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CNN Saturday Morning News

Carney: The President Wants the Facts; Lawmakers Vote to End FAA Furloughs; Online Self-Radicalization; Bombing Suspect's Star Defense

Aired April 27, 2013 - 08:00   ET

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

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the Boston bombing. I am Poppy Harlow, coming to you live from Boston this Saturday morning; it is 8 o'clock on the East Coast, 5 o'clock out West. Thank you for starting your day with us.

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MUJI KARIM, FORMER SAFETY, UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE WILDCATS: I just sort of want to let those people know that it's not -- it's not over. It's not, you know, your life isn't done.

HARLOW (voice-over): For some of the Boston bombing survivors, the road to recovery seems endless. But there is new life after near death. Meet one man with a message for the Boston victims, who speaks from very personal experience.

And combing through a landfill, investigators searching for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's laptop, what they hope to find when they uncover -- if they uncover a missing computer.

And new information that the Boston bombers did, in fact, read an online magazine inspired by Al Qaeda that explains how to build a bomb. We're going to have much more information on what it is and how it wasn't just a manual, but maybe even a motivator.

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HARLOW: I am here on Boylston Street in beautiful Boston, a beautiful spring morning; behind me the memorial honoring the victims of the bombing, four crosses for those four victims: Sean Collier, the MIT police officer killed in his car; also Lingzi Lu, the Boston University student; Krystle Campbell, the 29-year-old and, of course, Martin Richard, that 8-year-old boy.

Well, last night was an emotional homecoming for the Boston Celtics.

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HARLOW (voice-over): Fans filled the Garden for the team's first game at home since the bombings. Before the game they paid tribute to the victims and to the first responders who walked out onto the court to a standing ovation.

Meanwhile, investigators checking a landfill about an hour away from here. It's in New Bedford, Massachusetts; that's right near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus where Dzhokhar went to school; investigators scouring for his laptop.

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HARLOW: That computer could provide more information about the planning and execution of the attack. CNN national correspondent Susan Candiotti has been following this extremely closely and talked to our Anderson Cooper about that investigation.

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SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The leads to search the landfill for that laptop computer came not only from the suspect himself, the young man who is now hospitalized, but others who, according to this official, may have had knowledge of its whereabouts or may even have played a role in ditching it, getting rid of it after the bombing.

Now the source says there is also evidence that leads investigators to think that the elder brother, Tamerlan, may have been involved in drug dealing. The source would not elaborate on the nature of the evidence.

We've already been talking about the fact they've been looking into whether he may have supported himself through drug dealing; but, of course, if they can find that laptop, Anderson, in this landfill, after it had been ditched somewhere that was, you know, like a dumpster, that eventually made it to the landfill, if they can get into that, they can find out things like e-mails and contacts and schedules and instructions, so much other information about how this plot may have come together.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I understand you also have new information about what the bombs were made of or how they were constructed. What do you know?

CANDIOTTI: Well, the belief, number one, is that both of the brothers had a remote device to blow up each of the two bombs.

Now in terms of the ingredients, we know that they're still analyzing a lot of this information, but they do know that one of the pipe bombs that was used in that -- the shoot-out in Watertown, those improvised devices were, in fact, constructed from elbow pipes.

Now elbow pipes, that is one instruction method, rather, that comes up from time to time in "Inspire" magazine, which is something that has been used and promoted by Al Qaeda to give information about how to make a bomb. So that bit of information also is an important part of this alleged plot investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And a very important part; our Susan Candiotti there.

We know that after Boston the Tsarnaev brothers also planned to attack New York. That is according to investigators. So far Dzhokhar Tsarnaev says they worked alone, but that may not be true. Congressman Mike Rogers, he is a Republican and he is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He said this to "The Boston Herald."

He said, quote, "There are clearly more persons of interest, and they're not 100 percent sure if there aren't other explosives."

Rogers also had critical words about the decision to Mirandize the bombing suspect when it happened next to his hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; this was several days after his capture.

Our Athena Jones is joining us from Washington this morning.

Good morning, Athena. Talk to me about what more we know about that decision to read those Miranda rights to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev when that happened.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy. Well, we know that Congressman Rogers certainly wants to know more about the decision leading up to those rights being read, because we know that the suspect has become a lot less talkative after hearing those Miranda rights.

Certainly he led investigators to look for that laptop; we learned from the suspect about the plans to go to New York. But since he was read his rights, he's gotten a lot less talkative, and Congressman Rogers is concerned about that.

He has written a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, demanding a full accounting of the decision leading up to that initial appearance with the judge, including who decided that appearance should take place at that specific place and time during this questioning, and also whether the Department of Justice or the FBI expressed any concerns about the timing of this and concerns about the fact that the suspect would now be read his Miranda rights.

I should tell you the Department of Justice hasn't yet responded directly to that letter to Attorney General Holder, but they did put out a statement, saying that the FBI agents and prosecutors in Boston weren't told that this initial appearance had been scheduled before it happened, and that that was coordinated with the prosecutors.

And so we're still learning more information about that, certainly the information that Congressman Rogers is seeking and we'll see if he gets that. Poppy?

HARLOW: And you know, Athena, I think it's also important to point out, our Susan Candiotti reported late last night that her sources are saying that the bedside interviews that were conducted by interrogators were, quote, "very thorough," and her source says that investigators did not feel hindered by the timing of the Miranda rights and the charges being brought forward.

So I think that's an important point as well.

But I know you're also hearing from the White House this morning. What can you tell us? JONES: Well, I can tell you that we haven't heard much from the president himself about this since the investigation began. We heard him initially raise questions about how did these young men become radicalized, how did they decide they wanted to attack here in the U.S., were they helped.

We did, though, hear from Vice President Biden just last night. He was speaking at a forum in Sedona, Arizona, with Senator John McCain. He talked about why he initially called these suspects cowardly knockoff jihadis. And he said that's because he just didn't think that they were pros. Let's listen to a little bit more of what Vice President Biden had to say.

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JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The most difficult person to deal with is the self-radicalized or the one who is marginally assisted, who is not directed specifically by anybody, because all the intelligence apparatus and all of the means by which we have to infiltrate or pick up the kind of signals we're able to pick up with our significant technological capability is rendered almost useless.

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JONES: And so there you heard Vice President Biden, talking about how these suspects came to be radicalized and that is something that investigators are continuing to look into, Poppy.

HARLOW: Athena, thank you very much.

Well, this morning Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is at a federal prison hospital in Devens, Massachusetts. He was moved early Friday morning from a Boston hospital where some of the bombing victims were also being treated.

Our Pamela Brown is at the Federal Medical Center Devens.

Pamela, good morning to you. Give our viewers a sense of what it was like when Tsarnaev came to that facility.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Poppy.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was brought here to Devens Federal Medal Center in the early morning hours of yesterday morning by the U.S. Marshal Service.

When he was brought here he went through what's called an intake screening process. Essentially he was strip searched, he went through a medical screen, a psychological screening. From there he was fingerprinted, a DNA sample was taken and then a photograph was taken as well.

All of that was given to the FBI, we're told. From there, we are told that Tsarnaev was taken to a restricted part of this facility that's for high-risk offenders. He was given his own cell, a basic cell with very limited amenities, a steel door, a slot for food, a toilet, a sink and that's about it. Again, he is in a cell by himself we are told. Poppy?

HARLOW: Can you talk about, Pamela, the conditions there in terms of the abilities of the medical center? Because I had heard that they don't do, you know, extraordinarily complex surgeries there, so that might give us some indication of the health of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at this point in time, right?

BROWN: That's right. Right now this facility cares for around 1,042 patients, so right now we're hearing that Tsarnaev's condition has improved drastically, Poppy. You think last weekend at this time he was in serious condition.

We're told now he is in fair condition, that he's sitting up, he's writing, so it does seem like he's significantly improving. And the fact that he was transferred here from a hospital in Boston, I think, says a lot as well.

HARLOW: And any indication at this point, Pamela, finally, on when he could go to court next, when he might be moved from where you're standing?

BROWN: Well, Poppy, we don't know exactly when he could be moved from here, but we do know that he could appear in court soon; essentially he was officially charged this past Sunday. We have 30 days until an indictment with the grand jury. The grand jury will be presented with evidence to decide what charges he should face.

And then he is expected to appear in court for an arraignment which he will plead. So this could happen fairly soon, but there is so much evidence in this case, we're told, that it could be at the end of the 30 days that we see this indictment and then the arraignment.

From there there will be a pretrial motion. Also quickly want to mention here, Poppy, that there is a probable cause hearing scheduled for the end of May, but we're told that there is a good chance he could waive that hearing.

HARLOW: Understood. Pamela, thank you, great reporting, appreciate it.

Well, the mother of the suspect in the Boston bombing investigation insists that her sons are innocent. She and her husband were at a news conference in Russia just a few days ago. The suspect's father had said that he planned to come to the United States, but so far that trip, it looks like, has been delayed indefinitely for health reasons.

The suspect's mother is now making some stunning claims to CNN. She says she believes that the tragedy that killed three people, including a little boy, and injured so many others -- and she believes that the bombing was fake. She told this to our Nick Paton Walsh. Listen.

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ZUBEIDAT TSARNAEVA, SUSPECTS' MOTHER: I don't know how to describe it, you know. You know mother. You have a mother, right? So just because you are not mother, you won't understand it.

I am mother. Loving mother of two kids. I don't know. This is really crazy. I can't even -- I can't even describe it. I don't know. I have no strength. I have nothing. I have like -- I have no sleep. I am just like dead, like a dead person. How can I describe it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Again the mother of the Tsarnaev brothers, there saying to our Nick Paton Walsh that she believes that this was staged to set up her sons, that they wouldn't do this.

Sources say Russia raised concerns to the United States about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother twice in 2011. U.S. authorities added both the mother and the son to a database at the National Counterterrorism Center; that is according to an intelligence official.

Well, you can see that we have been standing in front of this growing and beautiful makeshift memorial for the Boston victims. We're going to give you a closer look at all the different ways that people are paying tribute; that comes up next.

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HARLOW: Welcome back, everyone. Happy Saturday morning to you. It is a beautiful spring morning here in Boston. We are on Boylston Street at this makeshift memorial and I want to walk you around, because it has been growing by the day.

Flowers upon flowers upon flowers, messages of hope and support. What we just saw happen here a moment ago as people start to come in on this Saturday morning is city officials came and they swapped out these boards. They have had six of these flipped around, so 12 so far of these boards. And there's multiple ones that people have been filling with messages.

This is a brand new one; people have been writing their messages of support, people from Boston, people from across the country, people from as far away from Germany.

I just met Janice (ph). She was just here. And here's what Janice (ph) wrote. She said, "Always in my thoughts and prayers, remember forever Boston strong, love, Janice Murray (ph)."

And you know, she's from here. And I said, why are you here this morning? And she said, I'm from Boston and I just wasn't ready to come until now. I was grieving. We've been through so much, and this seemed like the right moment to come.

So you have to remember, as this city heals, it also takes a lot of time for many people to come back here and cope with what has happened. But it's a beautiful reminder of the lives that were, a reminder of the tragedy, but also a sign of strength and hope for this city.

Another sign of strength and hope for the amputees -- we know that at least 13 people have had amputees (sic) -- another sign of hope is other amputees who have gone through that and know that there is life after near death. We met one of them.

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HARLOW (voice-over): Muji Karim's daily workout is about so much more than getting fit; it's about becoming himself again.

This was Muji two years ago, the former safety for the University of New Hampshire Wildcats learning to walk again after a tragic car crash that took his legs and nearly killed him.

HARLOW: When you heard about the bombing and you realized people had lost limbs from it, what did you think?

KARIM: It just really brought me back to a bad place, and -- but I just sort of want to let those people know that it's not -- it's not over. It's not, you know, your life isn't done.

HARLOW: It doesn't have to break you.

KARIM: No, no. It doesn't have to break you at all.

HARLOW (voice-over): He knows what the more than the 1 dozen amputee bombing victims face.

HARLOW: I wonder what the biggest fear has been for you as you've gone through this.

KARIM: To be honest, my biggest fear is just not being myself again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a very stable --

HARLOW (voice-over): The man who got Muji up and walking again is the one who will do the same for nearly all the bombing amputees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being able to see somebody walk with a prosthesis for the first time is transformative.

HARLOW (voice-over): He'll do it here at Spaulding's brand new rehabilitation hospital, which is just opening now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have been in intensive medical unit, some have been on high-dose medication, so sometimes the processing of the amputation only really begins once they come to rehabilitation.

HARLOW: It's not just rehabilitating their body or teaching them to walk again. It is just as much about rehabilitating their mind and emotionally where they stand, isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. And you know, losing a limb is akin to losing a loved one. We look at an amputation as a transforming event, but I tell patients that it helps, it clearly shapes them as an individual, but it doesn't define them. So you know, you're defined by what you have, not by what you've lost.

HARLOW (voice-over): Muji will be right alongside him, working with other amputees to help the bombing victims battle back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This really has affected the entire community.

KARIM: I just want to walk in and let them know, be sort of that ray of hope for them, let them know that their life's not over. You might even feel like you don't even -- you're not happy that you survived, because I went through those same sort of feelings.

HARLOW (voice-over): But this makes it different for these victims.

KARIM: To know somebody purposely did something like that, and you lost what you lost, that's something I never had to deal with.

HARLOW (voice-over): But Muji believes --

KARIM: If you stay with a positive mindset and you're willing to work for it, I mean I'm living proof that you can get where you want to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Muji Karim is living proof. You know, he told me just a year ago it took him 57 minutes to walk the same distance that he can walk now four times as fast, just a sign that eventually you can get through this.

And a really, really lucky thing that has happened is that that hospital, that rehabilitation center, Spaulding, just opened its doors today for the new amputees to come into that state-of-the-art facility, so just moving in there today.

If you want to help any of the victims of the Boston bombing, we encourage you go to CNN.com/impact, so many ways there that you can help those suffering so much right now. We'll be right back.

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HARLOW: The boat where Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hid before he was finally caught has now been taken to a new location.

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HARLOW (voice-over): It happened late yesterday. And sources say police did not find any guns inside of the boat when they searched it.

The boat owner had called 9-1-1 when he spotted blood on the boat, saw the tarp waving in the air that he had tied down so tightly. Really a hero for doing that and calling 9-1-1.

That boat was towed from the back yard in Watertown yesterday. It is being moved to a secure location so investigators can keep examining it.

Meantime, the wife of dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev has largely remained out of public sight, but we're getting the first glimpse of her that we've seen in days.

Katherine Russell was spotted leaving her family's home in Rhode Island yesterday. She is the woman in the headscarf, the other woman next to her, her attorney.

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HARLOW: Little is known about Katherine Russell; the 24-year old married Tsarnaev in 2010. They have a 3-year-old daughter together. Through her attorneys, Russell has insisted that the bombing was a, quote, "absolute shock" to her.

Our Erin McPike is in Providence, Rhode Island.

And, Erin, you saw Russell when she left the house yesterday.

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, we saw Katie Russell for the first time in several days on Friday, when she finally left her parents' house, when she was escorted by her attorneys to their office here right behind me, where they met for about 90 minutes.

Now when she arrived, I did get a chance to ask her, "How are you doing? And what's happening?" She didn't answer any of that, of course. She just looked a little bit bewildered. She left; we did not see her leave. We do know that her attorneys will be here working all weekend, Poppy.

HARLOW: Absolutely, Erin, thank you.

Well, learning to make a bomb online, one terror group explains the how-to, giving step-by-step details. So did the magazine "Inspire." Questions about whether or not the brothers used that, if that can be blamed for the marathon attack in part, we'll discuss straight ahead.

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes bottom of the hour now and welcome back everyone I'm Poppy Harlow in Boston. Thank you for starting your morning with us.

Here are four stories that we are watching this morning. First up: Syria, insisting that it has never used chemical weapons in its civil war; the Syrian regime accusing the United States and Britain of lying. U.S. officials have said they have evidence that chemical weapon sarin, that has been used in Syria. The White House saying it will not take Syria's claims at face value but will take the time to determine the truth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The President wants the facts and I'm not going to set a time line because the facts need to be what drives this investigation, not a deadline.

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HARLOW: After a meeting on Friday with Jordan's King Abdullah, President Obama reiterated quote, "Preliminary assessments that chemical weapons have been used on people in Syria," the President saying if that is the case that would certainly be a game changer.

Another story we're following this morning, investigators in New York taking a closer look at this, it's a piece of an airplane's landing gear. Officials believe it is from one of the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11, the five foot long piece of metal was found in a small space near an Islamic community center. The plane part will be examined by both the medical examiner's office and the NTSB.

And number three, good news for travelers, lawmakers voting on Friday to end the furlough of the air traffic controllers. Now the bill goes to the President who has said he will sign it. Those airport staff reductions went into place last Sunday delaying thousands of flights throughout the week, a move that has frustrated many passengers.

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ELIZABETH ROUSE, DELAYED PASSENGER: They were in a rush to get us seated and he didn't mention any delays. I think they were trying to keep it from us as long as possible but after some frustrating time passed sitting on the -- on the runway, the pilot finally came on and said, well, ladies and gentlemen, we're about 24th in line, it's going to be at least 45 minutes.

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HARLOW: And finally, Russian security forces raiding a place of worship in southern Moscow on Friday in a crackdown on suspected Islamic extremists, 140 people were detained. Officials say the site had been visited before by suspected radicals, including some from Chechnya. The raid though is not believed at this point to be linked at all to the Boston bombings.

Back here in Boston, investigators hoping to get a look at Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's laptop but the problem is it may be buried in a landfill in New Bedford, Massachusetts, that's where authorities are searching, scouring after getting tips from Dzhokhar himself and people who knew Dzhokhar. The landfill is near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, that is where Dzhokhar went to school and where he was spotted in the days after the bombing.

Also, investigators are taking a closer look at the older brother, 26- year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev. They -- there are now reports that he may have sold marijuana, possibly sold marijuana to support himself so that is not confirmed at this point by investigators. Pressure cookers turned in to weapons of massive destruction, they were used to attack Boston and the instructions to create one are widely available on the Internet.

One of the devices found after last week's gun fight between police and the two suspects in Watertown is a metal elbow pipe bomb. It was very similar to the design from an al Qaeda online magazine. That magazine is called "Inspire". Now authorities now question if the web was the brother's sole recruiter in becoming radicalized. Is that even possible? We're going to have that discussion with two experts, our two guest CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen, also I'm joined here in Boston by MIT professor of social studies of science and technology, Sherry Turkle, thank you both for being here.

Sherry, let me begin with you.

SHERRY TURKLE, MIT PROFESSOR: Yes.

HARLOW: It is possible to be radicalized online. We've seen it happen before.

TURKLE: Yes.

HARLOW: But we also know that it is more rare, that often when we see radicalization if that is the case among these two brothers that it often requires face-to-face contact. What is your assessment on how prevalent online, solely online radicalization is?

TURKLE: I think it's becoming more prevalent because in this new age, the Internet serves as a community. People find their community and their places of contact and comfort on the Internet and so I think that you're going to be able to see the Internet as a place where people do become radicalized.

HARLOW: So you could see hours and hours of --

(CROSSTALK)

TURKLE: Hours and hours, that's where people go to find their home.

HARLOW: You know Peter, I want to talk to you about what -- what is on this online magazine "Inspire" and also there's been questions about how it's so widely circulated, not shut down, how closely it's monitored by U.S. authorities. What can you tell us about that? What do we know about that?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well you know shutting these things down is not particularly easy because you just shut it down and then it pops up somewhere else in some other jihadi forum.

HARLOW: Right.

BERGEN: You know 80 percent of the Internet traffic in the world goes through the United States. So you know technically it would be possible to shut down a lot of these sites but there's you know for law enforcement there's also a value in having these sites up, who is visiting them, so there's been there's a kind of tension between information gathering because you can monitor these jihadi forums and also the fact that they are clearly sometimes inspiring people. HARLOW: That's a very important point the need to be able to track them and follow them. Peter, also do you have a sense of how much more prolific online Internet recruitment is now, how much more common it is now say than around 9/11. Have we seen it increase significantly?

BERGEN: Well certainly with the advent of broadband video, you know you're -- it's much more exciting what you find on the Internet than what you find around the 9/11 time period. This began during the Iraq war when al Qaeda in Iraq started posting things like beheadings of people that it had kidnapped; video of some of its operations. So certainly the online environment is more attractive.

That said, you know, even in -- the cases where somebody's been exclusively radicalized online I think are less frequent than at the end of the day good old-fashioned face-to-face --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Right.

BERGEN: -- that is -- that's more powerful.

HARLOW: Yes. It's a very important point that we have to point out as -- as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tells investigators, look it was -- it was my brother and I solely that did this. Of course he would have the incentive to say that and Sherry to you when you look at the characteristics of someone as a psychologist --

(CROSSTALK)

TURKLE: Yes.

HARLOW: -- it would be more easily radicalized solely online.

TURKLE: Yes.

HARLOW: If that is the case are there any characteristics that would stand out to you?

TURKLE: Yes to someone who is isolated --

HARLOW: -- which is not Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as we know from his friends.

TURKLE: Yes, but someone who still wants to keep their activities -- these kinds of activities you know isolated from the rest of their life, which is kind of the case. There was kind of a parallel life going on.

So this is a guy who wanted to be on his team, who wanted to keep a kind of parallel life going and his parallel life was taking place online. So I think he's a perfect case of somebody who would lead a parallel life online and that life was very rich.

HARLOW: You're talking about Dzhokhar.

TURKLE: Yes. HARLOW: And we know that he and his brother were very different people, very different in their social interactions and things like that.

TURKLE: Yes, yes.

HARLOW: You know interesting in terms of some comments that were made, Senator Marco Rubio of the Senate Intelligence Committee talked about this new element of terrorism earlier this week saying that we have to face this new element of terrorism in our country.

TURKLE: Yes.

HARLOW: He said we need to be prepared for Boston type attacks, not just 9/11 type attacks. And to you Sherry and to you Peter, I'll start with you on that. Do you agree that, given what we've seen this country needs to prepare differently?

BERGEN: I think the country is quite well prepared. I mean by the law of averages, there are going to be terrorism attacks that get through. I mean interestingly this is the first jihadist terrorist attack overseas since 9/11. We've seen a number of sort of right-wing extremist attacks that have also succeeded.

But the number of victims of these attacks, while each one is a tragedy you're looking at perhaps 20, 21 victims of jihadi terrorism since 9/11 in this country. That would not have been a predictable figure in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when people expected there would be other large scale attacks.

So you know --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Right.

BERGEN: -- you know we -- we -- it's -- it's hard to sort of say this right now in the context of a recent attack but we're being comparatively lucky, you go back to before 9/11 we had Oklahoma City, we had the World Trade Center attack in '93.

I mean we have been able through a lot of the actions of many different government agencies to basically prevent a lot of attacks before they happen.

HARLOW: And as you said I think that's very difficult even -- even to talk about right now in the wake of this tragedy, where we're standing at the memorial, but your thoughts on that, Sherry?

TURKLE: Yes my thought is that when you think of our focus, only a few years ago about did Bill Clinton go to the Soviet Union as though that contamination physically would make a difference in what his sensibility was. Now we have to think in terms of --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: Yes.

TURKLE: -- what do people see online and really take that as where they change their minds and I think that is a way that we have to start to think and take that really seriously.

It isn't physical contamination body to body. It's where your head is and the Internet is where people --

(CROSSTALK)

HARLOW: And it is the core of the freedoms of American people and of this country --

(CROSSTALK)

TURKLE: Exactly.

HARLOW: -- to be able to read and online anything you would like, be involved in those forums.

TURKLE: Exactly -- that's where we immediate to think differently.

HARLOW: Yes Sherry Turkle thank you. Peter Bergen, thank you for joining us very interesting discussion this morning, thank you both.

TURKLE: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, defending Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, up next we're going to take a look at his all-star defense team and their possible strategy, in his upcoming trial.

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HARLOW: Welcome back, everyone.

Now to the legal and the daunting task of trying to defend Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspected bomber, for his alleged role in the Boston marathon bombings including the possibility that he could face the death penalty. He is being represented by Miriam Conrad she's one of the most respected federal public defenders in the country, her resume includes the notorious shoe bomber Richard Reid among others.

I want to bring in our legal contributor, Paul Callan. Paul, good morning to you. We talked about this extensively. We know this attorney is a heavy hitter; she has experience in this field in terms of defending someone like this. Question to you -- possible strategy, what do you think it is?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's two things. It's going to be cooperation and mitigation. I say that because her primary objective is to try to avoid the death penalty for the suspect. And to do that, she really has to give federal authorities something and possibly he'll come forward and provide information that will be valuable in discovering other terrorist networks or how the explosives were obtained in this case. That would be the cooperation element that's a playing card. ` The second is mitigation and by that I mean they're going to try to convince the Department of Justice that he's 19 years old. He was influenced by his older brother, possibly his mother from the video that we've seen and that that's a fact that should be taken into consideration so that he does not get the death penalty.

So I don't think they realistically think they can win this case. I think really their one objective is to try to avoid the death penalty.

HARLOW: I really want to talk about this issue of the Miranda rights being read bedside at the hospital to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and when that happened and why. House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers we know, has been, you know, very upset about this saying multiple times that he thinks that prematurely ended the interrogation and we could have gotten much more important information, significant information in those early hours out of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But at the same time, a source tells our Susan Candiotti that the bedside interviews were, quote, "very thorough" that investigators did not feel that that reading of Miranda rights hindered the timing of the charges and hindered their questioning. What is your take on it at this point in time?

CALLAN: You know, Poppy, this has been hugely controversial and for good reason. Normally when a U.S. citizen is arrested and this young man is a naturalized U.S. citizen, he's held by law enforcement authorities and he has to be given his Miranda warnings and eventually a judge appears or he appears in court to be arraigned in front of a judge.

What people are saying now and particularly those critical of the Obama administration and the Department of Justice is that he should have been deemed an enemy combatant, that what we call public safety exception to Miranda should have been utilized and he should have been interrogated for a very long period of time before a federal judge came into the picture.

However, the Department of Justice arranged for a federal judge to arrive at the hospital. Once the judge was there, the judge had an obligation to tell him he had the right to remain silent and the right to counsel. So he certainly -- the judge did exactly what he was supposed to do. And I have to say you're going to see lawyers and judges arguing about this issue as to whether it's legal to delay indefinitely giving Miranda warnings to an American citizen.

HARLOW: Right.

CALLAN: There's going to be a big debate about this and how it affects this case ultimately. One of the things I'll just throw out there for you, some of the evidence in the case could actually get thrown out now because he wasn't given Miranda. You were showing footage earlier of that landfill in Boston being combed, if they're looking there because of information that he gave before the Miranda warnings, they may not be able to use that in the criminal case so this is going to be a big issue going down the road.

HARLOW: That is certainly a question. Paul Callan, appreciate you joining us with your expertise. Thank you.

CALLAN: Nice being with you, Poppy.

HARLOW: The definition of heroism -- the definition of heroism, two first responders of the Boston terror attack, they're going to join me next. They're amazing people. They refused to leave the dangerous scene despite warnings. All so they could rescue complete strangers.

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HARLOW: Well, risking their lives to save complete strangers. Within 18 minutes of the blast at the marathon, Boston EMTs say they cleared the streets of all critical victims. But the horror they saw that day is something that they will never forget.

Two of those brave first responders, Kimberly Horne and Robert Stearns, are with me now. I was lucky enough to meet the two of them in the week following the bombings to sit down with them and other EMTs and talk about the work that you did. I commend you, it is brave beyond words. Thank you for what you did.

You know, the chief, Mike Fossey (ph) who also joined said that he thinks that that day was the city's worst day and the department's best day. What do you guys think? What do you think?

KIMBERLY HORNE, BOSTON EMT: In the sense that we could all come together and help, a lot of people were there to help as well. A lot of us were on the same page. We trained for this and as horrible as it is we're glad that we have that training going in.

HARLOW: I know one of the things that stood out to you and the other EMTs, Robert is the fact that so many civilians ran in to help you and didn't run away.

ROBERT STEARNS, BOSTON EMT: Yes, usually in a situation like this, everyone runs the other way. Something -- any kind of incident happens people run across the street or push back and in this instance they came and helped us lift or hold pressure real quick and then we took over from there.

HARLOW: You know one of the other things that happened, there was a lot of concern about other possible explosives and police at one point even told you as you were treating a very critically wounded victim they even told you, "You need to leave, you need to leave right now," but you wouldn't. What happened?

STEARNS: Well, they basically said there was a suspicious package in our area within a 30-foot radius or so and we need to go. We need to get everyone out of here and we just basically said we can't leave until we get everyone out of here. They stressed we need to go now. We told them we can't go until we clear everyone, until everyone was gone.

HORNE: Yes.

STEARNS: And once that was done, of course, we cleared out but until all the patients were --

HARLOW: You refused.

HORNE: She was the last one, I think. I think she was the last one that we got out --

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HORNE: -- which is really --

HARLOW: Important for you. You know, when we talked last you said that one of the best things, if not the best thing about our job is that we get to go back and see these people get better and see them literally get back up and walking again especially in this case. I know that in this past week you and I were messaging back and forth. You guys both had a chance to reunite with a very, very special person. Can you tell me about that?

HORNE: We did. That's I think the best thing that's happened to either one of us since all of this happened. We heard from somebody else who treated one of the victims that they wanted us to go up and see her and it was -- the family was amazing, the support that she has is amazing. Her mother was also injured and not to get into specifics but just the strength of this family was absolutely amazing and they were making us feel -- I was crying a lot, just to see her looking so well and it's just amazing and I have a hard time even hearing people say they're a victim of what happened but these folks are so strong --

HARLOW: Wow.

HORNE: -- and they're so amazing and they're just what they're bringing to the table for each other and for the rest of the community is unbelievable.

HARLOW: Wow. I can only imagine, what was that like for you to have that reunion? Because the last time you saw her was in the most critical condition, running her into the hospital.

STEARNS: It was good to see her. She was, she had color. She was speaking with us. She was making jokes. The family was making jokes. They were very strong people. They just, you know, they had an enormous sense of humor. You go up there and see them in their hospital bed and they're making jokes and thanking us. And we're just talking up there for about 20 minutes.

HARLOW: Wow.

STEARNS: And it was just -- it was really good to see them because usually we don't get to see the aftermath or the outcome of a patient.

HARLOW: Yes.

HORNE: At least certainly not to that extent we don't typically visit people in their room. It's a small community so sometimes we have patients over and over again and we see them and see that they're getting better and this is obviously a different circumstance and it was amazing.

HARLOW: I'm so glad. Thank you for sharing it with us. Again, I commend you for your bravery. You know, when I first talked to you a few days after, I think it was the Wednesday after the bombings you had just come off your shift, your night shift. So you really did not stop working, you guys have kept on working through all of this. But thank you very much and know that everyone here appreciates what you did.

STEARNS: Thank you.

HORNE: Thanks. Thanks for having us.

HARLOW: Thank you guys. We'll keep in touch absolutely.

Well, just ahead at the top of the hour, new details as investigators comb through a landfill in search of evidence from the Boston bombings.

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