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Coalition against ISIS Grows; London Arrest Terrorist Suspects; Interview with Sen. Angus King; Suspect in Missing UVA Student Case Arrested in Texas; National Security Part of 2014 Election Campaigns

Aired September 25, 2014 - 07:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Also breaking overnight, the U.K. stepping up its counterterrorism efforts on its home turf. Right now we know this morning nine men were arrested in this terror sweep in London. Reportedly among the group is radical preacher by the name of Anjem Choudary.

Atika Shubert is following this for news London. Atika, good morning. Tell me about the arrests.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. This is not a new name. Anjem Choudary has been interviewed by CNN several times. He's featured on local media and he's known as an extremist preacher.

Now the metropolitan police won't confirm to us that he's the one that has been arrested, but it's been widely reported in the British media he along with eight other men. And the reason they've been arrested is that according to British police, they are part of a banned group. Now, they haven't named the group, but what we know is that Anjem Choudary previously had formed al Muhajiroun. This ia an extremist group that has disbanded but has kept reappearing under several names over the years.

And recently as just a few weeks ago we also saw Anjem Choudary on the streets handing out leaflets in support of ISIS and the Islamic caliphate. So this is somebody who is very public, who is out there, and is probably just a matter of time until British police actually picked him up and arrested him.

BALDWIN: OK, Atika, thank you very much, in London for us.

Meantime, President Obama is returning to the United Nations a little later this morning. He will be urging more than we have now 40 nations as part of the coalition, wanting more nations to join in the fight against ISIS, and that list continues to grow. To the White House we go, to our correspondent Michelle Kosinski following all of the diplomatic maneuvering for us. Michelle, good morning to you.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brooke. We see the world gathered, looking for solutions to this threat, to try to deal with it in the short-term and get at the root of it in the long- term. And President Obama went in with some goals, first, to expand this coalition against is, to try to get some more concrete commitments from other countries, and get the security council resolution passed to try to stop the flow of foreign fighters that everyone has been so worried about. So far, he's been able to get it done.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: President Obama chairing a U.N. Security Council meeting.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Resolutions alone will not be enough. We're going to have to translate words into deeds.

KOSINSKI: His resolution, to try to stanch the flow of foreign terrorist fighters passed unanimously. While Belgium and the Netherlands join the fight against ISIS, both likely to send war planes. The U.K. calling parliament back in session this Friday to vote so it, too, can begin air strikes.

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: What we are doing is legal. It is right.

KOSINSKI: At the same time, another video emerged showing the beheading of a hostage, a French hiker kidnapped by ISIS in Algeria. Another country, another region affected. Members of the Arab coalition already battling ISIS from the air, made the urgency clear. The king of Jordan --

KING ABDULLAH II BIN AL HUSSEIN, JORDAN: It is not an Arab or Muslim fight any more. It affects every delegate here and beyond. It is the fight of our times.

KOSINSKI: But the strongest words hit what the president called the cancer of is, calling for action at the root of it.

OBAMA: No god condones this terror. No grievance justifies these actions. There can be no reasoning, no negotiation with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force. It is time for the world, especially Muslim communities, to explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject the ideology of organizations like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Today I ask the world to join in this effort.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: You know it's something like a U.N. resolution, you always wonder, well, how is this going to be enforced realistically? But President Obama emphasized it is legally binding and all of these countries agree that they would now be required to actively prevent the recruiting, traveling, and financing of these terrorist fighters to prosecute them, and to share information. Brooke?

BALDWIN: And Michelle Kosinski at the White House, thank you very much. Chris Cuomo, to you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It really comes down to the mandate for these actions. It's hard to secure internationally. It's been very hard to secure domestically for President Obama.

Let's bring in Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine. He's also on the intelligence and armed services committee. Senator, good to see you, what are your thoughts on what has happened in the war against is?

SEN. ANGUS KING, (I) MAINE: Well, it sort of breathtaking what's happened in the last week. And I have to say, listening to that speech of the president's yesterday in the U.N., I think he sort of found his leadership legs in the last few days where he's really been able to I think have some significant success in terms of rallying international support.

He made the important point that you had in that clip a few minutes ago. The Muslim world, this is a moment of real soul-searching within the Muslim world. They have to decide whether they're going to stand up to this brutal perversion of their religion or whether they're going to passively sort of sit by. And the countries in the region are the ones that are ultimately going to have to make that decision and make the fight.

You mentioned a few minutes ago, you know, where is the oil being sold? You know, it's being sold to other places around the Middle East. And I've heard, and this isn't from the intelligence committee, this is just in open source communication, that Turkey is where a lot of that oil is going. Places like turkey are going to have to make a decision. It's very hard for them politically and I suspect emotionally, but this isn't a war of the west against Islam, although that's what ISIS wants to make it. But as of this morning, this is going to be a long slog, but as of this morning, I think we're making some progress.

CUOMO: How much information are you getting from the White House on the intelligence committee about what's happening before it happens? And how much progress do you think the president made in attracting big names to the coalition with his speech yesterday?

KING: Well, I think he made progress yesterday with the Arab states actually participating. The word they use in Washington is "kinetically." That's a euphemism for air strikes and other kinds of actual war activities. We had, we had some of the Gulf States participating yesterday, Belgium and the Netherlands. Britain I think is going to join today. France is going to get involved. So I think they are making, they are making progress.

I have to say, Chris, you know, in the clip it talked about Cameron calling the parliament in to vote to give him the authority. And as you know, that's something I think we should be doing in our Congress here.

CUOMO: I was hoping you would mention that.

KING: I think it's a responsibility of Congress to step up and put its fingers on this and say yes, we're going to accept our constitutional responsibility and participate in this decision. CUOMO: Do you think that there is a sense of collective shame or

should there be, watching how the U.K. are going about the process versus how this Congress did? No irony, that the Congress isn't even in session right now. Cameron calling them back, them voting, only on Iraq to make sure that there is unity and responsibility in a situation that is fraught with risk, this Congress, nothing.

KING: Well, you know, I can't disagree. I heard the clip and he said, you know, parliament is coming back into session. And you know, my thinking is, we ought to be doing the same thing. You and I have talked about this, Tim Kaine and I and Jim Inhofe and Nelson. I think, important, though, Chris it's going to happen. Bob Menendez, who is the charge of the Foreign Relations Committee that's in charge of this kind of process, has said he wants it make it happen. The president has been keeping us informed. The White House has been sending us notifications under the War Powers Act, so I think technically they're in compliance. I think we're going to get to it. It's really a question of timing and what the final wording is going to be.

CUOMO: You know that the war powers act -- that's really just about how long the president can go it alone. This vote needed to happen already. You're already at war. There's a lot of risk. And the Congress simply punted on it even though it's saw fit to sue him for executive action on much more penny-ante issues than going to war.

KING: Chris, you're preaching to the choir, man. I've been saying this for a month.

CUOMO: You're right, senator. I am certainly not pointing to you, you want to vote.

KING: I don't get to set the schedule.

CUOMO: I know.

KING: And I think it is going to happen. But, yes, we should have -- I think we should have had that discussion and debate. You know, there's this kind of inertia, the calendar was set.

CUOMO: It's the midterms. It's the midterms and it's easier to just go after this guy.

KING: -- fallen into disuse. Politics should stop at the water's edge. And this kind of world crisis that we're engaged in, I mean can you imagine being president of the United States this week with, with ISIS and the Khorasan group in Syria, beheadings in Algeria, Ebola in Africa? We're, we're in a -- this is a very, this is a moment of great crisis.

You know, some of my people say, well, why should we be involved? And I guess my response is, that the good news is, we're the leading country in the world. And the bad news is, that carries with it responsibilities and we just simply can't avoid.

CUOMO: But that's why it should be debated and you move forward or not. With the Syria's situation in the U.K., they got together, the parliament voted, they said no. He didn't do it. Here we had to do the dance with the red line. That certainly doesn't make us look strong at home or abroad in terms of how people perceive the U.S.

Let me ask you something about U.S. specific policy, though. What happened with Khorasan, the U.S. went it alone, bombed outside Aleppo and Syria, took a lot of people by surprise. What do you know about specific imminent threats coming from this offshoot group of Al Qaeda?

KING: Well if I told you what I did know and do know entirely, both you and I would go to jail, so I'm not going to do that.

I am going to tell you that this was a very serious threat. I think the way to think about it is, these guys, the Khorasan group, were essentially strictly in the export of terrorism business. ISIS is you know, consolidating territory, trying to hold ground, set up a caliphate, have a country. Khorasan is not into any of those things. They're into strikes at the west and as many people as they can kill as possible. So they were a direct threat. And, frankly, I was glad to see those strikes because I think they were the more immediate, the immediate threat. The other piece I think that's important is the strikes on those oil facilities that ISIS has because that's where they're getting most of their money. But I can't really go into any detail, Chris, except to tell you it was, those strikes were definitely justified.

CUOMO: Of course not. But you're not a man who is known for being quick to violence, so if you feel it was justified that sends the message that we're looking for here to the viewers today. Senator Angus King, thank you very much for joining us, and I'm glad we're not going to jail.

This is Derek Jeter's last game tonight. I don't want to have to miss it being in the hoosegow. Thank you for joining us.

A lot of news this morning. Let's get you to John Berman in for Michaela with the top stories. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much, Chris. President Obama shifting today from coalition building against ISIS to a potential global health disaster, talking about Ebola. He will focus on the virus in a speech at the United Nations later this morning. The Security Council passed a resolution last week urging Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia to speed up their response to the outbreak. That resolution also called on all U.N. member nations to provide urgent help with field hospitals, staff, and supplies.

Pennsylvania police say they have spotted accused cop killer Eric Frein multiple times, but the rugged terrain where he is hiding has prevented them from capturing him. The police manhunt is now in its 13th day. Frein is wanted for the alleged ambush of two Pennsylvania state troopers, killing one and critically wounding another.

Opening statements begin today in the second trial of Michael Dunn, the Florida man convicted of killing 17-year-old Jordan Davis after an argument over loud music. He was convicted of other crimes, actually. Prosecutors say Dunn killed Davis by firing a gun ten times into an SUV with four teens inside. Dunn was convicted by a previous jury of attempted second-degree murder, but the jury deadlocked on first- degree murder. Dunn faces at least 60 years in prison for those convictions.

The Georgia father accused of intentionally leaving his toddler to die in a hot car will not face the death penalty. The Cobb County district attorney said he decided not to seek the punishment after reviewing the state's death penalty statute. Authorities say Justin Ross Harris left his 22-month-old son Cooper in his SUV for seven hours in June on purpose. He is charged with malice murder and felony murder. Harris said he forgot the child was in the car.

Would the prosecutor not use the death penalty because by putting that aside it would speed up the process for the other charges?

CUOMO: A little bit. It would speed up the charges. You also have to be careful about overcharging and set too high a bar. We've seen, for instance in the Casey Anthony case, sometimes when a prosecutor goes for the death penalty, the bar is so high for that jury that you have to have such overwhelming evidence because it's not an easy decision for a jury to reach no matter how heinous the crime. And obviously the suggestions of what happened here, could be taken --

BERMAN: What's on the table right now.

CUOMO: Right, because you got to think, what's the best case I could make? Because if you overcharge, you may lose.

BALDWIN: Pretty surprising, I mean the buzz down in Georgia, we don't know what we don't ultimately know what happened, but a lot of people thinking that the death penalty would be on the table, and the fact that they've scrapped it now is a big deal.

CUOMO: It is. Also because there have been some big holes blown in the prosecution's case as the process has gone along if you've been following the story, which, hopefully, you are.

Now, another big story that we're following for you is what we're doing as a coalition to go after ISIS. What are they doing? They're going after the money. Another round of air strikes on ISIS positions in eastern Syria. This was the latest round. As effective as the first two? We don't know be. we don't know how effective they really were. We're going to get the latest assessment directly from the Pentagon.

BALDWIN: Also breaking overnight, the suspect in that University of Virginia missing student case apprehended in Texas. He is believed to be the last person to see Hannah Graham. Those new developments after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We have a major break in the case this morning of missing University of Virginia student, Hannah Graham. Jesse Matthew, this is the only known suspect in Graham's disappearance, has been arrested in Texas. Police have been hot on Matthew's trail ever since the UVA second-year went missing two weeks ago. He is believed to be the last person seen with her.

CNN's Jean Casarez is live for us in Virginia with the very latest. Jean, good morning.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. The manhunt is over. The man they have been looking for, Jesse Matthew, has now been arrested. Law enforcement questioned him last night. Where is Hannah? But it wasn't in Virginia, it was in Galveston, Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (voice-over): Police say they now have the man wanted in connection with the kidnapping of 18-year-old Hannah Graham.

CHIEF TIMOTHY LONGO, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA POLICE: Because of the collaborative efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and state and local law enforcement across this nation, Jesse Matthew is in custody in Galveston, Texas.

CASAREZ: This is the latest video of Jesse Matthew, working as a volunteer football coach hours before he met the University of Virginia sophomore. Later that night, he was seen on this surveillance video putting his arm around Graham at the Charlottesville downtown mall. Police believe he was the last person to see Hannah before she vanished September 13th.

LONGO: We have a person in custody, but there's a long road ahead of us, and that long road includes finding Hannah Graham.

CASAREZ: A Galveston County judge told a law reporter that Matthew didn't resist arrest and that deputies responded to a call of a suspicious person camping on the beach at around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. A run of the license plate showed a warrant for Matthew's a arrest.

ADAM S. LEE, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, FBI: The hero of today is an employee, a deputy with the Galveston County Sheriff's Office.

CASAREZ: Earlier this week, Matthew was recorded walking into the convenience store on the Bolivar Peninsula, near where police picked him up. He purchased a few items and left. Matthew worked as an operating room patient technician at the university's medical center, but has since been suspended without pay. Items collected from searches of Matthew's car and apartment are being examined by technicians at the Virginia Department of Forensic Science.

JEFFREY NAN, VIRGINIA DEPT. OF FORENSIC SCIENCE: We're determining whether an item of evidence, a body fluid, came from a particular individual.

CASAREZ: The police chief expects those DNA results back before the end of the week.

Meanwhile, a devastated community waits for answers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (on camera): And Matthew will now go before a judge in Galveston County. The issue is extradition, because he needs to be brought back here to Virginia. He can fight that, though.

On other news, I met the attorney that is now going to represent this man. His name is James Camblos; he is the defense lawyer. He has been for almost 40 years. But he was also the elected commonwealth attorney, yes, a life-long prosecutor at one point, right here in Charlottesville. Brooke?

BALDWIN: So they have found him, not found her. Thinking about her family and friends desperately wanting her to come. Jean Casarez in Charlottesville, thank you so much.

And another round of air strikes has been launched against ISIS targets in Syria by the U.S.-led coalition. Was this latest round as effective as the first two? We will go directly to the Pentagon and get some answers from them.

And as global events unfolded this week, Vice President Joe Biden said something pretty extraordinary about the president's plan for immigration that went under the radar. But, aha, John King, he caught it and he will tell you all about INSIDE POLITICS. Coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: It is time to take you INSIDE POLITICS on NEW DAY with Mr. John King. What are you seeing out there?

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Chris and Brooke, good morning to you. What we're seeing is a lot of political fallout, a lot of political debate about the president's big moment. He's there at the United Nations in New York, he's on the world stage trying to rally the world to help him in this fight against ISIS. But he's also facing some interesting politics here at home.

With me this morning to go INSIDE POLITICS, to share the reporting and their insights, Juana Summers of NPR, CNN's Peter Hamby.

Let's start with the fallout. One of the questions as this began is we do know that the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been on the record saying she disagreed with the president back when she was still Secretary of State, saying he should have armed the moderate Syrian rebels earlier. Now listen to her here say, yes, she had that difference back then, but she's a big supporter of what the president is doing now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: I can't sit here today and tell you that if we had done what I had recommended, we would be in a very different position. I just can't. You can't go and prove a negative. But what I do believe is that the situation now is demanding a response, and we're seeing a very robust response.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Strong endorsement from her there. Bill Clinton also very strongly want to say he thinks the president is doing the right thing.

Maybe we overanalyze this, but everyone is always looking to see is Hillary Clinton getting closer to the president? Is stepping away from the president? There I thought she was saying, yes, sure, I did disagree with him back then. Who knows it would have made a difference? Don't dwell on that. Here's where we are now.

JUANA SUMMERS, NPR: John, I'm kind of in your camp on this. I think I'd actually take her comments at face value. She kind of brushed away her disagreements; we've heard about those. They've been reported on extensively. She's saying, right now, I believe in this. And I think that it would be for foreign policy and defense reasons, a little awkward, a little -- I wouldn't want to say dangerous -- but complicated if a former Secretary of State, a likely front-runner for 2016, if she does in fact decide to run, strikes out and says I completely disagree with the strategy of this president's doing. A member of his -- former member of his own administration could create some political complications.

PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, she can't come out and say that like right after the air strikes launched that she disagrees with the president. That's one thing going on with this comment.

The other is that every single little thing she says is scrutinized; even the subtlest distinction gets blown out of proportion. We saw that when she disagreed with the president when she said that he doesn't have any operating, guiding principles on foreign policy in that interview in "The Atlantic". That exploded and then she sort of had to go back to the president and say there's nothing to see here.

This is important politically for her because, as much as the president's standing has suffered, the base, the base of the Democratic Party -- and I was just in Iowa talking to activists about this -- is still loyal to the president. So it is a very difficult dance for her if she becomes too critical of the president. Democrats are going to say hey, you got to slow down a little.

KING: All right, 2014 might make sense to try to get away from the president a bit for some Democrats. 2016, if you want to be the nominee --

HAMBY: 2015.

KING: 2015, you want to be the nominee, she wants the president at her side. She wants the president's support.

Let's see how this playing out on the campaign trail. Remember, we're six weeks away from the mid-term elections. We thought this would be largely about the economy, still will be. We thought it would be largely about Obamacare. Depends which state you're in. But national security, the ISIS threat, now more and more an issue in some big campaigns. Here's Scott Brown, the former Republican senator for Massachusetts; he's now running as a Republican in New Hampshire. A new ad being very tough on this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BROWN (R-NH), CANDIDATE FOR SENATE: Anyone who turns on the TV these days knows we face challenges to our way of life. Radical Islamic terrorists are threatening to cause the collapse of our country. President Obama and Senator Shaheen seem confused about the nature of the threat, not me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's Scott Brown, a member of the military, retired member. I think he's still in the National Guard, I think the Reserves.

Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic incumbent firing back. Let me read her statement, response to this ad. "It's sad that Scott Brown is trying to score political points to help himself hours just after our military launched air strikes in Syria designed to destroy targets in ISIL. We should be unified behind our men and women in uniform right now, as we target these terrorists and bring them to justice, not launching self-serving political attacks that distort the facts for partisan gain."

Brown has bet a lot on this strategy, focusing a lot on national security.

SUMMERS: Yes. He's really going on it all in here and it's a really interesting situation just because national security, at least not among minute details, are not typically things that move the needle on an election. So it will be interesting to see if it pays out.

But this particular issue has been very interesting and very complex politically, the idea of whether or not the strategy is appropriate to authorize, whether or not a president should in fact go further, has been something that's divided members of Congress and their political opponents, as we head into the election, in really interesting ways that don't just strike me as along party lines.

KING: And worth nothing, before you jump in, worth nothing -- as we watch this state by state, New Hampshire is the home state of James Foley, the American journalist who was beheaded by ISIS. And if you talk to people in both parties up there who understand the politics, they do say that there's a ripple in that Senate race that they think based on the fact that it's so personal for New Hampshire.