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New Day

22 Detained in Raids After Istanbul Airport Attack; U.S. Airports Beef Up Security after Istanbul Attack; Boris Johnson Not Running for British P.M.; Obama & Trump Trade Jabs on Trade. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired June 30, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- in complete accord with. That's trade.

[07:00:03] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not a measure of populism. It's nativism or xenophobia or worse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The public needs to be told the truth about contamination in their water supply. Citizens should be very concerned.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Why the EPA is not doing more to protect our drinking water.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to NEW DAY. Victor Blackwell joining us.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you.

CUOMO: Good to have you, my friend.

We do have breaking news right now on the Istanbul airport investigation. Turkish police conducting multiple anti-terror raids at this hour.

This as we are just learning now about the nationalities of the airport attackers. Let's get right to Brooke Baldwin. She is live at the Istanbul airport with all of the breaking details. What have you learned, Brooke?

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, good morning. I'll get to those raids in just a moment. We have a new number on the number of people detained.

But first, we now know, according to a Turkish official, the nationalities of the three suicide attackers. They are from Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kurdistan. So there's that as more of a picture is being painted as far as who these three were who ultimately murdered 41 people here at the Istanbul airport. We also know early this morning special ops police here in and around

Istanbul have detained 16 -- 16 different locations, 13 people. We have also learned on top of that that an additional nine others were detained in a western coastal city. I think we have to be careful with language, whether or not it is specifically connected to what happened here two nights ago at the Istanbul airport or simply in the wake of these horrific attacks this has happened because of what happened at the Istanbul airport.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN (voice-over): A Turkish official says one attacker walked into the arrivals area of the international terminal, blowing himself up near the security checkpoint. The chaos and confusion giving the second attacker the opportunity to go up to the departures hall.

This surveillance video captures him running across the terminal with a Kalashnikov assault rifle in hand. Moments later, detonating his suicide vest.

A third attacker waiting outside, setting off a third blast outside as frightened travelers ran for their lives.

ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkish and U.S. officials say it bears the hallmarks of the terror group.

JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: I think what they do is they carry out these attacks to gain the benefits from it. At the same time, not wanting to potentially maybe alienate some of those individuals inside of Turkey that they may be still trying to gain the support of.

BALDWIN: Investigators say the method used by these attackers is strikingly similar to the Brussels airport bombings. In both cases, three men carried out the attacks, arriving in a taxi, all with explosives and targeting international airports.

Brennan warning ISIS is likely moving toward targeting westerners and may be planning attacks in the United States.

BRENNAN: The United States, as we well know, is leading the coalition to try to destroy as much of this poison inside of Syria and Iraq as possible. So it would be surprising to me that ISIL is not trying to hit us, both in the region as well as in our homeland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: And Victor, I know we're going to have a greater discussion here in just a moment, but as this horrendous story here in Istanbul at this major airport, the 11th most busy in the world, has launched new conversations about airport security, let's be crystal clear. I have never seen this in any U.S. airport, where you have to go through a metal detector in a glassed-off area just to get inside of the airport.

So you have that first layer of security here in Istanbul, and so had that not been there, like in Brussels, for example, where we know those -- those attackers were walking toward that American Airlines counter, this was still on the periphery of the airport. That number, 41, as far as dead, could have been much higher -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: Brooke.

Now to the increased security rolling out at U.S. airports that brought that up. Of course, this is coming after the Istanbul attack. Anti-terror officials now on high alert ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend as the debate grows over extended security perimeters at our nation's airports.

CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh is live at Reagan National Airport in Washington -- Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Victor. It's projected this holiday weekend some 43 million Americans will travel, the majority of them by car, but some 3 million will fly. And we're talking about two airport bombings in the span of just three months.

So this is the area of concern, the so-called soft target of an airport. It's the part of the airport that's filled with passengers but not nearly as secure. This in the United States is the first line of defense. This is the security checkpoint. So the security doesn't quite kick in until you get to this point in the airport.

[07:05:10] And what we're seeing in the wake of what happened in Istanbul is several U.S. Airports, they're stepping up their perimeter security. So the security outside and around and in the soft areas of the airport, places like New York, they've armed their officers with tactical weapons. In Miami and in Atlanta, they have increased their police presence. A short time ago this morning, we saw two officers with long guns patrolling this soft area of the airport.

But you brought up this issue of extending this security line. That conversation has been happening at the Department of Homeland Security for quite some time now. However, the agency has not figured out an effective way to do that because in order to do that, it takes money, it takes manpower, and it also takes lot of time.

Back to you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Rene. Thank you for all of that.

We do have a lot of breaking news to dissect here. Let's bring back Brooke Baldwin. Also joining us is CNN's senior international correspondent Clarissa Ward; and CNN contributor and senior editor of "the Daily Beast," Michael Weiss. He's the author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

Michael, let me start with you. We now know the nationalities of the attackers at the airport. Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkistan. Does that surprise you?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, it doesn't surprise me. One of the toughest battalions in ISIS is called the Uzbek Battalion. These were the guys who were essentially on the front lines, guarding Fallujah, the city that they just lost in Iraq.

I -- you know, ask anybody inside ISIS or Uzbek (ph) ISIS. People from the former Soviet Union tend to be most battle hardened and the most willing to die. Their war minister, the guy who was just killed, Officer Shadi, was a Georgian national of ethnic Chechen extraction. And he was actually responsible for one of the biggest -- the first victories ISIS really had on the battlefield, Minad (ph) Air Base, which fell, I think, in early 2013.

He was the one who dispatched suicide bombers, blew a hole through the wall using a Saudi and another foreign national driving a vehicle laden with explosives. These guys know what they're doing.

CUOMO: So is ISIS still the only possibility? Because if you look at the Boston bombings, those guys were Chechen, too. They say that it was al Qaeda that was their inspiration.

WEISS: Those guys were kids, though. And there was -- there's been all kinds of ambiguity about what kind of contacts they had when Tamerlan Tsarnaev went back to Dagestan and probably met with some militants there. Look, I mean, there is an al Qaeda presence. There's also what's called the Caucasus Emirate, which is an organization that actually has cleaved, because a lot of the members decided to join ISIS and declare a reliath (ph) for ISIS inside Russian Federation territory.

But I have to tell you, I mean, if anything, this just reaffirms that it's almost certainly ISIS.

CAMEROTA: So Clarissa, we need to, here in the United States, change our thinking, because immediately we hear ISIS and think, "Oh, Middle Eastern attackers" when, no, this is, you know, as Michael's been explaining, the horizons have expanded.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, absolutely, Alisyn. And if you ask most Syrians why they hate ISIS so much, obviously, there's a myriad of reasons. Their brutality, first and foremost.

But one of the other things that you'll hear from many Syrians is "We hated them, because they weren't Syrian." This wasn't a Syrian organization. It was sort of born in Iraq, in Kambuca (ph), which was an American prison. But then it became huge, essentially, because it acted as a sort of center of gravity for all of these jihadis who poured in from across the world.

And as you heard Michael say there, central Asia, former countries, former Soviet Union satellite states, these are some of the most significant contributors to the jihad and specifically to ISIS. And they are also known, particularly in the Chechen, as being some of the most brutal and battle-hardened fighters, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Brooke, one of the remarkable things, as you've just outlined, you've never seen a security perimeter so far out front of an airport. That's not how we do it here in the U.S. You first go in, get your boarding pass. There, it's different. However, that didn't stop the attack from happening, the fact that

security happens curbside.

BALDWIN: It didn't stop the attack. You're absolutely right. But just imagine, you know, you're rolling up to a place like Dulles or JFK or LAX and you know, you see the glass doors. You immediately, you know, when you're dropped off at the airport, you walk in those doors.

Here there's an entire glassed-off area where you do have security, and there are a long -- we talk about the lines to get through the metal detectors in the states. You have these long lines just to get inside of the airport. And I think the point that some of the folks here are making, had that sort of first line of defense not been there, had these attackers been able to very easily get inside where the desks are, where you check in to get on your plane, to board your plane, the number of dead could be so much higher.

And one other interesting point here, which I think is a tad different from what we've talked about in covering Brussels and Paris, for example, is here in Istanbul, sadly they have -- I don't want to say accustomed to violence, but there was quite a bit of violence even from PKK in the '90s.

[07:10:10] And so here in Istanbul, for example, in my own hotel, I have to go through a metal detector to get in the front door. If there is a location that, you know, 50 or more people are walking in -- movie theater, hotel, soft targets -- you have to walk through a metal detector like the airport to get in. That is the way of life here in Istanbul.

CUOMO: Michael, people also are talking about Turkey now in a context that we used to hear about Pakistan, that this is a complex relationship for them. They don't want to be a sponsor of terror, clearly, but they have a cultural split within that country now that is growing as quickly as anything else about Sunni sympathizers with ISIS and who are we as Muslims here. Tell us about that.

WEISS: Well, it's a complicated relationship. I remember there was a documentary done where they actually got inside Raqqah and met with ISIS jihadis. And one guy turned to the camera and said, you see the Euphrates River here? It's not flowing at full capacity, because the Turks are cutting off the water supply using the dam system.

If they do not return the water supply to its normal level, we will strike in Istanbul. There's always been a sort of head of Damocles hanging over the Turkish government's head about this. Turkey has become, essentially, the entry point, much like Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war for the Americans. This is where the foreign fighter flow has poured in.

Depending on who you ask, the PKK, for instance, insists there's a collaboration between Ankara and ISIS. It's going too far, I think. But there has been a see no evil, hear no evil policy.

CUOMO: Ankara being the capital of Turkey, saying that Turkey is. WEISS: Yes. And I mean, look, U.S. intelligence sources say that remember Abu Sayyaf, the so-called CFO or the chief economist of ISIS, when he was killed by U.S. Special Forces many months ago, the intelligence gathered by the Americans from that raid suggest that the Turks sort of knew about ISIS movements and didn't really do anything or blow the whistle or coordinate closely with coalition allies. So this is a complicated relationship.

One other point I want to stress, we were talking the last day or two about could this attack have been precipitated by Israeli-Turkish rapprochement, the restoration of diplomatic ties. The counter talk to that is the fact that Turkey and Russia have also reconciled. Several months ago, almost half a year ago, I think, Turkish M-16s shot down an SU-24 Russian bomber. The pilots, one of the pilots was killed. Another pilot was killed in a rescue operation by Turkish- backed rebels on the ground in Syria.

Vladimir Putin and President Erdogan had a phone call. There's a restoration of diplomatic ties there.

CAMEROTA: But that was just this week.

WEISS: That was just this week.

CAMEROTA: But haven't we heard that they wouldn't be able to pull this attack off in response to something that happened this week?

WEISS: Depends. I mean, look, with Brussels, right, the reason that happened at the time it did was the capture of Abdeslam. They could have accelerated a plan that was already in motion.

Now these guys, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Chechnya, if they're battle- hardened jihadis, they hate Moscow even more than they hate Bashar al- Assad, right? They will have accelerated any plan -- possibly have accelerated any plan as a result of what is now seen to be the bridge between Turkey and Russia.

Added to which, all of the former Soviet Union jihadis are very much penetrated by the Russian FSB. In fact, for a time during the lead up to the Sochi Olympics, Russian security services were sending these guys into Syria saying, "We'd rather have you blow stuff up over there than in Russia because we don't want anything that's going to disrupt this international sporting event. There is going to be a tremendous amount of coordination now between the Turks and the Russians on this, if these guys are, in fact, the suspects.

CAMEROTA: Michael, Clarissa, Brooke, thank you all for helping us find our way through all this breaking news this morning. We'll check back with you.

In the meantime, more breaking news. Let's get to Victor.

BLACKWELL: This is coming to us out of London. A stunner in the race to replace David Cameron as British prime minister. And it's not who's in but who is out. CNN's Diana Magnay is live from London with more. DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is an extraordinary development

in an extraordinary week for British politics.

Most people thought that Boris Johnson was on a roll to announce that he would be running for next -- Britain's next prime minister. And he gave a long speech where he ran through all of his great achievements as London mayor, and at the end, he said, "But this is the punchline. I am not the man to lead this country into Brexit negotiations." And he said that he would support the next Tory leader, but it wouldn't be him.

He also had a message, which got a bit of applause from the audience to America, where he said that he would be negotiating or that Britain would be negotiating trade deals with important partners across the world and that America would be the front of the queue. And he got some applause and a clap for that.

[07:15:07] But it is an extraordinary twist, which leaves two candidates, the justice minister and the interior minister, Michael Gove and Theresa May, who are the principle candidates in this conservative contest. But we won't know for a while who wins out of them. There are plenty of names in the hat. It's -- it's a very strange day in what promises to be a long and complicated leadership contest.

Chris, back to you.

CUOMO: Diana, well reported. And obviously making the point again that there wasn't really a plan for what happened after the Brexit vote.

Now, back here we have an election going on, obviously. And all of these different issues are reverberating. And Donald Trump is on the attack. He is saying that, whether it's the president of the United States, former primary rivals, or the Chamber of Commerce, all of them have it wrong on trade. He is in all-out battle mode just three weeks before he is supposed to accept his party's nomination.

CNN's Jason Carroll joins us with the state of play, and it is a dicey one, my friend.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely dicey and the battle continues. President Obama and Donald Trump going toe to toe on trade policy. The president going after Trump during a trade summit in Canada, calling out the presumptive nominee for not having a true populist message.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): President Obama laying into Donald Trump's protectionist trade agenda as not feasible, calling it a prescription that won't help U.S. workers but would actually hurt them.

OBAMA: Withdrawing from trade deals and focusing solely on your local market, that's the wrong medicine. Our auto plants, for example, would shut down if we didn't have access to some parts in other parts of the world.

CARROLL: Speaking at a rally in Bangor, Maine, Trump again laid out his plan which calls for possibly pulling out of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. His proposals drawing criticism not just from the left but Trump firing back at the usually GOP-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

TRUMP: The United States Chamber of Commerce is upset with me. They say we're going to lose the trade war. We're already losing the trade war, folks.

CARROLL: Trump's attacks coming on the heels of two days of critiques from the Chamber of Commerce, live tweeting during Trump's economic speech on Tuesday: "Under Trump's trade plans, we would see higher prices, fewer jobs and a weaker economy."

Trump now accusing the Chamber of being controlled by special interest groups, boasting that, if elected, he can negotiate better deals.

TRUMP: We lost the trade war. We're getting killed. There's nothing could happen worse than what's happening now. We're getting killed.

CARROLL: The presumptive GOP nominee threatening agreements with China in the process.

TRUMP: I want to renegotiate a deal. I want to terminate the deal and do a good deal. And that's all I want.

CARROLL: The president making a point to dismiss Trump's so-called populist message.

OBAMA: They don't suddenly become populist, because they say something controversial in order to win votes. That's not the measure of populism. That's nativism. Or xenophobia.

CARROLL: Trump taking aim at Hillary Clinton by trying to appeal to Sanders supporters.

TRUMP: Bernie Sanders cannot stand Hillary Clinton. You wouldn't think this. But there is one thing that Bernie Sanders and I are in complete accord with. That's trade. He said we're being ripped off. I say we're being ripped off.

CARROLL: Trump also taking a swipe at old foes, calling out his former GOP rivals for their lack of support.

TRUMP: You know these people, they signed the pledge. Remember, they all wanted me to sign the pledge. They broke their word. In my opinion, they should never be allowed to run for public office again.

CARROLL: And Trump's allies aren't letting up attacking Elizabeth Warren's heritage. Conservative radio host Howie Carr opening Trump's rally by mocking the Massachusetts senator.

HOWIE CARR, CONSERVATIVE RADIO HOST: You know Elizabeth Warren, right? (DOES MOCK WAR CRY) CARROLL: Picking up on Trump's incessant jabs, calling Warren "Pocahontas."

TRUMP: Pocahontas, that's this Elizabeth Warren.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And a little bit more on that battle Trump's having with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber points to an op-ed Trump wrote for CNN three years ago about the global economy.

There were no calls for pulling out of NAFTA. Instead, Trump wrote, "The future of Europe as well as the United States, depends on a cohesive global economy. All of us must work together toward that very significant common goal."

The Chamber saying the Trump of 2013, Alisyn, is much better than the Trump of today.

CAMEROTA: Interesting to see those shifting positions. Jason, thank you very much for that.

Well, we do have some breaking news for you on who carried out the Istanbul terror attacks. Up next, we will get the State Department's reaction on these new developments. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:23:48] CUOMO: Breaking news is that we now know the nationalities of the three attackers at the Istanbul airport. And they're going to be surprising. Russian, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan is the countries that they come from, not what you expect out of this Middle Eastern ISIS.

So let's discuss with State Department spokesman John Kirby.

That's the suggestion. Is that this organization has a bigger footprint, which would give the perception that they're even more powerful than maybe we understand here in the U.S. What's your take?

JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Well, Chris, let's not get ahead of the investigation. I mean, they're just starting this out now. And we've seen the reports just like you about these nationalities. There's been no claim of responsibility that I'm aware of, so we need to let the Turks investigate this and let the facts take them where they do.

That said, whether it is or it isn't, your statement about ISIL is absolutely accurate. This is a group that wants to metastasize. It's a group that wants to expand its influence. It's a group that continues to recruit and attract foreign fighters from around the world.

So again, let's let this play out. But obviously, our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to all the people affected by this. CUOMO: Absolutely. And part of those prayers are that it doesn't

spread here. And this is reverberating in the election as this group is stronger than the government wants us to believe it is. And this attack is proof of it. They're all over the place over there. We are weak and not doing what we need to do to stop ISIS. That's what you're hearing right out of Donald Trump. Your take?

[06:25:15] KIRBY: Well, I'm not going to get into the debating campaign rhetoric with the candidates. I think you know that, Chris. That said, let me -- let me talk a little bit about the threat by DAISH. I mean, they are definitely a different group than you and were talking about two years ago. About them, you know, large convoys storming across Iraq. Well, this is a different group. They can't do that as much.

And you saw just what happened yesterday when they did try to move in a convoy of trucks and vehicles. They got hit pretty hard by coalition air power. That said, they continue to be a dangerous threat. We've always said that.

And we know, and we knew, frankly, as they became under more pressure in Iraq and Syria that they would revert and try to direct their attention to more spectacular terrorist attacks like the one we saw, well, in Brussels, quite frankly, and inspired attacks like we saw in Orlando.

So this is a tactic we knew that they would go back to. It does -- it does show the degree to which they're under pressure. But it also shows, as we've been honest, that they're still a dangerous group and we have to take them seriously.

CUOMO: Well, but you have to remember, critics start with the supposition of President Obama calling ISIS a JV group, you know, a JV team. And now it seems like you may be aware of what they're going to do, but you can't stop it.

KIRBY: Well, we're doing everything we can to stop it, Chris, but it's very difficult, as you know, to be right 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in every place around the world.

All these guys have to do -- and if you're committed to blowing yourself up and killing yourself, all you have to do is be right once, and you can have deadly consequences. Again, as we've seen all too many times.

But we're working very, very hard inside the U.S. government, in an interagency perspective, as well as with our international partners around the world, to get better intel, to get better information, to share that in more real time to try to reduce the threat of these attacks.

But make no mistake: this group remains dangerous. We know that they're looking at terrorist attacks against western targets and soft targets as a way to try to prove their relevance, to attract foreign fighters. I think your military analyst that you had on earlier this morning had it exactly right. And part of this is about being able to attract -- continuing to attract recruits to their effort.

Which, by the way, Chris, they are suffering from. They are losing leaders, about one every three days. They're losing fighters. You saw a big attack yesterday on -- on their convoy. And they are definitely suffering from a manpower perspective. Doesn't mean that they're down and out. But they are -- they are facing shortages that they're trying to recoup.

CUOMO: Well, you've got to put that in the context of what the CIA head says, which is that he expects more of the attacks that we saw in Istanbul, which of course, fuels people's concern that the threat is growing, not shrinking.

Let me ask you about a different issue now that I have you here, though. Trade. OK, obviously, the secretary of state very involved with a lot of these deals. A big argument here is that the trade deals that the United States is in almost invariably work to their disadvantage and that they need to be renegotiated.

Again, you don't want to talk about Trump, but he is forwarding this argument. Even against some of his own party elite he's forwarding this argument. Is it just the truth that NAFTA has cost us jobs, that our relationship with China works more for them than it does for workers in the U.S.?

KIRBY: Look, I think the president spoke to this very well yesterday when he talked about the interconnectedness of the global economy. And there's no way to put that back in the bottle. Nor should we try.

The fact is that international trade helps the United States and our economy. It helps create and foster new jobs. It helps us be able to have more influence around the world in ways we couldn't have otherwise.

CUOMO: But isn't the question, John, whom it helps? The argument would be, oh, yes, it helps. It helps if you're a really rich person and wants to invest in these foreign companies and wants to play the trade imbalance and use those cheaper jobs over there. But it doesn't help the men and women who made the things in America that are no longer being made here.

KIRBY: Well, the truth is that some of the things -- a lot of the thinks that we make here are sold overseas. And some of the things that we make here you cannot make without a sense of overseas trade and getting parts and supplies from around the world.

The global economy is just so interconnected there's no way to walk this back. Nor should we try. The more we trade, the more influence that we have overseas. The more influence that we have overseas, the better able we are to help try to shape the kinds of decisions that are good for not just our interests but for the interests of our allies and partners.

So international trade is absolutely vital. That's why the secretary has worked so hard on TPP and others issues around the world. CUOMO: Well, it's not about whether or not trade is necessary. I

think, you know, no matter where -- what political flavor you are, you want trade. It's that what kind of deal are you getting out of the trade?

KIRBY: Sure.

CUOMO: Is America giving up too much for this influence that you're discussing? And are they doing it off the backs of American workers?

KIRBY: Look, again, I'm not going to get into debating in a campaign rhetoric with the candidates. I would just tell you that we believe strongly in the trade deals that we have pursued, that they are -- that they are the right deals, that they -- that they take all those measures into account. That they are actually trying to help grow our economy, increase our jobs, and actually raise the standards.

And TPP is a good example. Raise the standards of employment and management practices, not just here, but around the world.