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New Day

UK Police Identify Third Terrorist; Trump on Fighting Terror; Feinstein on Being a Woman in Politics. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired June 06, 2017 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:32:38] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Police have identified the third terrorist who carried out Saturday's deadly attack in London. One of the attackers was known to British intelligence.

CNN's Clarissa Ward is live at the Borough (ph) Market scene in London with the latest.

What have you learned, Clarissa?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Alisyn, we know now who the third attacker is. He is 22-year-old Youssef Zaghba. He is an Italian national of Moroccan decent. He was living here in east London and British authorities said that he was not on their radar, he was not a person of interest.

However, Italian authorities have said that he was a person of interest to the Italian police because he had been stopped a couple of years ago carrying a one-way ticket to Istanbul. Authorities in Italy had reason to believe that perhaps he was trying to travel to Syria. This, of course, now raising questions about how it is or why, rather, Italian authorities were not communicating properly with other authorities here in the United Kingdom. Plus, one of the attackers we know was very well known to British authorities. He was part of al Mahasaroon (ph), a well-known local extremist group that has subsequently been disbanded. He was even in a documentary that aired recently called "The Jihadis Next Door." So British authorities really now facing some pretty tough questions about why some of these people weren't on their radar, particularly the British man in question.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Clarissa, once again showing the difficulty of that volume of cases that they have there to look at. In the wake of that attack, President Trump is renewing his criticism of the mayor of London.

But what is the president doing to fight terror here at home?

Let's discuss with CNN counterterrorism analyst Philip Mudd, and director of John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, and former U.S. ambassador at large and State Department coordinator for counter terrorism, Daniel Benjamin. Daniel, that is one heck of a title you got going there.

So when we look at the talk, the talk is tuff, Philip Mudd, from the president about terror. He beat the drum during the campaign. He does so now. It's why he says he needs a travel ban and wants to revert to a version of it that seemed to target Muslims from select countries. But in terms of policy, activity on the ground, what do we know about how this administration is dealing with terror versus the last one?

[08:35:07] PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: We know a lot, Chris. I remember watching the president say last year when he was on the campaign trail, I have a secret plan. And I think we know what the secret plan is, which is doing a lot of what the old guy did, that is President Obama. If you look at the areas of engagement, the United States around the world, including here in the United States, there's a couple of characteristics. You have to support local militaries in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. This president has done that, as President Obama did. You have to maintain drone warfare, which this president has done I'd say maybe more aggressively than President Obama. You have to support law enforcement and intelligence in the United States. I'd say that's a mixed message from the president in light of what he did from former FBI Director Comey.

There is one area, and Dan Benjamin can speak to this as well as I can, that is different. And that is, who do you pick as allies around the world? One thing this president has done is to say, if there's a dictator around the world, for example the president of Egypt whom I view as a dictator, who will fight extremism, I will favor that dictator at the expense of language about democratization. And I think that's an area where the president, President Trump, has been clearer than President Obama.

CUOMO: Daniel, your take?

AMBASSADOR DANIEL BENJAMIN, DIR., JOHN SLOAN DICKEY CENTER FOR INTL. UNDERSTANDING, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE: Right. I think Phil has it exactly right about the continuities and also the discontinuity in terms of supporting dictators. And by implication, supporting repression, which, as we know, is a big driver of radicalization. And so backing someone like General el-Sisi in Egypt, it's going to come back to haunt us.

I would say the other difference is that the president has thrown in his lot completely with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs and what he has done is basically say sectarian strife is OK. Let's fight Iran. And that's another major driver of extremism. Forty thousand people went to fight in Syria and Iraq, and part of the reason they went was because they wanted to kill Shia and Alawites, who were viewed as being the murderers of Sunnis. And out of that stew comes a lot of radicalization, a lot of Jihadis.

CUOMO: What's your gut sense on whether or not the perception of Trump makes Americans safer?

BENJAMIN: My clear perception is that it is not making America safer. As Phil and everyone else in the business knows, it is vitally important to maintain the trust of Muslim communities, especially at home but also abroad. And those are communities at home that provide us with something like 40 percent of our information on radicalizing subjects. And if those people are alienated, are intimidated or isolated, they're going to clam up. And the Muslim travel ban, the talk about a national registry, things like that, all of those are having a chilling effect and could be dangerous over the long time. So I don't think that's going to help us.

CUOMO: Philip Mudd, your reaction to the pushback from the president's surrogates when they say, hey, if the travel ban were a Muslim ban, they would have included Indonesia on there because it's the most populist Muslim nation. So you really don't have any case to make that this is about Muslims.

MUDD: Well, I am confused on two -- from two aspects of this, Chris. One is, if you say on the campaign trail, I'm going to institute a Muslim ban, and days in office the ban that you institute now called by the president of the United States as a ban targets countries that are solely Muslim majority, you have to say, well, I assume the president is doing what he said. Don't we take him at his word?

The second piece of a confusion is just what the Trump folks are saying. If they want to make America safer, if you look at the case in the U.K. of someone who's come out of Morocco in this case and who was also a resident in Italy for some time, you would presumably look at countries that are -- the origins of a lot of this extremism. Places like Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan. None of these are on the list. So, as a practitioner, I look at this and say, how is it supposed to help? I can't figure out the answer to that question.

CUOMO: Well, it helped politically because it mirrored what Obama had done in his executive order but he targeted travel on not identity.

MUDD: Yes.

CUOMO: Gentlemen, thank you very much for making important points this morning, as always.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris, Hillary Clinton may have lost the 2016 election, but powerful women are still breaking barriers in Washington, D.C., and Dana Bash speaks with long-time senator and bad- ass woman of Washington Dianne Feinstein. Yes, I said bad-ass, and there was a reason I said it, which we'll explain.

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[08:43:39] CUOMO: Time now for the "Five Things to Know for Your New Day."

The first arrest in President Trump's crack-down on leakers. The Justice Department charging a 25-year-old NSA contractor with mailing a classified report to a news outlet. CAMEROTA: President Trump defending his use of Twitter this morning.

His tweet, once again, undercutting White House aides trying to defend him and his agenda.

CUOMO: Police have identified the third terrorist who carried out Saturday's deadly attack in London. One of the attackers was known to British intelligence but was not under active surveillance.

CAMEROTA: Investigators say the gunman in Monday's deadly workplace shooting in Orlando targeted his victims. Police say a 45-year-old Army vet killed five former colleagues before taking his own life. He was recently fired by his employer.

CUOMO: All right. "Wonder Woman" number one at the box office, making history or technically her-story.

CAMEROTA: Oh, wow.

CUOMO: It earned $100 million in the first weekend. That is the biggest opening ever for a female directed film. The director, Patty Jenkins, will be on NEW DAY tomorrow morning.

CAMEROTA: Very exciting. She is a bad-ass woman.

CUOMO: She is.

CAMEROTA: Which leads to our next segment. As a segue, I'm just going to say that word as often as I can. You can go to cnn.com for more of the "Five Things."

But speaking of "Wonder Woman," go ahead, tell us about this next segment, so you can say the word.

CUOMO: Well, the segue that was working here, Senator Dianne Feinstein is opening up about her distinguished career and how unimaginable tragedy put her on a trail-blazing path. Take a look.

[08:45:10] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: I became mayor as a product of assassination of the mayor being killed and the first openly gay public official being killed by a friend and colleague of mine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: A very tumultuous time that launched a career. Much more when Dana Bash joins her -- us with her new digital series, which is called "Bad-ass Women of Washington."

CAMEROTA: There you go. You said it.

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CAMEROTA: Hillary Clinton was not able to break that final glass ceiling in Washington, of course, but she and long-time California Senator Dianne Feinstein are among the high-powered women blazing a trail for the next generation. CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash spoke with Feinstein about her five decade long career for the new CNN series "Bad-ass Women of Washington."

Dana joins me now.

Dana, you're very naughty naming it "Bad-ass Women." Tell us how you came up with it.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, we were talking about this and calling it bad-ass women sort of, you know, as we were developing it and we just decided, let's just call it that.

CAMEROTA: It stuck.

BASH: It stuck. And we spoke with seven women across the political and generational spectrum for this series. And we're starting with Dianne Feinstein because she has a story that will make you say, wow, she is a bad-ass.

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BASH: Probably fair to say most women graduating from Stanford in the 1950s were focused on finding a husband and having a family. You wanted to go into politics. Did people think you were crazy?

FEINSTEIN: Yes. The first time out, something must be wrong with her. She must have a bad marriage. Why is she doing this?

BASH: People said that to you?

FEINSTEIN: Oh, yes. Being a woman in our society even today is difficult. You know it in the press area. I know it in the political area.

BASH (voice-over): Forty-seven years ago, Feinstein won a local election that eventually led her here.

BASH (on camera): The chair of the president of the board of supervisors in San Francisco. There are a lot of people who didn't think it was right for her to take this seat because she was a woman.

BASH (voice-over): She ran for mayor twice in the 1970s but lost both times. Then, tragedy put her in the job.

FEINSTEIN: I became mayor as a product of assassination of the mayor being killed and the first openly gay public official being killed by a friend and colleague of mine.

[08:50:06] BASH: That friend was Dan White, who shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in America.

BASH (on camera): I've seen reports that you said that you always think, maybe I could have stopped it. FEINSTEIN: I was a friend of Dan's, and I tried, to some extent, to

mentor him and, oh, I never really talk about this. Dan had resigned and then wanted the seat back. And so he had an appointment with the mayor. And he walked into the office and he shot him a number of times. The door to the office opened and he came in. I heard the door slam. I heard the shots. I smelled the cordite. He whisked by. I walked down the line of supervisor's offices and found Harvey Milk. Put my finger in a bullet hole trying to get a pulse. It was the first person I'd ever seen shot to death.

Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed. The suspect is Supervisor Dan White.

That was the most painful lesson of division. And what I do is I really try to bring people together. Try to work out problems.

BASH (voice-over): Feinstein became acting mayor, then was elected in her own right and served for a total of 10 years.

BASH (on camera): When you were mayor and there was a fire over three alarms.

FEINSTEIN: I had a radio in my room, my bedroom. When a building would burn and everybody was out on the sidewalk, I went and introduced them to the Red Cross.

BASH (voice-over): Politics was not gender neutral, like the time a developer bet her that if he finished a project on time, she would have to wear a bathing suit in public. She took the bet and he won.

BASH (on camera): Oh, this is the picture.

FEINSTEIN: This is the bikini (ph).

BASH (voice-over): She not only kept that, but hundreds of other mementoes and pictures from her four decade career in a special room inside her San Francisco home.

FEINSTEIN: So there are a lot of stories here. This is the queen.

BASH (on camera): Pope John Paul.

FEINSTEIN: Yes.

BASH: Joe Montana.

FEINSTEIN: Yes.

BASH (voice-over): In 1984, she was in the running to be Walter Mondale's running mate, but he picked another woman, Geraldine Ferraro.

FEINSTEIN: They thought I was going to get it. This was going to be the cover.

BASH (on camera): Is that right? FEINSTEIN: Yes. Didn't happen that way.

BASH: Why didn't you ever run for president?

FEINSTEIN: I don't know. I felt I'd never be elected.

See, look how hard it is. Look at Hillary. I mean look at what she's gone through.

BASH: Yes. You've done hard before.

FEINSTEIN: Yes, I've done hard before, but it -- it's not a bad thing being in the Senate.

BASH (voice-over): And she's done a lot that she's proud of. High on the list is gun control.

FEINSTEIN: Let me tell you, I've seen assassination. I've seen killing. I know what these guns can do.

BASH: And she racked up a lot more firsts as a woman. First female member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and first female chair of the Intelligence Committee.

FEINSTEIN: Hi, everybody.

BASH: And I'll never forget that dramatic moment in 2014 when she defied President Obama, the leader of her own party, by going to the Senate floor and releasing a torture report Obama did not want public. It was an investigation that she oversaw and she wanted the public to see it.

FEINSTEIN: History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say, never again.

There was some flak, yes.

BASH (on camera): Well, yes. I mean one of your colleagues from California, Republican Congressman Jeff Denham (ph) said that you were as much a traitor to this country as Edward Snowden.

FEINSTEIN: Well, he had a bad day.

BASH: But you, obviously, you -- you know, you stood up and you did what you felt was right.

FEINSTEIN: That's what I'm there to do. It's not always easy. It's hard.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: United States Senator Dianne Feinstein.

BASH: People watching this, looking at you, will be shocked to know that you are the oldest serving U.S. senator.

FEINSTEIN: Don't rub it in. BASH: I'm not. It's the opposite.

FEINSTEIN: It's what I'm meant to do, as long as the old bean holds up.

I'm from the generation where we dropped under our desks.

BASH: For people who are out there saying, I want to be Dianne Feinstein. I want to do what she did.

FEINSTEIN: Run, but prepare yourself. And so many times talented young women go for the top first. You can't do that. Start young. Earn your spurs. You don't drop out. You take defeat after defeat after defeat. But you keep going. And I really believe that.

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[08:55:00] CAMEROTA: Yes, OK, she qualifies as a bad-ass woman. I didn't know a lot of that stuff and she just talked about.

BASH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: And she admitted to you that she doesn't often talk about some of those -- obviously the more painful details around Harvey Milk's death.

BASH: Absolutely. You know, and you could see where she had to take a breath and pace herself. And I've covered her for a long time. I don't -- she's talked about it a little bit after the Newtown massacre when she was trying to revive the assault weapons ban, but really not a lot. And, look, she is somebody -- she's going to be 84 later this month.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh.

BASH: And you really would never know it. And she is somebody who is a mentor to a lot of the women. There are now 21 women in the Senate. And she's a mentor to women who are in the Senate across party lines.

CAMEROTA: So, speaking about across party lines, you spoke to lots of women for this. You spoke to Democrats.

BASH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: You spoke to Republicans.

BASH: Yes.

CAMEROTA: You spoke to military women.

BASH: Yes. Exactly. Another one that we're highlighting today, our first day, is Elaine Chao, transportation secretary, who talks about the fact that she came here on a cargo ship from Taiwan at age eight. Her amazing immigrant story. A really honest conversation about a lot of things, including never having children.

CAMEROTA: Wow. OK. I can't wait to watch that and the entire bad-ass series. Great to have you here, Dana.

You can watch the full series of "Bad-ass Women of Washington." Go to cnn.com/badasswomen. How many times can I say the word? One more because --

BASH: Jersey girl.

CAMEROTA: Jersey -- totally.

CNN "NEWSROOM" with bad-ass Poppy Harlow and bad-ass woman John Berman picks up after this break.

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