Lincoln Chafee is?

CHAFEE: Working on the racetrack was a very, very important experience in my life. I went up there and didn't know anybody in Alberta, Canada, I made a living by practicing a trade that if I wasn't good at it, the people wouldn't bring me business. And they came to trust my work, I had a good business, great life, met different people -- very, very different living on the racetrack in Alberta, Canada, for seven years.

And that was very important in my life. It gave me a lot of confidence and my convictions, which I talked about earlier, I can do this and I did it up in Alberta, getting on the racetrack, making a good living. It's very important in my life.

CUOMO: So, let's apply it to the presidential quality of predicting the unknown. Do you think American Pharaoh gets the Triple Crown?

CHAFEE: He's looking good. And Bob Baffert, the trainer, has come close so many times, and I think he's going to do it this time. Bob Baffert, he's due, he's got a good horse.

CUOMO: Appreciate it. Lincoln Chafee, congratulations to you getting into the race. Good luck going forward.

CHAFEE: Thanks you for having me on the show, Chris.

CUOMO: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. We are learning more about the terror plot thwarted in Boston. Police say an ISIS-inspired suspect wanted to kill police, but first he planned to behead conservative Pamela Geller. Pamela Geller joins us live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)