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CNN NEWSROOM
Six Bosnian Immigrants Arrested; NBC's Brian Williams Stepping Down; Outrage Over Obama "Crusades" Comment; Interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci on Measles
Aired February 7, 2015 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow, in New York. We are following a lot of major headlines this hour, including this a handful of people living right here in the United States accused of sending money and supplies to active terrorists inside of Iraq and Syria.
I'm talking about supplies like U.S. military uniforms, boots, tactical gear. The U.S. Justice Department saying six suspects in total were arrested across different states. All six defendants immigrated to the United States from Bosnia. Three are naturalized U.S. citizens. Officials say two suspects planned to join terrorists in battle, on the ground. Five suspects arrested in the U.S., one of them arrested overseas.
Meanwhile, the FBI is working around the clock to try to stop ISIS from recruiting teenagers and others right here on U.S. soil. Our Justice correspondent Pamela Brown spoke with the head of the FBI's counterterrorism division.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Have you seen people in the U.S. coordinating to launch an attack?
MICHAEL STEINBACH, ASST DIR. FBI, COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION: We have seen individuals collaborative course.
BROWN: In the U.S.?
STEINBACH: Yes.
BROWN: So are there ISIS cells in the U.S.?
STEINBACH: There are individuals who have been in communication with groups like ISIL who have a desire to conduct an attack, yes.
BROWN: That are living in the U.S. right now?
STEINBACH: Correct.
BROWN: Pamela Brown with that exclusive interview.
Let's talk more about it with former CIA operative Bob Baer and also former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
Tom, let me begin with you. So we heard what the head of counterterrorism at the FBI clearly told our Pamela Brown. He said a lot more about concerns about teens as young as 15 getting recruited by ISIS. How does the FBI fight this?
TOM FUENTES, FMR. FBI ASST. DIRECTOR: Well, Poppy, they are doing what they are doing. They are trying to do as much outreach in the communities as they can so that people will report if they hear somebody or see somebody's social media posting indicating that they want to join the fight or they want to send money or resources to ISIS, to support them in the fight. And, you know, in that part so far they have been very successful but as Assistant Director Steinbach mentioned in those interviews, they are not positive. They know every single person that's involved.
And additionally, the FBI director a couple of weeks ago publicly stated, the FBI has over 1,000 counterterrorism investigations ongoing right now. They are all at different stages of this as the person aspirational, are they just all malting off, it's all talk or are they going to actually get serious and try to do it. And at the point it gets too far and too serious, they make the arrest. They just can't follow thousands of people around for the rest of their lives.
HARLOW: Do we have Bob Baer? There he is. Bob, you're back. You went black for a minute and now you're back on the screen.
Let me ask you this about the headline that we just brought our viewers. The six Bosnian immigrants arrested on terror charges. The FBI saying they are across multiple states, one of them operating overseas. Concerned that they were and obviously had enough of a belief that they were trying to fund and actively work with terror cells in the Middle East. What's your reaction to that headline?
BOB BAER, FMR CIA OPERATIVE: Well, Poppy, let's not forget history here. Al Qaeda in once got its start in the form of Yugoslavia in that civil war. It showed up there and the original 9/11 plot even goes back to Yugoslavia, it found its roots there. And there are a lot of Bosnian Muslims that are true believers and that they think they are justified going to fight in Iraq or Syria.
So I think that these people have been rolled up. It was a serious threat. I mean, remember, Poppy, these people just as easily turn on targets in the United States. What is fortunate for the FBI is they are collecting data from Facebook and twitter and the rest of it and start to focus in on these people but what scares the FBI, as law enforcement has told me, it's the people they don't know about, the true lone wolves that don't get on the internet and express their beliefs.
HARLOW: There's also something to be said, right, Bob, for people that are friends or - and, you know, in this country together, working and operating together. Are you saying that there should be more of a concern and focus on Bosnia right now or are you just saying, look, these are six people with beliefs that came from the same place that we're working together? Because there's a distinction there. BAER: I think the threat is coming from everywhere. I mean, look at
France. That slipped through the cracks and because they didn't have the coverage of every suspect that could potentially do violence, they couldn't follow all of them. The FBI has the same problem. It's triage, sorting out who is the real threat and who is just on the internet popping off. You know, it's a matter of hauling these people in one by one and continuing to monitor. But, you know, my feeling is that one day, someone is going to get through the net.
HARLOW: Tom Fuentes, to you. When we talk about the horrific attack in Paris, you know, the brothers there as well as Ahmed Coulibaly, they were monitored by French officials for a long time and then they stopped monitoring them because they stop saying extremists things on the phone, et cetera and clearly, clearly, that fell through the cracks. Do you have concerns that some of the folks being monitored here in the United states could know that they are being monitored and then stop talking about what they are still clearly planning to do?
BAER: Oh, absolutely. And I think a lot of people think they are being monitored even when they are not. That's the other - fortunately, you hope that they are all worried about that. We have 1.1 million people on our terror watch list here in the U.S..
HARLOW: Wow.
BAER: There are not enough law enforcement officers. The entire United States has 800,000 law enforcement officers. So that's not even the ability to one on one follow a million people. That's why, as Bob mentioned, they have the triage, they have to look at who is the biggest threat and when they stop looking at one crew, they have to start looking at others when they could redeploy the resources. And that's why they didn't want to fool around any longer that they have. If they have enough evidence to make the arrests, they make it, they begin the prosecution and that gets that proof of six people less that they have to follow around all the time and monitor.
HARLOW: That is an incredible number. 1.2 million on that list. Tom Fuentes, Bob Baer, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
BAER: Thank you, Poppy.
HARLOW: Well, two parents in Arizona making an emotional plea to ISIS. Kayla Mueller's mother and father want ISIS militants to contact them immediately and privately about their beloved daughter. The U.S. has major doubts about ISIS claims that a Jordanian air strike yesterday killed Mueller and her parents are hopeful that she is still alive. They do haven't received no proof of life evidence from her captors.
Defense officials telling us here at CNN "the target struck Friday by the Royal Jordanian Air Force with the support of U.S. military air crews was a known ISIL weapons storage compound located near Raqqa, Syria. We have seen no indications that hostages were being held at this location. We continue to review and evaluate all information."
Kayla Mueller was kidnapped back in 2013, in Aleppo. Though her name did not become public until ISIS made it public just yesterday.
Joining me now to discuss this, our correspondent Kyung Lah. She is in Mueller's hometown of Prescott, Arizona. Also, Atika Schubert joins us again from Amman, Jordan.
Kyung, let me begin with you, it much be indredibly painful for all of the people in that community, not just her family. I know this is a very tight-knit community. What are they saying?
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very small community. About 40,000 people who live here. A lot of people know her. There was a woman who walked by just a short time ago and she said, "wow, feels like the war is here. "
And in many ways, for the people who live here, it does appear that the war has dropped on their front doorstep because this woman is one of their own and one of their prized possessions. It's a woman who many of them saw grow up, walk the streets here in this town fighting for social justice, first as a Saved our (INAUDIBLE) campaign and then as a college student trying to fight for people who were underprivileged.
She worked at a homeless shelter. She worked at a woman's shelter. She worked at an HIV clinic. It is the underserved that she always fought for when she traveled abroad. It was Syria that captured her heart and it's there, Poppy, that she really hoped to make a difference. She knew the risks, friends tell us. She understood the cost and, despite that, she wanted to remain there, mainly because of the refugees.
HARLOW: The best of us, as our Michael Daly has been saying, the best you can be.
Let me ask you, Atika, Jordan is vehemently denying this, calling this a PR stunt by ISIS and saying in no way did their air strikes kill this young woman they've been holding hostage since 2013. Anything else worth hearing on that front?
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, the Jordanian government says it is investigating this. They are trying to find out more information on the ground. But, remember, the Jordanian government has been dealing with ISIS for the last month. They say they've been negotiating for the safe transfer of their Jordanian air pilot which they now know - he was brutally murdered weeks ago.
So as far as they are concerned, ISIS has a track record of lying, particularly about hostages and prisoners they have. For them, this doesn't make any sense. Why would she be held alone in a building where nobody else was killed or even injured.
HARLOW: Right.
SHUBERT: And how could ISIS identify specific Jordanian planes in the air? It just doesn't added up, they say.
HARLOW: And Kyung, we are now learning also right that U.S. forces did try to rescue her.
LAH: They did try to rescue her in July. There was quite a bit of press about James Foley and the attempted rescue of him. He is the journalist that forces tried to rescue. That rescue did not happen. He was later murdered by ISIS. But in that rescue, what U.S. forces did find, according to a law enforcement official speaking to CNN is that therewas some scribblings inside of a jail, inside a prison and those scribbling appeared to be from the hostages. They also found hair strands and those hair strands are believed to be Mueller's.
So as recently as last July, this family was learning that their daughter was still alive. And you're talking about all of those potential lies that are out there, that U.S. authorities are really not sure and saying that this is unconfirmed, that picture. You can imagine what's happening to this family, Poppy. They remain private. They also remain surrounded by friends, family and spiritual advisers.
HARLOW: And the U.S. cautioning they have no evidence that she has been killed. Thank you very much, Kyung Lah and Atika Shubert joining us.
Coming up next, she is known as lady Al Qaeda and we're learning that last summer ISIS was hoping to swap her for U.S. hostage Kayla Mueller. The details, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: All right. We are learning new details that ISIS may have been looking to swap U.S. hostage Kayla Mueller for this woman. Her name is Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. She is a Pakistani scientist serving time in Texas for trying to kill American soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan back in 2008.
Joining me now to talk about who this woman is and what motivated her, former CIA operative Bob Baer and Qanta Ahmed, Hosseini scholar who joins me here in New York.
Bob, what do we know about this woman?
BAER: Well, she wasn't a member of the Islamic State, she preceeded that. There's good evidence that she's a member of Al Qaeda. She was planning according to the FBI operations in the United States. When she was arrested she picked up a gun, shot some people, shot at people. What's interesting for me, Poppy, is when you look at the Islamic state's demands for these hostages, they just don't care whether it's their own people or members of Al Qaeda. They are looking to become an international organization, a real state and anybody who is so-called martyr in jail, they want out.
It's our problem fighting Al Qaeda from the Islamic state, I think this is more evidence of that.
HARLOW: So Qanta you were saying she is a key figurehead in terms of her ability to successfully recruit people, to radicalize people.
QANTA AHMED, HOSSINI SCHOLAR: So her name is quite notorious, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. In fact, if I can point viewers one of the most authoritative studies that was performed by journalist Deborah Scroggins, who wrote about her in her book "Wanted Women." Aafia Siddiqui in Pakistan, in some circles is lionized as a daughter of a nation. She was someone who has exactly the same privileges as I do here in the United States. She was a neuroscientist, trained at MIT but she began cultivating sympathies for Islamist ideology and because she's a female, I was a physician, kind of like my counterpart, was hugely influential in building support.
I believe that she was an attendee of the same mosque that radicalized the Boston marathon bombers.
HARLOW: A mosque which denies that.
AHMED: A mosque which denies that. Yes. And I think other academics who studied this in detail. So asking for her I think symbolizes that ISIS understands the power of symbols in radicalization and also her political value by attempting to retrieve her from the United States, which is I think non-negotiable. You can't give her up.
HARLOW: And Bob, I know that ISIS has claimed that a Jordanian air strike killed Kayla Mueller yesterday but Jordan and the U.S. saying there was no proof that that attack happened. Do you believe, Bob, that there might if - if Kayla Mueller is still alive, maybe another attempt to try to get the U.S. to agree to this prisoner swap?
BAER: (INAUDIBLE) there has been no evidence that she was killed in an air strike and the circumstances the Islamic State has offered for her death just don't seem reasonable to me. It couldn't tell an F16 apart from an American or a Turkish one or any other one. So I think this is some sort of propaganda game they're playing which she very well could be alive and they may present some proof of life at this point in moving this serious negotiations.
But again the hostage takers are not rational. And it's difficult to predict what they're going to do next.
HARLOW: Qanta, (INAUDIBLE) before we go to break.
AHMED: I can say I agree with Bob. It seems incredibly opportunists and I think ISIS - number one, by murdering the Jordanian pilot and now claiming the death of this woman is trying to distract from their recent last see kobani (ph) their recent defeat. It's very much an opportunists move.
HARLOW: Thank you very much. It's great to have you on the program, Bob Baer, thank you as well.
Stand by because we have new information in here to CNN on embattled NBC anchor Brian Williams, facing an internal investigation at NBC over what he said happened in a Chinook helicopter back in Iraq in 2003. Brian Stelter joins us with that reporting after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News. HARLOW: All right. Breaking news in to CNN from our Brian Stelter. We bring him right in here talking about embattled NBC anchor Brian Williams. Big development, what can you tell us?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brian Williams has decided to step aside, he says from his NBC "Nightly News" chair for the next several days is the way he's saying it. He's not giving a time horizon on that. But this is something that comes less than three days after questions were first raised and he first apologized about this accounting of an Iraq war mission in 2003.
He said at one point, eight days ago in his nightly news broadcast that the helicopter he was in was struck by an RPG, rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq that it was forced out of the sky. He had a very harrowing account of that but it turns out he was not on the helicopter, he was on a different helicopter.
Once he apologized there were questions raised about other reports of his as well.
HARLOW: Right.
STELTER: Including even his reports from Hurricane Katrina. So he essentially saying is he's stepping aside now to let NBC's investigation take place.
HARLOW: And reading part of the statement that you obtained, saying "in the midst of a career covering and consuming news it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news due to my actions." Do we know if this decision to step aside temporarily is because of the internal investigation at NBC?
STELTER: Well, what I'm wondering is whether they've found something already that has led them to do this. I'm told, no, that he decided to do this before he learned about any results of the internal investigation which only started yesterday, by the way.
HARLOW: Right.
STELTER: We know that the producers at NBC, they are leading this investigation have been reaching out to some of the soldiers involved, trying to re-report the story that Brian Williams has told. But apparently, and I say apparently, because all the facts aren't out yet - apparently, Brian Williams decided on his own to do this before he could be pushed. You'd expect the president of NBC News or the chair of the News division to ask him to step aside but in this case, apparently he's doing this before being asked.
HARLOW: I was going to ask you that. Any sense that (INAUDIBLE) or any of the management at NBC suggested this to him?
STELTER: Obviously, that's going to be the thought that people immediately come away with. I was hearing rumors about a suspension about an hour ago but instead it's been very clear in this statement that he is deciding to "taking myself off my daily broadcast for the next several days." He says Lester Holt who is the main weekend nightly news anchor will be filling in. And then the statement ends with the following. "Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who have placed their trust in us." So already in the statement he's saying, I will be back and I will regain your trust.
HARLOW: Brian Williams is the face of "NBC News." He's frankly the face of - he is someone that everyone has trusted through the years. That is the promos that they have been running or about this, the name and the face that you trust. NBC has to make the calculation, right, about whether keeping him in that chair hurts the overall brand long term. What is your assessment on that?
STELTER: That is exactly what they are trying to figure out. What I'm hearing from NBC is pretty much silence right now because nobody really knows to that, whether this does long-term damage. It will be measured through the ratings over time and there's something called cue scores, which measures the audience's appeal and popularity of the people they are watching.
But, you know, you're making a point about being the face of NBC News. He's an anchor that many anchors in local markets all across the country aspire to be.
HARLOW: Yes.
STELTER: He's someone who is really an inspirational figure for many television anchors and he's also the longest serving nightly news anchor in the country and the highest rated. He gets 10 million viewers most nights. And he's the senior most anchor over Scott Pelly and David Mueller as the competitors have only been in the chair for three years and several months in other cases. So he's the senior- most figure. You don't ever want to compare him to Walter Cronkite but he's the closest thing to Walter Cronkite this country has. So this is a devastating fall.
HARLOW: You have to think though about the years of work that he had done -
STELTER: Absolutely.
HARLOW: His incredible work and the reputation that he as build up until now, doesn't that stand for something?
STELTER: That's what I'm hearing from people who stand by him and support him. You're absolutely right. And I want to be clear as we see the graphic on the screen this is at the moment temporary, it's not a permanent change. I probably don't have room to fit it in. But I want to make that clear that he's saying he's only stepping aside for the next several days but even he's not able to put a time horizon on it because we don't know how long the investigation is going to take and we don't know how long the attention in the press is going to last either.
HARLOW: As a media reporter, Brian, what does Brian Williams have to do when he comes back? STELTER: You can imagine a rather long and thoughtful and in depth interview and conversation he does to explain all of the discrepancies that exists. You could also imagine maybe talking to some of the soldier who are involved here. Because some are satisfied by his apology and some of them weren't. Some of them would like to talk to him. I can imagine maybe NBC trying to set something like that up. But most of all, they're going to have to figure out if the audience still trusts him after this period of investigation.
HARLOW: Brian, stand by. We're going to take a quick break. Much more with Brian Stelter on this breaking news in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN WILLIAMS, ANCHOR, NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. We all landed after the ground fire incident and spent two harrowing nights in a sandstorm in the Iraq desert. This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and, by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not. I hope they know they have my greatest respect and also now my apology.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. That is the apology on his broadcast Wednesday night from NBC anchor Brian Williams.
Breaking news into CNN now, Williams is temporarily taking himself off his own broadcast. Let me read you his statement just in to us in full. This is personal note from Brian Williams.
"In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently taking up too much of the news. As managing editor of 'NBC Nightly News,' I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue. Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those people who place their trust in us."
That coming from NBC anchor Brian Williams.
Our media -- senior media correspondent Brian Stelter joins me now with analysis.
I know NBC has also been in contact with you. What are they saying on this front?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, the main message from the network is this is Brian Williams' choice, not their -- his bosses' choice.
HARLOW: He wasn't pushed off. STELTER: That's right. And they have been in day-long meetings on Thursday and especially Friday and then, again, they are continuing the conversations today about how damaging this is to Brian Williams and how he and the network can recover. Yesterday morning, there was a network-wide editorial meeting at NBC every morning, and Brian Williams came to it yesterday and wanted to apologize to the staff. He said this is on him, it's his responsibility for what's happened and wanted to apologize because he knows that the credibility of the network has been damaged as women as his own credibility.
HARLOW: This all stems from an account over the year of 2003 mission that he was on in Iraq, in a Chinook helicopter, saying initially it was struck by an RPG, and then later saying it was the one in front of us struck, not ours.
STELTER: Right.
HARLOW: Maintaining throughout, though, that this was an innocent mistake and he maintains that position now.
STELTER: Yes. He made that clear on Wednesday in his apology. The time a little bit, some people have called this a fishtail. You know, you catch a fish, it's a foot long, a couple of years later, it's two feet long, and it's three feet long, and it's four feet long.
It's a story that gets exaggerated with time. Sometimes that's OK. Some people have a lot of fun recounting stories like that. Even some veterans have told me, yes, they've got war stories, combat stories, they grew bigger over time. But that's when they are telling them with friends over a beer.
Journalists are held to a different standard and should be held with different standard. What we witness and what we remember must be taken seriously and must be truth. The idea that he was exaggerating his story over time is disturbing and then to wonder why he was exaggerating is even more disturbing. Was he trying to sound more heroic? Was he trying to place himself in the center of the action? That's what his critics are saying. Again, he says it's an innocent mistake that was made.
HARLOW: And you have to -- you have to believe that years and years of really incredibly reporting stand for something, you brought up, Brian, as we were talking, sort of this vulture culture that we live in. Some are saying, we're making too much of this.
STELTER: And then some other story will come along and then outrage and that person will be publicly tried, and then we'll move on to the next one. I think there's some truth to that. But at the same time, I think the reason why journalists focus intensely when one journalist is scrutinized because it goes to the credibility of the whole profession. When one journalist falls, everyone takes a hit, and that's true to some extent in other industries as well, it's especially true in media where credibility and trust are what we go off, of what we stand for.
HARLOW: And I do understand there have been some reports about some members of the military being upset about this.
STELTER: Yes.
HARLOW: Because they go through this, their life is on the line every single day.
STELTER: A couple of them have been quoted in other news reports saying they feel like the apology on Wednesday wasn't enough, wasn't sufficient, and I think that is what's triggered these day-long meetings at NBC, and now this announcement today. But we should say, Brian Williams says at the end of the statement to his colleagues that he intends to be back.
HARLOW: To be back.
STELTER: And they intend to regain the trust of his audience.
HARLOW: Brian Stelter, thank you. Stand by.
Brian will join us again top of the hour, 5:00 Eastern, here with much more on this story.
A lot of news to get to, though. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HARLOW: President Obama set off a bit of a political storm on Thursday morning by comparing current ISIS brutality to the Christian Crusades and brutality hundreds of years ago.
Here's what he said at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: All right. Well, politicians like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal immediately criticizing the president, saying, quote, "The medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President. Please deal with the radical Islamic threat today."
Let's talk more about this with my panel. Dr. Qanta Ahmed joins me again, author of "In the Land of Invisible Women," also a Muslim scholar, and CNN religion commentator, Father Edward Beck, with me as well here in New York.
So, the president -- there's also something to be said for the timing. The president made these comments two day after that video was released showing the Jordanian pilot burned alive, something even that many of us thought was even beyond the evil of is' capability.
Doctor, do you think the timing played a role here in the political firestorm that erupted?
DR. QANTA AHMED, AUTHOR, "IN THE LAND OF INVISIBLE WOMEN": I was quite astonished by the president's remarks. Though, of course, he's free to make an address in the setting like that. What concerns me is not just in the prayer breakfast but also recently in his interview with Fareed Zakaria, the president refers to medieval barbarity. He uses the word "medieval" frequently.
ISIS has purely totalitarian ambition and characteristics. This is not a problem of the medieval world. This is a problem with the contemporary world. And from the president of the United States, I want him to engage in contemporary problems even though there's a place for historical context in all kinds of discussions.
HARLOW: So, Father Beck, he's been incredibly careful not to use labels like radical Islam and you've seen some politicians, Senator Kelly Ayotte saying, we need to define our enemy. We need to say what it is. Others are saying, look, this is nothing to do with Islam. Where do you fall on that? Some people of certain religions can do horrific things that have happened in Christianity in the past.
FATHER EDWARD BECK, CNN RELIGION COMMENTATOR: And I agree with what he's saying. He's saying that the war is not with Islam. It's with extremism. And extremism historically has existed in many religions. I think he's trying to focus the conversation -- you have 1.6 million Muslims. You can't categorize all Muslims with the same brush. And so, I think he's saying, be very careful about extremism, not religion.
HARLOW: But that's not what he said, right?
BECK: Well, in one sense, he keeps saying you can't categorize Muslims in this way. That's his point.
HARLOW: Right. I think when you listen to this sound bite and he says, let us not get on our high horse, when you look back, you know, this happened before --
BECK: Right. Extremists in all religion have acted violently.
HARLOW: Exactly.
BECK: So, the history of Christianity with the Crusades and Inquisition, which he brought up, is not exactly stellar.
HARLOW: Are you concerned about, as Dr. Ahmed was saying, that was so long ago, we need to deal with the now?
BECK: Well, I don't know, is Jim Crow that long ago?
HARLOW: He did bring up Jim Crow.
BECK: In 1920s, 15 percent of the white males were part of the KKK, 15 percent of the white males. And they used the Bible as justification for it. Slavery -- I mean, the Bible is used for justification for slavery by Christians. And so, all of our religious traditions have been marred in some way and co-opted by extremists.
HARLOW: Dr. Ahmed, let me ask you this -- some say and there was a recent "Daily Beast" article about this, saying there is no much thing as radical Islam. There is only one Islam but there are radical Muslims. You say you disagree with that assessment.
AHMED: I mean, I'm an observing Muslim in every sense. And I would say that this denial of the existence of radical Islam, a denial that our administration appears to endorse and that a denial that Muslim commentators is standing by is not giving us the full picture of reality. I agree with Father Beck, the vast numbers of Muslims do not follow the ideology of Islam -- excuse me, Islamism.
But there can be no Islamism without Islam. Islam is a political totalitarian ideology that masquerades as my faith. It's absolutely connected to Islam but not within the body of the religion. It does not exist without any relationship. There is a connection. It's a parasitic connection. I called it the viper in our bosom. It's a relationship that Muslim states and patrons have nurtured for their own purposes.
HARLOW: And you're saying that they are the ones that need to fight against it?
AHMED: They are finding that the viper that they nurture is coming back to bite them. Absolutely.
BECK: But, I mean, is ISIL more about power than religion? That Jordanian air pilot, he was Muslim.
HARLOW: Absolutely. Our Christiane Amanpour had a former ISIS hostage, a French citizen on, who said, never once did I see the Koran, never once did they talk about religion or the Koran.
BECK: Exactly.
HARLOW: That it did not motivate them.
BECK: They're killing their own people. Why are they killing Muslims, then?
AHMED: Absolutely. The number one targets of Islamist violence are Muslims and all Muslims are not Islamists, but Islamists identify as Muslims. And ISIS is absolutely about a kind of power structure, about totalitarian power structure. They steal religion, my religion, to pursue it.
But to say it's disconnected from Islam is not accurate. And we're not doing this in a classroom. We're asking our political leaders to make that acknowledgement. That's a very different debate.
HARLOW: We have to leave it there. Thank you both for your perspective. I appreciate it very much. Coming up next, we're going to have Dr. Fauci on the program, the head
of the NIH, to talk about the measles outbreak that has claimed five more young infants in Chicago that are now infected with the disease, it's in 16 states. We'll talk about what to do, next.
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HARLOW: Health officials warning the measles outbreak could get worse. We're talking about 16 states where there are infections, also in Washington, D.C. The latest: Nevada and Delaware. Also alarming, five infants, all under the age of one, have tested positive for the measles disease and they were at a nearby -- a daycare near Chicago. Many more children have been exposed.
I want to bring in Dr. Anthony Fauci. He's the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Thank you for joining me, Doctor.
It is pretty infuriating, I think, to a lot of people that this is happening with a disease that was all but gone in 2000.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIR., NATL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Right. That's true. That's one of the frustrating aspects of it is, is that you have a highly contagious infectious disease and a vaccine that's one of the most effective vaccines of all the vaccines we have against infections and has been shown to be really quite safe and yet, because for one reason or another, parents are not vaccinating children in certain areas and in certain groups, we're now seeing the resurgence of a potentially serious disease where there vulnerable people.
You mentioned, Poppy, the children in the daycare center.
HARLOW: Right.
FAUCI: Those are children who were too young to be vaccinated. So, we go from birth to 1-year-old and you don't get vaccinated, you get vaccinated at 12 months to 15 months and then a second one at 4 years. So, all of those children are vulnerable to measles outbreaks.
HARLOW: And if you are not vaccinated, you have a 90 percent chance of getting measles if you're exposed to it. This is a disease that can live in the air. It's not hard to catch at all. It just makes me wonder, what do you tell parents to do at this point in time, working parents do not have the luxury to stay home with their children because they're scared to take them to the daycare center?
FAUCI: Well, what we're continuing to try to do is to just continue to get the message across that the reasons for not vaccinating among many, not all, is misinformation about the relative risk benefit of a vaccine versus the risk of a disease that you can get, not only for your individual child but also for the responsibility that you have to society to protect those who cannot be vaccinated like infants from birth to is year and children with leukemia and other diseases that make them more susceptible. We've got to get that message across more clearly. There will be
some, no matter what you say, will feel like they have the right not to vaccinate their children, but now state and local health authorities, I believe, are looking at this in a much more well- defined way about these exemptions that are given for philosophical or personal reasons.
HARLOW: Right.
FAUCI: We're hearing a lot about people relooking at how they are going to handle those exemptions.
HARLOW: And obviously there are some medical exemptions. Some children that can't get it that are very, very sick, for example.
But, look, this begs the question: do you think that the federal government should mandate these vaccines for all children who are well enough to get them? And, if not, what about on the state level? Because there's now this proposed legislation in California that would mandate this.
FAUCI: Traditionally, the federal government doesn't mandate those types of things. They put out the strong recommendations that we see with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, does. Traditionally, the mandating and the restrictions about getting into schools have been at the local and state level.
HARLOW: So, should states mandate it?
FAUCI: Well, some states do. Some states do. They put restrictions.
Now, obviously, as you mentioned correctly, that there are valid reasons, particularly medical reasons not to get vaccinated. But many states mandate a significant restriction on, for example, getting into school. You can't mandate it in a way that you punish people for it but you could put restrictions on it. That has to be at the state level.
HARLOW: I guess I'm wondering if you think something needs to change, because obviously, it's not working, because this outbreak has happened again. The state of California has 13,592 kindergartner students in public schools that aren't vaccinated.
FAUCI: Right. Yes, well, certainly, we need to get the message out. I think that we can get many of the parents who feel now for reasons that really are not quite valid at all for not vaccinating their children, to understand that they are potentially doing harm to their own children but also they are relinquishing a societal responsibility for others.
I feel that if we can get that message across, you're not going to change everyone's mind, but I think you can win over some of the people who, for a reason that now that they see is -- I think what is going on right now in society, the possibility of a measles outbreak that's broad, much broader than it is now, I think it's going to be a wake-up call to a lot of parents. HARLOW: Dr. Anthony Fauci, an authoritative voice on this topic, I
hope everyone is listening to you, the facts and not the myths. Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate it.
FAUCI: Good to be with you, Poppy.
HARLOW: All right. This is just to CNN: we're learning that Bruce Jenner has been involved in a fatal car crash in Malibu, California.
Our entertainment contributor Nischelle Turner on the phone with me now from Los Angeles.
What do we know -- what do we know about this, Nischelle?
NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CONTRIBUTOR (via telephone): Well, not a lot, Poppy. And this just happened about an hour and a half ago in Malibu, California, in the Pacific Coast Highway.
What we do know is that police confirmed that Bruce Jenner was an occupant in one of three cars that was involved in a crash. One of the cars did have someone that was killed in it. We don't know about any other injuries. We know that there were other injuries. We don't know if Bruce Jenner was injured or not.
I have seen some photos of the scene where it does look like he is standing up besides one of the vehicles but we don't know beyond that what kind of injuries were involved. We don't even know if he was driving the car. Police won't say much more than he was on occupant in the car.
But we do know one person has died as a result of this crash and we also know that for a time period -- and I haven't heard yet, if Pacific Coast Highway has been reopened. It was shutdown because of this crash. That's one of the major thoroughfares when you're trying to go to the beach out here in California.
But again, we know that Bruce Jenner was the occupant in the car. We don't know anything further than that.
HARLOW: I know that the authorities are saying that one person died. Are they saying definitively that it was not Bruce Jenner that died?
TURNER: Well, it wasn't Bruce Jenner, Poppy. I have seen photos of Bruce since the accident standing out at the scene standing up by one of the cars there at the scene.
It was not him. No. We do know that. He was one of the occupants in the car but, no, he was not the person that was killed.
HARLOW: And, N, any indication on what may have caused the accident?
TURNER: No. Just like I said, not a lot of information. They are in the middle of this investigation because it happened around 12:15 Pacific Standard Time. Right now, it's just about five minutes to 2:00 here in L.A. So, this just happened not too long ago, especially when there's a fatal accident, they are going to take several hours to meticulously figure out what exactly happened here. So, it could be a while before we get information on what exactly happened during this wreck.
HARLOW: And, Nischelle Turner, obviously, this is -- this is the early stages of this that gets a lot of attention when you're talking about a name like Bruce Jenner, but obviously someone else has perished in this.
Are the authorities releasing any of the names of the other people that were involved, were at least in these three cars that were in the accident?
TURNER: Not at this time. The investigation is still early on and this just happened. You know, when there's a fatality in a crash like this, they do have to go through their procedures, notify family and go through those channels before they ever release any sort of information like a name to the public or to the media.
So, chances are, they are going through that process right now, Poppy, before they decide to do anything. And there are still a lot of things that we have to figure out. Was the person, you know, by themselves in the car, were they with someone else? I mean, like I said, I have seen some pictures from the scene and it does look like there were some people standing around, but I don't know if they were involved as well.
You know, Bruce Jenner does live in Malibu. I don't know if he was coming or going. But there's still a lot to figure out here, because like we said, this just happened within the last hour and a half and they are really trying to figure things out here.
HARLOW: Nischelle Turner, appreciate the reporting, as always. Let us know when you get an update on that. Wishing the best for everyone else involved in that accident.
Nischelle Turner, thank you so much.
Quick break. We're back in a moment.
