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White House Awaits Israeli Outcome; Air Force Veteran Arrested Trying to Join ISIS; World Powers Struggle to Make Iran Nuclear Deal; Poll Shows Hillary Clinton E-mail Scandal Won't Hurt Presidential Run; Passenger Screams "Jihad," Subdued on United Flight. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 17, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: How does it look right now, David? You want to give us your assessment before we get the exit polls.

<13:30:00> DAVID HOROWITZ, EDITOR, TIMES OF ISRAEL: I'll give you my assessment. If anyone tells you they know who's going to win this election, you should smile politely and move on. There are 11 parties competing, all kinds of variables. There's a higher electoral threshold than ever before. There's a United Arab Party where previously there were three minor Arab parties. You have Netanyahu is flailing desperately getting upset saying too many Arabs are being funded to go to the polls with foreign money. He's complaining that he's not been allowed to peek publicly when other leaders were allowed to today. It's going to go down to the wire.

BLITZER: David Horowitz, we'll watch together with you and Aaron Miller. Guys, thanks very much for joining us.

Much more coming up at 4:00 p.m. eastern, 10:00 p.m. in Israel. That's when the first exit polls are released on Israel television. We'll have live coverage coming up here on CNN. Stick around for that.

But I want to get back to the breaking news here in the United States. A former American airman, yes, a U.S. airman, allegedly caught trying to join ISIS. The latest details coming up right after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

<13:34:43> BLITZER: We're following breaking news, important breaking news here in the United States.

We want to welcome back our viewers in the United States and around the world.

We're now learning that a former member of the United States Air Force was stopped in Turkey. It's believed, according to accusations, he was trying to join ISIS.

Our justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, is with us. Also our national security analyst, Peter Bergen, is joining us on the phone.

But, Pamela, first.

You've gone through the actual document, the complaint. What do we know about what's going on?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Here's what we're learning. This U.S. Air Force veteran allegedly tried to fly through Turkey and then travel into Syria to link up with ISIS and fight violent jihad, according to this complaint.

And the suspect's name is Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, from Neptune, New Jersey. And what officials are saying is that he lived overseas for a period of time. He lived in Egypt and Kuwait and was an aviation mechanic. He worked on airplane engines and, in fact, he worked for several private companies in the U.S. and overseas as well. He allegedly, in January, traveled from Egypt to Turkey where authorities stopped him before he could go any further. They returned him back to Egypt. Egyptian authorities deported him to the United States where he was arrested in January, January 16th, in New Jersey. He is still behind bars.

But, bottom line, Wolf, this is an Air Force veteran -- when he was in the Air Force, he worked in the training and installation and maintenance of aircraft engine navigation and weapons systems. He apparently left the Air Force before 2005 and then went into the private industry working on airplanes and then, as the Department of Justice alleges, tried to link up with ISIS in December. Apparently, there were, according to the criminal complaint, a lot of searches on his computer of ISIS propaganda.

BLITZER: Not only propaganda but searches on his computer also for ways to cross in from Turkey into Syria, right?

BROWN: That's right. According to the laptop, the electronic devices, his laptop, broken USB thumb drives, the suspect was doing extensive searches on the borders controlled by ISIS, anything there in the Turkish border where he could try to figure out ways to get from Turkey into Syria allegedly and also searches for the "Flames of War" video. You may remember that 55-minute is propaganda video from several months ago. And also the criminal complaint alleges that he downloaded in December an ISIS video showing ISIS members executing prisoners by lining them up and shooting them in the head, according to the complaint.

BLITZER: We're learning more and more about this individual, Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh.

Peter Bergen, you've been studying terrorism for a long time. What do you make of this development? A U.S. Air Force veteran, an aviation mechanic, now arrested supposedly trying to hook up with ISIS.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (voice-over): I think there are two things that are a little bit different about this case. First of all, he's a veteran. We have seen one case of another veteran hooking up with sort of a jihadist group but it wasn't ISIS. And the other thing that's new about this is, I think, typically, when people try and join is from the United States, they're arrested at the airport in the United States. This guy was in the Middle East and turned back. So he got a lot further than most people do.

But to put this in perspective, we've seen, according to recent U.S. government figures, 180 Americans who have gone to Syria or tried to get there. Not all of them are going to join ISIS. Some try and join al Qaeda. Others join other groups. But every day we seem to have a new story that underlies this phenomenon that's really a trend, Wolf, that isn't going away anytime soon.

BLITZER: And clearly, this case, Peter, it looks like the Turks, a NATO ally, they discover this guy, send him back to Egypt. The Egyptians then deported him back to the United States where he was immediately arrested. So it looks like there was some good coordination there between the U.S., Turkey and Egypt, right?

BERGEN: Yeah. As you know, there's been great unhappiness about the Turks for a long time amongst a number of Western countries who say they haven't been doing enough. But we've been reporting, last week, they arrested a facilitator who was helping those British girls get across the border into Syria and they seem to be taking a much more aggressive stance in the last, say, two or three months on this issue.

BLITZER: A U.S. Air Force veteran arrested now. We're getting more details. We'll have a lot more on that.

Peter Bergen, thanks very much.

Pamela Brown, thanks to you as well.

<13:39:10> Still ahead, the historic nuclear negotiations under way right now between the U.S. and Iran. If an agreement is brokered, what would that mean? Much more on this, the latest developments, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The issues are complex, the time frame is short, the hurdles are huge. World powers are still struggling to try to strike a nuclear deal with Iran before the clock runs out. The U.S. secretary of state is back at the negotiating table. John Kerry met with Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, earlier this morning. They're trying to get a framework deal by March 31st. The White House is cautiously optimistic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We continue to believe that our odds of reaching this agreement are at best 50/50. It is going to require the Iranian leadership, including those who aren't at the table, to sign onto this agreement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Joining us from New York, our global affairs analyst, the "Quartz" managing editor, Bobby Ghosh.

What do you think, Bobby? 50-50? 60-40? How does it look? BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: 50-50 sounds about right.

It has been more or less that position for several weeks now. As the spokesman said there, the sort of elephant in the room is the one who's sitting in Tehran, the supreme leader of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. How much is he prepared to give? He's been sort of playing both sides of the fence a little bit. On the one hand, he's empowered President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif to negotiate a deal. On the other hand, he's been making statements about how the United States and the West in general are not reliable, that they will try to cheat Iran of its legitimate rights. He's playing it both ways. That's how he likes it. He likes being hard to guess.

BLITZER: A new poll here in the United States shows a vast majority of Americans certainly back these negotiations with Israel. We asked, do you support direct democracy to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. 68 percent favor, 29 percent oppose. I don't know why anyone would oppose diplomacy. That's better than war. What do you make of the numbers?

GHOSH: The numbers, to some degree, undermine that letter from the Republican Senators last week. And they show that the president, at any rate, and John Kerry have the nation at their back, have the nation supporting them. You're quite right, who would oppose diplomacy? I suppose people who are not paying very close attention. Because this negotiation is taking place behind closed doors, because the details have only been coming out in little drips and drabs, I suppose a lot of people really don't fully understand what is at stake here. So I suppose that's why some people are unsure whether diplomacy works. But the vast majority of the people in this country seem very clear that they want a solution that is arrived at around a table rather than on a battlefield.

<13:45:17> BLITZER: They would like a good solution, obviously, one that prevents Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, if possible. That would be the goal.

Bobby Ghosh, thanks very much. We'll stay on top of this story in Switzerland.

Still ahead, has Hillary Clinton done enough to explain the controversy over her e-mails? We have the results of our new poll. We'll talk about that and more. Our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, is standing by.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Hillary Clinton's e-mail troubles may be affecting how the public views her. But they may not necessarily hurt her campaign for the White House. That, according to a brand-new CNN/ORC poll. Clinton's favorability rating is down six points since November. It's at 53 percent right now compared to 59 percent back in November. Still, 57 percent of Americans say they'd be proud to have her as president of the United States. The poll was conducted after Clinton's news conference last week where she addressed the controversy. She said she used a private e-mail server while she was secretary of state for convenience. Let's bring in our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.

These numbers, what do they suggest to you?

<13:49:55> GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: First of all, she's still very popular. She's also quite polarizing. When you look at that 57 percent number, when you delve deeper into it, she's very popular with women, as you can well imagine and also with minorities. She's a very polarizing figure when it comes to Democrats versus Republicans. But when they ask the question, would you be proud to have her as president, I think that plays very much into gender.

BLITZER: We asked this question, has Clinton done enough to explain her use of personal e-mail. 46 percent said yes. 51 percent said no. Pretty close, but still people want more explanations. Her favorability rates, as you pointed out yesterday, were as high as 69 percent --

BORGER: 69 percent.

BLITZER: -- when she served as secretary of state.

BORGER: When she served as secretary of state, people looked at her as a nonpolitician. She was somebody traveling around the globe, doing her job, speaking very often on women's issues. She was sort of out of the political arena. What this downward trend shows is that people see her or are starting to see her as a politician again, because she's going to run for president, giving political answers to questions, parsing words like politicians do, and I think that turns her into a more polarizing figure. Two-thirds of Republicans believe she does have more explaining to do on this issue. Also, so do a third of Democrats. If she were to have an opponent, that might be a number that another Democrat could exploit. But at this point, we don't see anyone on the horizon that could really take her on frontally here and challenge her in a robust way.

BLITZER: It's one thing for Republicans to be criticizing her on this whole e-mail issue.

BORGER: Right. Right.

BLITZER: It's another thing if one of the Democrats, maybe one of the Democratic potential candidates were to come out and say, we need that server, we need more explanations, we need more information.

BORGER: And it may come to that.

BLITZER: But it hasn't come to that.

BORGER: No. It hasn't happened yet. It may come to that. We see House Speaker John Boehner saying you've got to turn over the server. There's now a little bit of a controversy over whether she actually signed a separation form from the State Department. If her signature had been on that, it would have guaranteed that she turned over all pertinent e-mail and information she need to, to the Department of State, so there's controversy over that. At some point, you may find a Democrat questioning whether she ought

to be more forthcoming because I think now, when you look at the way this campaign has started, Wolf, the issue of transparency is going to loom large. You have Jeb Bush saying he's released his e-mails. Has he released all of them? No. And then you can see Jeb Bush saying to Chris Christie, where are your e-mails? And on and on. So a Democrat could do it to Hillary Clinton as well.

BLITZER: All right. E-mail controversy continues.

BORGER: Transparency.

BLITZER: Thanks very much.

Still ahead, breaking news this hour. A deadly shooting in Pakistan. It's the lawyer who worked for the doctor who helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden. Stand by. We'll share the latest news when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

<13:56:45> BLITZER: We're getting a very disturbing story into CNN right now. Militant group in Pakistan has murdered the attorney who represented the physician who helped the United States find Osama bin Laden. He was the attorney for the doctor who helped the CIA track bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where the terror leader was eventually discovered, killed by SEAL Team Six. A militant group says the attorney was on their terror list. We've just learned this attorney was traveling in his car, shot by two bullets and is dead. We'll have much more on this story coming up. A very disturbing development, indeed.

Meanwhile, another story we're following, a terrifying incident for passengers aboard a United Airlines flight headed for Denver. The plane was forced back to Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C., last night. A passenger reportedly screaming "jihad." He rushed the cockpit. The passengers jumped in, tackled the man, pinning him to the ground until they could get more help.

Our aviation correspondent, Rene Marsh, picks up the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PILOT: Declaring an emergency due to a passenger disturbance.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Breaking overnight, a frightening scene aboard a Denver-bound jetliner.

PILOT: He ran forward towards the cockpit, and he is being restrained by other passengers.

MARSH: This passenger was screaming and trying to rush the cockpit, but passengers on board subdued him shortly after takeoff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm so sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't move, David. You're OK. We're going to get you off this plane, buddy.

MARSH: United Airlines flight 1074 heading from the Washington, D.C., area to Denver at around 10:40 p.m. when the incident forced the pilot to turn around.

PILOT: The cockpit is secure. And we would just like to return to the airport and have the authorities meet him.

MARSH: A spokesman for the airline saying, in part, "Flight 1074 returned to the airport following takeoff on Monday evening after a passenger failed to comply with crew instructions. Local law enforcement officials met the aircraft at the gate and detained the passenger."

This video, taken by one of the passengers during the altercation. Bruises below his right cheek and near his mouth. Several others holding down his head as one person tries to calm him down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Relax and don't move.

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: In this day and age, the passengers help themselves and help the flight crew to get their flight safely to their destination largely because of what happened on September 11th, 2001.

MARSH: A spokeswoman for the airport saying, no passengers were injured and no weapons were found. The unruly passenger was eventually removed by law enforcement and taken to a hospital for evaluation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, OK, OK. All right, OK. I've got him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got him? You got him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, OK. All right, OK.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: That report from Rene Marsh. A disturbing development. The remaining passengers on the plane were booked on other flights from Washington to Denver today.

That's it for me. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room." Starting at 4:00 p.m. eastern, 10:00 p.m. in Israel, we'll start getting exit poll results. Stay with CNN for the latest on that.

<13:59:58> For our international viewers, "Amanpour" is coming up.

For our viewers in North American, "Newsroom" with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.