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U.S. Drone Strike Targets 'Jihadi John'; Kurds Battle ISIS for Control of Sinjar; Trump Targets Carson in 95-Minute Rant; Trump Defends Plan to Deport 11 Million Undocumented Immigrants. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired November 13, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. drone strikes targeting Jihadi John. Authorities are confident the strike killed Emwazi.

[05:58:24] BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. message to ISIS is "You can run, you can't hide. We will get you."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kurdish Peshmerga forces fight to retake the Iraqi city of Sinjar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a specific effort to target this critical supply line between Raqqah and Mosul.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald Trump unleashing his most aggressive attacks yet.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would bomb the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of them.

She's playing the woman card. That's all she has.

Somebody has to know the belt's going in. The belt moves this way. It moves this way. It moves that way.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have no idea where Mr. Trump thinks the money's going to come from.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say $600 billion. Bigger than the Department of Defense budget.

TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The question is whether you can round up and deport 11 million people. I don't think that's a realistic response.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Friday, November 13 -- Friday the 13th. Six a.m. in the East. Breaking news.

Jihadi John, that masked ISIS murderer with the British accent, targeted in a U.S. airstrike. We are waiting for confirmation whether the man was actually killed. But one U.S. official tells CNN they are confident they got their man.

Meanwhile, the U.S. stepping up its war on ISIS, providing air cover to Kurdish forces, trying to liberate the Iraqi town of Sinjar. The terrorists not backing down. They're issuing new threats against Russia and claiming responsibility for two deadly suicide bombings in Beirut.

CNN is covering all these developments for you, starting with CNN international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen in London.

What do we know at this hour, Fred?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn.

Just a couple of minutes ago, the British prime minister, David Cameron, went in front of the cameras here in London and once again confirmed that this airstrike had taken place. Also said that it wasn't clear at this point whether or not the airstrike was a success. He called this an act of self-defense, because, he said, it's certain that Jihadi John would have continued to kill people.

Let's have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Breaking overnight, the Pentagon confirming U.S. forces launch an airstrike targeting the masked ISIS executioner known as Jihadi John. A senior U.S. official says after tracking him for days, authorities are, quote, "confident" that the drone strike killed the Kuwaiti-born British citizen identified as Mohammed Emwazi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It certainly is a symbolic victory for the United States, the coalition and our partners. And it does bring closure to those families.

PLEITGEN: A senior U.S. official says authorities knew it was Emwazi when they took the shot. Another U.S. official tells CNN Emwazi was in a vehicle at the time of the strike near Raqqah, ISIS's de facto capital in Syria.

Emwazi appeared in a series of horrific ISIS beheading videos, documenting the murder of several American, Britain and Japanese hostages. He was often seen wielding a knife, only his eyes and hands exposed, taunting U.S. and British leaders.

MOHAMMED "JIHADI JOHN" EMWAZI, ISIS SPOKESMAN: We'll continue to strike the necks of our people were this morning, the U.K. government saying Britain was working hand in glove with America over the Jihadi John drone strike.

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: This was an act of self- defense. It was the right thing to do.

PLEITGEN: Emwazi, who's in his mid-20s, grew up in London and graduated with a degree in computer programming before becoming radicalized.

CAMERON: Is this strike was successful -- and we still await confirmation of that -- it will be a strike at the heart of ISIL.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: And one of the things that he also said was that this was a long-term operation of the two intelligence services and also said this is a clear message to ISIS as well that the reach of the U.S. and Britain is long and that they will not forget the fate of their citizens -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Fred, thank you for that.

Meanwhile, it is day two of Operation Free Sinjar, a major assault to retake the strategic Iraqi town from ISIS. Thousands of Kurdish forces storming the city with U.S. and coalition warplanes, providing cover from above. A defining moment in the war on terror.

Let's get the latest on the offensive from CNN's senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, live in Sinjar -- Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In the distance behind me you can see a grain silo which was, we're told, one of ISIS's main buildings inside Sinjar. Now it's in the hands of the Kurds. You see some of them, in fact, on the roof in just the last few minutes.

There's been a substantial change in Sinjar since this morning. We saw earlier on today large numbers of Peshmerga troops moving in on foot, just walking down the roads, converging in the city center. And then intense clashes. They clearly ran across ISIS and certain pockets there. Those clashes continued. And we eventually joined the Peshmerga down on the street level.

Down there you can see the intense damage inflicted on that city, both by coalition airstrikes but ISIS suicide bombers, as well. So little left to go back to for the Yazidi population, torn from there brutally last year. So many booby traps left at the side of the road.

We heard from one Canadian volunteer, Jason, who's been fighting there, working as a medic and seeing Kurds die right in front of him during this brutal fight, that there are over a dozen he'd seen just in the previous few hours.

It's frankly a death trap at this stage. The guns have fallen silent behind me now. There may still be ISIS inside the city. There may be booby traps still that they can't defuse. The question now is how swift has this victory been, how complete has it been, and when can the Yazidis start to move back to their town of Sinjar?

Back to you. CAMEROTA: Nick, thank you for all of that.

We want to bring in now Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. He's our CNN military analyst and former commanding general for Europe and the 7th Army.

Good morning, General. Great to see you this morning. Let's talk about this -- this airstrike that possibly got Jihadi John, who of course, we know well from these sinister beheading videos. What would the significant be?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, the significance -- good morning, Alisyn. The significance is the fact that there is increasing amounts of intelligence that allows forces to target him. That's the most important thing in my mind.

You're talking about a city that has been held by ISIS for over a year now. And they have had control of that city. We've had very little intelligence inside the city.

We're increasingly able to get that, based on partnering and engagements with not only Syrian Arabs but also the Kurdish Peshmerga in that area. So the targeting piece of this, the ability to actually strike something with a level of confidence, that's a tough process to go through. I've run targeting cells in the past. And when you get that level of confidence and intelligence on a target in a city that you don't have control of, it's pretty important.

CAMEROTA: But, General, in terms of the loss to ISIS of Jihadi John, obviously, this would be a symbolic victory. Everyone wanted to get the man behind these sickening videos. But can't ISIS just find another person to fulfill that role?

[06:05:13] HERTLING: Yes, they certainly can, Alisyn, but the key point is, it tells ISIS that we have the ability to target them wherever they are. And I think that's important.

Yes, it's important to get the guy who was on the video, who's a brutal murderer and seems to be a little bit sadistic from all reports, but it's also important to let them know you are not free to move around. And we're seeing increasingly -- increasing evidence of that throughout the campaign. That as more intelligence comes in, as we get more comfortable, as we get the feet up under us, that we can go anywhere we want and strike these targets.

This will make the other people in Raqqah that are defending ISIS there a little bit concerned about their safety, and it will cause them to change their pattern of life.

CAMEROTA: General, as we speak there's a battle under way for Sinjar. I know you've spent a lot of time there. So I want you to walk us through what's happening.

Here's the map, and this is -- the red is what's under ISIS control. You see Sinjar there. The yellow is ISIS support zone. The orange is ISIS attack zone. Tell us what you see with these tentacles.

HERTLING: Yes, that's a great map, Alisyn, because it shows you that ISIS has been occupying areas along a logistics supply line to Mosul. And if you draw a direct line from Raqqah to Mosul, it will go through the towns of Sinjar and Talafar. They need that route. It's called Highway 47. I've been on that road several times. It's a horrible route, long, tedious, dirty, and I'm sure Nick Paton Walsh has seen that over the last couple days.

But that is how they reinforce Mosul with fighters and with supplies. In the other areas, what you're talking about is just the flow down the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers. Because that's where the main cities are. That's where you have people living, because they use the waters off those two rivers to cultivate their crops and to -- basically, it's the life spring of the country.

So when you're talking about controlling the cities along those rivers, you also control a lot of other things. And that's what we're attempting to break up right now with our partners in the area.

CAMEROTA: General -- General, we do have a graphic of Highway 41 [SIC], which you've just -- 47, which you've just talked about. It goes, yes, from Raqqah, as you say, to Mosul. It also leads all the way down to Baghdad. I mean, it's interesting that it's in bright red, because it is a main artery. And you see all of the different vital cities. So that's what they're fighting for.

HERTLING: Highway 47...

CAMEROTA: Yes.

HERTLING: You have Highway 47 going across the north, Alisyn. And that's in and out of Kurdish-held territory as part of the Kurdish regional government. But the road going north and south out of Baghdad, everyone will recognize the names of the town.

That's Highway 1 going from Baghdad to Mosul. And it will -- it will go through the towns of Baiji -- Hawija is off to the East of the town, but you have to get on Highway 1 to get to Hawija, and that highway then leads up to Kirkuk. So all of those are support zones for any force that might have to go after Mosul. We're talking Iraqi security forces.

So the Iraqi security forces have been fighting in towns like Baiji and Ramadi, in Hawija, in Kirkuk. And they are trying to reach Mosul, the second largest city.

Then you have the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters fighting in the north along Highway 47. If you can cut those two supply lines and eliminate the ability for ISIS to move back and forth across the area, you're executing a very well-thought-out campaign plan.

What we've seen in the past, is as the Iraqi security forces have grown, they've been able to hit one place at a time. What's been significant over the last couple of days is we've seen a whole lot more action in different areas. CAMEROTA: General Mark Hertling, thanks so much for explaining

this whole region to us. We really appreciate all of your expertise. Thanks so much -- Chris.

HERTLING: Thank you, Alisyn.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn. Let's turn to the battleground of politics and Donald Trump is making headlines for going off in Fort Dodge, Iowa, a 95-minute tirade that, even by Trump standards, left the audiences and analysts stunned.

CNN's Athena Jones is live in Des Moines.

Good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

It was a sight to behold last night. One of the longest and most eye-rising tirades from Trump yet, full of insults against his GOP rivals, Democratic leaders and the media and more tough talk for ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TRUMP: I would bomb the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of them.

JONES (voice-over): Cursing and mocking chief rival Dr. Ben Carson.

TRUMP: How stupid are the people of Iowa?

JONES: Unleashing his most aggressive attacks yet in what amounted to an hour-and-a-half-long rant in Iowa.

TRUMP: How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?

JONES: The billionaire gunning for Carson -- the two are virtually neck and neck in recent polls here -- after the retired neurosurgeon wrote in his autobiography that, as a teen, he tried to stab a friend, only to have it stopped by a belt buckle.

[06:10:14] TRUMP: So I have a belt. Somebody hits me with a -- belt's going in, because the belt moves this way. It moves this way. It moves that way. He hit the belt buckle. Anybody -- anybody have a knife? You want to try it on me? Believe me, it ain't going to work.

JONES: Trump comparing Carson's self-described pathological temper to an incurable disease.

TRUMP: I don't want a person that's got pathological disease.

If you're a child molester, a sick puppy, you're a child molester, there's no cure for that.

JONES: A theme of attack he used earlier in the night on CNN, prompting Carly Fiorina to jump to Carson's defense, writing in a Facebook post, "All the money in the world won't make you as smart as Ben Carson."

During his tirade, Trump also attacking Hillary Clinton.

TRUMP: And she's playing the woman card up. That's all she has. Honestly, outside of the woman's card, she's got nothing going, believe me.

JONES: The one-time clear frontrunner also claiming to know more about the terrorist group ISIS than U.S. military generals, saying he would bomb areas controlled by ISIS that are rich in oil.

TRUMP: I would just bomb those suckers. And that's right, I'd blow up the pipes. I'd blow up the refineries. I'd blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left, and I'd take the oil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: It was really something to watch.

Now, in response to Trump's attacks, a top Carson aide says that Trump resents Carson's rise and is lashing out.

It will also be interesting to see how Republican primary voters respond. So far they haven't punished Trump for any of his wild statements. The question is, is that going to change -- Chris.

CUOMO: I don't know that he's called them stupid before either. So we'll see how that plays. We'll get response from the Carson camp, and we're also going to hear more from Mr. Trump himself while being tested on CNN last night. And we will get plenty of reaction to what this will mean, his new phase of attack-tics coming up, as well.

And as I said, we're going to have a Carson team member here, Armstrong Williams, to talk about what he thinks is going on with Trump and why he does not think it will work.

PEREIRA: Attack-tics. Excellent use of the word.

CUOMO: You like that?

PEREIRA: I like that a lot.

CUOMO: Thank you.

PEREIRA: All right. Some other news for you here. A Secret Service agent has been arrested after being caught in a child sex sting. Lee Robert Moore turned himself in earlier this week. Officials say he thought he was talking online to a 14-year-old girl, but it was a Delaware state trooper posing as a teenager.

The criminal complaint says Moore, who was assigned to the White House, sent naked photos and requested to meet in person to have sex. He is now on administrative leave.

CAMEROTA: The University of Missouri has a new interim president this morning. Michael Middleton installed just days after the resignation of Tim Wolfe, amidst claims of racism at the school. Middleton is the school's former deputy chancellor. He had been working on diversity and inclusion efforts for the university. He was also one of the first black students to ever graduate from the university's law school.

CUOMO: More aircraft facing laser attacks overnight. A news chopper for KTLA in California targeted several times. A 15-year-old boy arrested and released to his parents in that case.

Meantime, more incidents in Dallas. A Southwest flight, two private planes hit. No arrests have been made in those. More than 20 aircraft were struck by lasers Wednesday.

This is not funny. It is a crime. You will go to jail. I know the 15-year-old kid didn't. But that's a different -- situation; it's a juvenile.

PEREIRA: They're trying to figure out what kind of charges to press. That was my former station in Los Angeles. Everybody is OK. Tim Lynne (ph) was the pilot. They were able to track down the home and then arrest that 15-year-old.

This is insanity. Why does anybody think this is even funny or it's a good idea?

CAMEROTA: Right. I mean, and luckily now, it's proving to -- they're catching the people.

PEREIRA: Let's hope they continue to and put this to rest. My goodness.

CAMEROTA: All right. As you just heard, Donald Trump held a remarkable event last night, complete with a re-enactment and props. Wait until you hear what he says about critics of his immigration plan. Trump unfiltered, ahead on NEW DAY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:18:29] CUOMO: All right. So before he lit into Ben Carson at a campaign stop in Iowa, Donald Trump was blasting critics of his immigration plan, as well. CNN's Erin Burnett sat down with Trump and got a taste.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: So I want to ask you about the immigration fracas (ph) that's going out there. You obviously put immigration front and center in the GOP conversation.

TRUMP: You wouldn't even be talking about immigration if it wasn't for me.

BURNETT: You put it on the table. And now, of course, you were criticized heavily at the debate, right? Kasich, Jeb Bush saying that your proposal to deport...

TRUMP: Well, they're weak people. No, excuse me, they're weak people. I watched Jeb today. They're weak people.

And Kasich made a fool out of himself in the debate. I mean, what he said, it was ridiculous. Actually, everybody was pretty much uniform in the fact that Kasich did a bad job with the debate.

BURNETT: How, on this one point, though, of deporting 11 million people, even Marco Rubio said it can't be done.

TRUMP: What do you mean, "even Marco Rubio"? Marco Rubio is in favor of amnesty. He was a member of the Gang of Eight. He was always in favor of amnesty. He was in favor of people pouring into the country. Then what happened is when people found that out, he sank like a rock in the water.

BURNETT: He says he's for anyone with a criminal record, people like that get deported.

TRUMP: Now he's saying things different.

BURNETT: Which is something that you would support.

TRUMP: He's much different now than he was in the past. OK? So...

BURNETT: But the point, the question I'm asking, though, is how do you take 11 million people and make them leave?

TRUMP: You do it through a process. You do it in a very humane manner. You do it...

BURNETT: But they're not going to want to leave. You're going to have to hire a lot of people to find them and get them to the border, right?

TRUMP: First of all, they're here illegally. If a person comes across the border and you send them right back, the Border Patrol sends them right back, there's not a big court situation. They send them back. They're here illegally.

[06:20:05] BURNETT: Yes, but what about the guy already living in Detroit?

TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me. What's the difference between somebody that comes over the border for two days, he gets caught and they bring him back? And somebody that comes over the border, he's here for a year, and you bring him back? There is no difference. What I'm saying...

BURNETT: But logistically, there's a difference, in terms of finding them and getting them to go.

TRUMP: Well, no. Well, you have to find them.

BURNETT: That's what costs money, and you have to have the people. That's what I'm trying... TRUMP: You can go -- you can also do E-verify. You do know

that. You can do E-verify, where the employers aren't going to be hiring them; and then everyone's going to go back. That's one way of doing it so that you don't have the problem.

You do E-verify where an employer has a big problem if he hires these people, and they're going to all go back of their own volition. And that's one way.

BURNETT: I'm sure you'll say you can do it cheaper, but the number is big. Get all of these people out of the country.

TRUMP: These are people that don't know what they're talking about.

BURNETT: They say $600 billion...

TRUMP: They also say...

BURNETT: ... bigger than the Department of Defense contract.

TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me, they also say it's $15 billion to build a wall that I'll do for 6.

BURNETT: So say you do it for $100 billion.

TRUMP: They also -- and by the way, my wall will be bigger, and better, and stronger and more powerful.

Let me just explain something. Illegal immigration each year costs us between 200 and $300 billion. I don't know if anybody gives you those numbers. Probably not. But -- and when you include crime and other problems, it's more than that. so you're talking about between 200 and 300 billion, the way it is now. All right?

BURNETT: But they pay in taxes. They pay $24 billion in taxes.

TRUMP: Who pays in taxes? You really believe they pay taxes? They pay very little.

BURNETT: They pay Social Security, state and local.

TRUMP: Yes, what percentage of them? Ten percent?

BURNETT: It's $24 billion a year the economy wouldn't have if they weren't here.

TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me. Do you know how few pay taxes here? And don't be naive. Do you think that an illegal immigrant getting money is going to be paying taxes?

OK, sure, some probably do, only because the employers are insisting on it. OK? But there's very little. Percentage-wise, there's very little, probably 5 percent, 10 percent. It's a very small amount pay taxes, Erin.

Look, they're here illegally. They're not paying taxes. OK? I've heard this one before, too. I hear them all.

What I do is I get things better. I make things really good. I fix things. And you know, I'm a real fixer of things, not Jeb Bush. OK? I'm a real fixer. I can really do things.

One of the reasons the wall never got built, they couldn't get their environmental impact statement, if you can believe it, because something was in the way. They couldn't get their environmental impact statement.

So here's the thing. Between E-verify, which will take care of a big portion of them, they'll go back. And you know what? If they can't get a job, they're going back anyway. We don't have to knock on doors.

BURNETT: So I guess on this point about humanity, though, are you going to be sending in officers...

TRUMP: We're going to be sending in people...

BURNETT: ... a force of people into people's homes to get them out?

TRUMP: ... in a very nice way. We're going to be giving notice. We're going to be saying you have to go back to wherever the country is. I mean, it's going to be countries, all different countries. It's not one country. Back to the country. We'll take them back to those countries. We're going to do it in a very humane way. But between E-verify and other modern systems, a lot of that will happen automatically.

And don't forget, we're taking tremendous numbers of jobs from people that were born in this country. And you understand that, because when you look at the rolls, you have 100 million people that potentially want to work, and they can't find jobs.

BURNETT: They don't want to pick grapes, though.

TRUMP: Maybe not. And you know what? We're going to have -- we can solve that with work visas where they come in and they work legally. They pay taxes, and then they go out. I'm all for that. I think that's true. Because I agree with you. They might not want to pick grapes, not their thing. I mean, you know, they don't want to do that. And that's OK.

But we'll have a work visa where they can come in, work, and then at the right time, they have to go back out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: President Obama, for his part, not buying Donald Trump's immigration plan. In fact he's slamming the Republican candidate's proposal, going as far as calling it un-American.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: First of all, I have no idea where Mr. Trump thinks the

money is going to come from. It would cost us hundreds of billions of dollars to execute that.

Imagine the images on the screen flashed around the world as we were dragging parents away from their children and putting them in, what, detention centers, and then systematically sending them out. Nobody thinks that that is realistic, but more importantly, that's not who we are as Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: You see President Obama there, wearing that sort of smile that says, "I've got this." Like there's no debate in his mind that that -- that Trump's is out of bounds.

PEREIRA: Well, he knows that there are people in the Republican Party that also agree that that's not the right way to approach it. There are several other immigration plans that don't go as far as Donald Trump's do.

CUOMO: That's the -- the sticky wicket for the GOP right now. Is that you want to energize your base. They haven't done that in recent elections in the way they need to, to win the White House. But what is the cost of that?

Because the big question for whoever is on this poll sheet at the end of the day, will be can you beat the Democrat, presumptively Hillary Clinton? But can you beat her?

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUOMO: Energize the base, beat her. That's going to be the test.

CAMEROTA: We're going to be talking with former Governor John Sununu about that later in the program.

Meanwhile, after Trump's chat that you just saw with Erin Burnett, he then went on an epic rant, berating his rivals. He belittled supporters of Ben Carson. We'll show you when NEW DAY returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:29:18] TRUMP: How dare the press not believe me that I went after my mother with a hammer, that I hit somebody in the face with a padlock? That I tried to stab a friend of mine, whose name was Bob, but now it's changed? Whose name was Bob. He was a friend, but now he's a member of my family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Well, there you have it, Donald Trump shamelessly stealing Ben Carson's bio, now saying he attacked his mother and stabbed a man in the belt.

CAMEROTA: He was mocking.

CUOMO: He was?

Well, let's try and tune in on this fracas that was going on between these two men there for -- what happened in Iowa? Why did Donald Trump decide to shift gears again and go back to his attack- tics?

Let's discuss. CNN political commentator and political anchor at New York One, Mr. Errol Louis; and CNN political director David Chalian.

Even by Trump standards, Mr. Louis, this was unusual. What is the strategy here?