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NEW DAY

ISIS-Inspired Plot to Attack the Capitol; AirAsia Flight 8501; Bill Cosby; Sony's "The Interview"; 2016 Presidential Candidates from the GOP; President Obama's State of the Union Address; Immigration Reform; Radicalizing Muslim Youth; Yosemite Climbers

Aired January 15, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Once again, welcome back to NEW DAY. Here's a look at your headlines.

A 20-year-old Ohio man is in police custody for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired bombing attack on the nation's Capitol. His name is Christopher Lee Cornell. Allegedly, he bought a semiautomatic rifle, several of them, and 600 rounds of ammunition to carry out his plan. FBI agents say he was nabbed as he was about to travel to Washington.

Now that the fuselage, the main body, of AirAsia Flight 8501 has been found, diverse are now searching for the remaining bodies of those who were killed in last month's crash. Officials say if the divers encounter trouble, crews may in fact lift the entire fuselage out of the water. Meanwhile, investigators are now analyzing that data that was downloaded from the jet's black boxes to try to begin to piece together the cause of that crash.

Comedian Bill Cosby could be facing criminal charges. His latest accuser, Chloe Goins, says the comedian drugged and sexually assaulted her at the Playboy mansion in 2008 when she was just 18 years old. The LAPD is now investigating those claims. Goins attorney says the accusations by his client might be the first to fall within California's statute of limitations.

Sony Pictures has announced it will release a special DVD of that controversial film "The Interview." It will be called the freedom edition. It'll offer 90 minutes of bonus content, including 14 deleted scenes, seven minutes of bloopers; set for release February 17th.

ALYSON CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I wanted 90 minutes less of content from that movie.

CHRIS CUOMO: Well, did you see it?

CAMEROTA: I saw it. I made a point of seeing it.

PEREIRA: And did you laugh out loud?

CAMEROTA: I didn't laugh at all. It's actually really a juvenile, offensive movie, I mean, to be honest. It's funny that that is now our touchstone for freedom and that that's what we --

PEREIRA: Comes in many forms, doesn't it?

CAMEROTA: -- wave the banner of freedom. It's really an offensive movie.

PEREIRA: Very interesting.

CUOMO: Look, you know, it is part of the price of having unfettered free expression. It's --

PEREIRA: Of course. Of course. It's not always going to be good expression.

CUOMO: Look, in another way, it is a version of what you're seeing with Charlie Hebdo as well. You know, of people -- that is a real offensive satire that they do in there.

PEREIRA: Right. Right.

CUOMO: But it's -- is everything OK.

PEREIRA: It's their right to.

CAMEROTA: Of course.

CUOMO: Sometimes this objective analysis gets tough. I watched the movie. My wife loved it because it had Franco in it.

PEREIRA: Yeah, he's dreamy.

CUOMO: So it was all right as soon as he came on. But I felt like, wow, this was a lot of fighting and risk over this.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Of course. Of course. I mean, but we -- I support the right to make offensive movies, of course, but I just needed a little less of that one.

Let's see how John King feels about it. Let's get to him, "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY.

Good morning, John.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Good morning, Alyson, Chris and Michaela.

I thought your review of the movie, Alyson, was actually overly kind.

(LAUGHTER)

But I agree with the First Amendment stuff. But I don't know about the James Franco thing. Dreamy, really?

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUOMO: Oh, the ladies like him. The ladies like him. PEREIRA: Don't hate what you don't understand.

KING: OK, there you go. There you go. I have been put in my place, discipline accepted, let's move on to "Inside Politics."

With me this morning to share their reporting and their insights, Nia- Malika Henderson of "The Washinton Post," Ron Fournier of the "National Journal."

Let's start with the president. The State of the Union address is next week. A big question, you know, it's the last two years of the presidency, got thumped in the election last year, how much mojo does he have. He's going to sit down with working women in Baltimore today and say the federal government should help states subsidize paid sick leave, that workers need, you know, more of a break, if you're sick you should be able to stay home and you should not lose your pay if you do that.

Last week he was on the road talking about the federal government should help states subsidize free community college for two years.

With a Republican Senate and a bigger Republican House, does the president have a prayer of getting this stuff passed?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, "THE WASHINGTON POST": No, not at all. I mean, this is like the Christmas list you draw up when you're 5-years old and you ask for a pony, you ask for the dream house, you ask for everything and you don't get anything really. In this case, the State of the Union. And you know, this is the president sort of putting the marker down for his vision, but very rarely do things that are laid out in these State of the Union addresses, even though we cover them, actually really end up happening.

KING: But he can't be doing it for fun. I mean, he thinks these are important things. Is there anywhere on those issues in particular where he's going to be able to do business with the Republicans? Or is this more about setting, OK, now that you have two branches, you own the Congress essentially, Republicans, I'm going to just keep drawing very sharp contrasts with you and saying I'm for this, you're against me?

RON FOURNIER, "NATIONAL JOURNAL": Yeah. He'll be able to do a little bit on his own like executive action and have federal employees get more benefits. But he's going to be able to do very little with the Republicans. But this is more about his legacy. His numbers are coming up, he wants to keep bringing them up.

He's also trying to change the bully pulpit in an interesting way. This is not going to be a State of the Union like we saw with Bill Clinton, and a little less so with George Bush, where it was basically a laundry list of things we hadn't heard of. He's rolling them out beforehand, and I think he's going to try to use the State of Union more of framing and context and forward-looking vision about his party and his legacy.

KING: Right. To your point about his numbers, just quickly, the Pew poll has the president now at 47 percent approval, 48 percent disapproval. He was way underwater all last year. He's about at parity now. We'll watch those numbers as they play out. I think after the election the Republicans have more power, maybe the president gets a little bit of leverage. We'll see.

FOURNIER: He should use a line that we heard earlier. He should just stand up to Republicans and say, "You hate what you don't understand."

(LAUGHTER)

KING: There you go. Another issue he'll have to deal with -- and I'm not sure, though, if this is going to become more of a fight between the Republicans and the president or the Republicans --

HENDERSON: Yeah.

KING: -- is the House vote on immigration. The House went on the record yesterday essentially saying what the president did late last year, his executive actions to allow -- not only to allow undocumented to stay in the country and not deport them, but to allow some of them to have a status so that they can work. Listen to John Boehner. The House went on the record with this, mostly a partisan vote, some Democrats voted with the Republicans, a few Republicans voted no. But listen to John Boehner saying the House has no choice but to confront the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We do not take this action lightly, but simply there is no alternative. This executive overreach is an affront to the rule of law and to the Constitution itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: His fight is more with the Senate and Mitch McConnell, is it not, because Mitch McConnell doesn't want to go this far?

HENDERSON: Right. And Boehner's right in the sense that there was no alternative. He had to do this. Coming out of the House, this is what folks on the right especially wanted him to do. It's going to be hard in the Senate, though. Can you imagine Republican senators voting to essentially de-fund the Department of Homeland Security right after we've had all of this news about what's happened over in Paris? It's just hard to --

FOURNIER: I've got to push back, though. This is not Boehner versus McConnell. This is the establishment wing of the Republican Party versus the extreme right wing that wants to take the party off the rails. They can't be this anti-immigrant, this anti-Hispanic with the way this country's going.

And you can quibble on the policy, you can be opposed to the policy, but to stand up there and say this is an affront to the rule of law and the president is taking unconstitutional action, that's irresponsible language and it's wrong. HENDERSON: Yeah. And McConnell will be on the establishment side.

And I think we'll see a lot of Republicans in the Senate on that side as well.

FOURNIER: The president may be doing the wrong thing, it may be bad policy, but it's not extra-constitutional, it's not beyond the rule of law. That's dangerous language.

KING: Well, we'll watch how that plays out. One of the Republican senators who will have to deal with this when it gets there was on the road in New Hampshire yesterday. If you think back, if you're old enough to remember, Ronald Reagan once talked about welfare queens. Right? He thought there were people bilking the system, a lot of controversy for that.

Listen to Rand Paul. He's campaigning in New Hampshire. Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator, who is already gearing up to run for president in 2016 talking about people who he believes are gaming the disability system.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: All of these programs, there's always somebody who's deserving. But everybody in this room knows somebody who's gaming the system. You know, what I tell people is if you look like me and you hop out of your truck, you shouldn't be getting a disability check. We all know people who are horrifically disabled and can't work. But if you have able-bodied people taking the money, then there's not enough money left for the people who are truly disabled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I'm sure there's a small percentage of people out there who are gaming the disability system. And I'm sure that there's a huge majority of people who get the benefits who need the benefits. But let's almost forget that for a second.

HENDERSON: Right.

KING: Why is a guy running for president, with all the issues we face, whether it's taxes and spending, whether it's Medicare and Social Security, whether it's how to balance the budget or not to balance the budget, whether it's overseas threats, why are we talking about this?

HENDERSON: You know, I mean, this is part of what you've heard from some conservatives, this whole idea of takers, right? And you heard Mitt Romney in 2012 go there with the whole 47 percent remark, and that's what Rand Paul was doing there. He's appealing to a certain set of Americans who, you know, in some ways are playing grievance politics and these are sort of white, working-class men and women who feel like there is this subset of the population that are takers and they're taking advantage of the system and are a drain and a drag on the system and the budget. FOURNIER: That's the political reality. And Democrats have played

that a bit, too. That's why Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform bill.

The interesting thing about this is I think this is less of a dog whistle to African Americans, which is what you hear with welfare queens. I think this actually is neighbor versus neighbor. I come from Michigan, spent all of the summer up in Michigan, there are people up there who complain about the fact that they know their neighbors, who happen to be white, are gaming the system. There are a lot of people out there who do know friends and relatives who are gaming the system.

And I think Rand Paul's connecting in with that.

KING: We'll see how that works. Let's get quickly to the Romney backlash as we call it. You know, Mitt Romney said on Friday to a group of donors, actually, after saying no for months I'm thinking of this and now he's reaching out to former staff members, he's talking to fundraisers. He's seriously thinking about running a third time for president in 2016.

Rupert Murdoch -- he has something to do with another network; I forget what it's called -- he says, "He had his chance, he mishandled it. You know, I thought Romney was a terrible candidate."

I make a joke about Rupert Murdoch, but Rupert Murdoch through his newspapers and through the Fox News network has some influence over conservative voters. Is that the mainstream Republican view, a terrible candidate?

HENDERSON: You know, in some ways yes, and that was sort of the view last time as well that, you know, he's the last guy standing and I guess we'll vote for him. And you hear people now saying, oh, you know, he's a decent guy, but he had his chance. He's a decent guy, but he didn't run a great campaign last time.

What -- I mean, to Romney's credit, it was a billion-dollar campaign. He was able to raise that money and he's one of the only Republicans who have been able to do that.

KING: Well, but the question is, does Romney listen to it? He'll have a speech Friday out in San Diego to the Republican National Committee. Very interested to see whether this is just an exploration or whether he's all in. We'll watch that play out, a fabulous contest.

Ron and Nia, thanks for coming in.

Alyson, as we get back to New York, Bill Clinton was on Seth Meyers last night. The question for Seth Meyers, if he needs any advice from us, is make sure when you ask a question like this you get your date exactly right. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT": I want to get away from politics for a minute and talk about real estate. Do you think you might live at a different house in 2016?

(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Well, I hope not because 2016 is the election year and I don't have anyplace to move.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: What he -- 2017 would have been a more interesting answer.

CAMEROTA: Ah-ha, very clever. Math may not be his strong suit. Thanks so much, John.

KING: Have a good day.

CAMEROTA: You, too.

All right. Well, the father of the Ohio man who allegedly plotted a terror attack on the Capitol says he had no idea about his son's plan. How can parents spot the warning signs that their child may be radicalized? A former jihadist tells us.

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PEREIRA: Good to have you back with us here on NEW DAY.

Twenty-year old Christopher Lee Cornell has now been arrested. He was allegedly planning to attack the U.S. Capitol in Washington. His father told CNN he had no idea about his son's suspected plot. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, "AC360": When you actually learned the details of what your son is alleged to have been planning, I mean, did you have any idea, did it make any sense to you?

JOHN CORNELL: No sense whatsoever. You know, he's lived at home his whole life. He's never been out -- well, he's been out of the state of Ohio a couple of times when he was younger. You know, he's a big mama's boy. You know, his best friend is his kitty cat named Mikey. You know, I can't believe -- you know, I mean, this is just like total shock.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Joining us now, Mubin Shaikh, he is a former jihadist. We've spoken to him before. He's also co-author of "Undercover Jihadi."

Mubin, really good to see you. Thank you so much for joining us here. I want to talk about this 20-year old, a kid from Ohio, a mama's boy. How does he get wrapped up with the likes of this?

MUBIN SHAIKH, CO-AUTHOR, "UNDERCOVER JIHADI": Yeah, this is a very common theme to hear that somebody who seems like the "nicest guy," quote-unquote, as the father was saying, never left the state so it looks like he probably was spending a lot of time online, and his social network and peer grouping is also online, so this is exactly how it happens. You lock yourself away, you isolate yourself in a limited and restricted peer group, you come to accept their ideology and you're off.

PEREIRA: Wait, lots of kids do that, Mubin, but they don't get wrapped up in plots to bomb the U.S. Capitol.

SHAIKH: Well, radicalization is an individual process. Every person is going to react to it differently. For example, when we see atrocities taking place around the world, everyone responds to it in a different way.

PEREIRA: Sure.

SHAIKH: Depending on what's happening in your life, you will respond to it more intensely than other people. So I'm going to look to see. He probably has, you know, family issues. This is very common in young people and parents. But you add, you start to add clusters of behavior and then you're going to start to see indicators towards violent action.

PEREIRA: Mubin, I don't know if you had a chance to see and hear this really powerful sound, I want to play it for you now, the mother in Chicago whose son had plans to travel to the Middle East and join ISIS. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZARINE KHAN: We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms. We condemn the tactics of ISIS and groups like it. And we condemn the brainwashing and recruiting of children through the use of social media and the Internet. And we have a message for ISIS, Mr. Baghdadi and his fellow social media recruiters: Leave our children alone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: A tearful "leave our children alone." Is the draw of this extremism stronger than a mother's love, of a parent's love, the support of a community?

SHAIKH: Well, you know, when a young kid, especially even up to 20, especially a kid who's described as a big mama's boy, they don't listen to their parents. There's a huge disconnect with culture especially, not just in, you know, white America, but in minority communities as well. You have first, second generation who are here from wherever, their kids might not be feeling like they belong, they may not be integrating properly. There's usually a divide between the parent and children to the point where yeah, you know, these groups and these networks of individuals, whether social or in real life, they become your new family. It's no different than joining a gang or a cult.

PEREIRA: You talk about the importance of not just finding the terrorists, but getting to these vulnerable people, this vulnerable population before they become terrorists or radicalized. And you pointed us to this guide from the University of Liverpool. And I think we have a full still that we can show what we're talking about.

I want you to walk us through this very quickly. Level one, concern and consultation. There's something there that is a flag to somebody about behavior of a young person.

SHAIKH: Yeah, this is not about finding terrorists. This is about it's a vulnerability assessment as to how kids could become vulnerable to recruitment by extremists. And so that graph is useful.

If you look at the first category, consultation, that's something that community organizations can really get on. So for example, if the police arrest someone or there's some kind of criminality like to it, they can then kind of channel the person to a community organization, a religious scholar, a social worker, a psychologist to try to counsel the person --

PEREIRA: Right.

SHAIKH: -- and see what's happening in their life. When you move on to the next step --

PEREIRA: Intervention and monitoring.

SHAIKH: -- this is something usually that -- intervention and monitoring -- this is where law enforcement and intelligence agencies will start to pick up chatter, social network use, maybe they've been doing surveillance on some individuals and this new kid just pops out of the blue. This is where there's more government involvement.

And then finally if you look at the third category, this is criminality. This is criminal behavior. And if such a tool is being used in the community, the issue would be that this is where you are basically required to report to authorities. It's no different than in the school where they see that kids are being assaulted or abused.

PEREIRA: Right.

SHAIKH: There is a duty to report. So those are criminal activity, criminal behaviors.

And this guide by Liverpool was developed like a number of years ago. It has five years of testing. It's been used in different contexts.

PEREIRA: Field testing understanding.

SHAIKH: Yeah, field testing. And the U.K. is using this a lot. You know, they've had problems with radicalization and young people being radicalized. But again, this is just one of the tools that are out there for parents especially to use. It's a public document and they're encouraged to use it. PEREIRA: Mubin Shaikh, always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you

for helping us try to begin to understand the process of what can happen to a young person that is becoming radicalized and some of the things that can be done. We'll talk to you more about it again, I'm sure.

CAMEROTA: OK. And stick around everyone. We are about to have a live interview with two mountain climbers who have just done something no one else ever has. They'll be with us live.

Hi, guys.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: We are just in awe of this incredible feat. American climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson have become the first to scale the granite wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park using just their hands and feet, no climbing tools. This is considered the toughest rock climb in the word, 3,000-foot free climb. It took them 19 days.

Guess who's joining us? The men themselves, Tommy Caldwell, Kevin Jorgeson.

And first of all, the man in yellow, Mr. Tommy Caldwell, has lost his voice, he has but a whisper.

So Kevin, you get to do all the talking. So tell us, how does it feel to have achieved this un-doable feat, we had thought?

KEVIN JORGESON, EL CAPITAN CLIMBER: Well, Tommy's in blue, I'm in yellow. It feels incredible. I mean, we've been working on this since 2009 and Tommy first envisioned the line in 2007. So it's been all-consuming in our lives since then. And it's pretty surreal to wake up this morning and have the climb complete.

CAMEROTA: Kevin, what was it like? Were there times in the middle of this you thought, you know what, this is a bad idea?

JORGESON: No, there were no times that I thought it was a bad idea. There were times that I questioned if I was going to be able to do it. But never thought it was a bad idea. We were right where we wanted to be, when we wanted to be there.

CUOMO: Tommy, I know you can't talk, but that's too bad because I want to hear how you lost your voice. Was it from the exposure of being out there for so long or was it from all the celebrating and screaming with joy you did after?

TOMMY CALDWELL, EL CAPITAN CLIMBER: I think it was mostly celebrating, a little bit of dehydration.

CAMEROTA: You've convinced us. You've lost your voice.

PEREIRA: That is unbelievable. All right.

CUOMO: It was worth it. It sounds cool because of what you just did.

PEREIRA: So look, guys, you talked about how this was no overnight thing. You have tried before, you have failed before. It took a lot of planning. It took a lifelong friendship between the two of you. Along the way, this is very slow, meticulous work. How do you keep your brain focused on a slow, meticulous, painstaking process?

JORGESON: Well, it starts with a goal. And if you want to achieve that goal or that vision or that dream, then focus isn't an issue.

CAMEROTA: Kevin, we've been joking here on the show this morning. We were looking at this picture, this very one that's on our screen right now. And it shows one of you guys with a Band-Aid on your finger. Is that all that you sustained? Other than losing your voice, was that the, you know, some of the injuries during this challenge?

JORGESON: Yeah. Thankfully, the worst injuries we had were slight cuts to our fingertips, which in the grand scheme of things with what we were doing up there, totally fine.

CUOMO: A little bit of insight into the communication between the two of you. How did that work? Is there a lot of chit-chat? Do you wait until you end a session? Is there communication about paths? Help us figure it out.

JORGESON: Yeah. You know, in climbing vernacular, the sequence is called beta and we constantly are exchanging beta for how to climb these pitches, these rope lengths up the wall. There's 32 of them. So while we're working on it, we're in constant communication of the different ways that work and don't work and, you know, cheering each other on while we're on our ascend effort.

PEREIRA: Tommy Caldwell, Kevin Jorgeson, we have been wanting to talk to you since this climb began on the 27th. I was about to climb up after you all to get this interview. Very, very proud of you. We know the president sent a tweet to congratulate you as well. Bask in the glory, get his voice back, and just know that the nation is very, very proud of you.

JORGESON: Thanks for having us.

CALDWELL: Thank you. Thank you.

PEREIRA: That was a good party last night.

CUOMO: You were going to climb after them? That's a lot of beta.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: I'll deal with you later.

CAMEROTA: I heard some skepticism in his "yeah."

PEREIRA: Rightly so.

CAMEROTA: All right. Back to our top story this morning, an ISIS- inspired plot to attack the Capitol with bombs and guns has been foiled. Now the suspect's parents are coming to his defense, suggesting he may have been set up by the FBI. New developments ahead.

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