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TSA Fails; Jenner's Debut; Patriot Act Expires; Iraq Loses Humvees to ISIS. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired June 1, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And "Breaking News: 35 Years of CNN" airs tonight, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Watch it.

The news continues next on CNN.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And you're watching CNN here on this Monday.

We begin with a little bit of breaking news of potentially catastrophic failure at dozens of the country's busiest airports. This shocking revelation coming to us that undercover agents have been able to smuggle mock explosives and weapons through U.S. airport check points. And this wasn't just an isolated incident. They apparently tried this over and over and over. And 95 percent of the time - let me repeat that - 95 percent of the time the TSA failed and these agents were able to get those banned items through security.

The details of the widespread security failures coming to light now in this new report from the homeland security inspector general. So let's go straight to Suzanne Malveaux, who has more on this, on these trials.

How many were there? How did this happen?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here's how it went down. The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General conducted a series of tests where their officials, they're called red teams, posed as passengers trying to pass through those security check points with these realistic looking explosives or weapons. Now, TSA officers, they failed 67 out of 70 of these tests, or 95 percent of the time, to identify and actually confiscate these items. So they got through the magnetometers, the pat downs, the searches, the whole thing.

It should be noted that the TSA also, Brooke, does similar kinds of tests on themselves to see what are these holes in the security system and how can they be addressed. Well, they've been doing this now for 13 years, so the tests, by both the inspector general's office and by TSA, by their very nature are designed to make it very hard for the TSA to succeed. But even former homeland security officials, they are very alarmed by what they found.

BALDWIN: Understandably. You have Secretary Jeh Johnson apparently furious over the whole thing. How have they been handling it? What about tightened security for all of us? MALVEAUX: Yes, absolutely. That's what we're thinking, right? Well,

the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, he's trying to get on top of all this and his department put out a statement this morning through a spokesperson saying in part here that the numbers in these reports never look good out of context, but they are a critical element in the continual evolution of our aviation security. Then it goes on to say that they have already implemented a series of these actions to address the issues that are raised in the report. And then they also emphasize that there are these multiple layers of protection that the TSA uses. So it's seen, it's unseen. So we're not just talking about screening at check points, but these random canine screenings, reinforced cockpit doors, federal air marshals, armed pilots, all of this that goes into their security system. But as you can imagine, Brooke, it really - it really is disconcerting when you realize that 95 percent initially they were able to get those weapons and those items through security. It's just unbelievable.

BALDWIN: I thought what we've been going through was already heightened security. I guess it will change again.

MALVEAUX: Ah, we'll see.

BALDWIN: Suzanne Malveaux, thank you so much.

And now to this one. This is what everyone is talking about right now. Her name is Caitlyn and she's about to grace what will be certainly one of the most talked about "Vanity Fair" covers ever. We're talking about the American Olympian formerly known as Bruce Jenner. Look at this with me. It says "Call Me Caitlyn" on the cover. The magazine will publish Caitlyn. That is with a "c" not a "k." First photo in its July issue. This is Annie Leibowitz's photo shoot here, interview by Buzz Bissinger. Latest cover here today. The magazine hits stands tomorrow. Caitlyn Jenner posed, as I mentioned, for a star photographer, Annie Leibowitz, and the upcoming article is already trending #callmecaitlyn.

So, let's have a big conversation about this with HLN contributor and founder and editor and chief of swaggernewyork.com, Sian-Pierre Regis. And also with me, Kimberly Reed, a transgender woman. And Kim produced a documentary about her transformation from a star high school athlete in the movie "Prodigal Sons" and it documented your whole life and the transition. So it is awesome to have you back. And good to see you, my friend.

Can we just first talk about - Alan (ph), throw that cover back up from the "Vanity Fair." This is what we've all seen in the last hour.

And, Kim, just first to you. Your first reaction.

KIMBERLY REED, TRANSGENDERED WOMAN: Wow. I mean, that was the first reaction. My second reaction was, I wish I had Annie Leibowitz take my photo every day too.

BALDWIN: I know. Sort of stunning. REED: Yes. This is a - it's a - it's a unique situation that Caitlyn

is going through. There's not a lot of people who transition this way. But I think -

BALDWIN: This way meaning what? Like, hello, world, here I am and I'm going to be on the cover of "Vanity Fair"?

REED: Hello, world - hello, world, here I am. We had a period of kind of gender pronoun suspension that most trans people don't go through where we're kind of saying, well, I am transgender, but I don't want you to use these particular pronouns. And I think that that's pretty different than what a lot of people who are transitioning go through.

[14:05:12] And, you know, we're talking about somebody who has a lot of resources. And they show up on that cover. It - it looks beautiful.

BALDWIN: I want to loop back with you on the pronouns and how we should be talking about this. But to you, sir. I mean here - we all know Bruce Jenner, right, as the Olympian turned, you know, reality TV star turned - then it was the Diane Sawyer interview that like broke records with everyone watching this sort of coming-out piece, right? And now the cover of "Vanity Fair." Can you just talk a little bit about - almost like the arc we've seen?

SIAN-PIERRE REGIS, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. I mean there's - this is the big moment for Caitlyn Jenner, right? As you said, we did see her in the Diane Sawyer interview. But what I think is most interesting is how this has sort of followed the trans conversation culturally. So we saw Laverne Cox obviously on the front - the cover of "Time" talking about being trans and she really was the first to sort of bring this to the fore pop culture wise in 2015. And now Caitlyn Jenner is really knocking it home and bringing exposure to trans women and the transgender community globally. And there's no better magazine, I think, than "Vanity Fair" to bring that to the fore.

BALDWIN: Do you remember that moment for you? I mean I think, again, just to re-familiarize our viewers with you, knowing that you had, you know, come from this - I mean it's sort of like Bruce Jenner and the epitome of masculinity being this Olympic athlete. You were the quarterback, if I remember - quarterback, right, playing football and this transformation. What were those first, I don't know, few weeks like when you became Kim?

REED: You know, more than anything else, it was just a big sense of relief.

BALDWIN: Really?

REED: So when I think of what Caitlyn's going through, I think about just exhale for the first time in your life. I used to be really introverted and withdrawn. There's no way, for example, that I could be on this show right now as male because I would -

BALDWIN: Really?

REED: Just be too self-conscious. There was - I couldn't really tap into my core, I think, is maybe a good way to say it. But, yes, just a sense of relief. And when you go from being somebody who has secrets, that has this big mystery about yourself that you don't want anybody to find out, it's enormously liberating to just say, you know what, this is who I am.

BALDWIN: I mean, Bruce Jenner had spoken, I remember, in the Diane Sawyer piece just about how many moons ago he had started taking those hormones. So it sounds like this was a process for quite a while. And I think we had spoken before about what was it like almost living in that in between area?

REED: It's really, really confusing. It's really confusing. I -

BALDWIN: Help try to - try to explain it to me.

REED: Well, you know, for example, when I graduated from college and I was trying to start up a career, I was also transitioning at the same time and I - so I was trying to be a freelance filmmaker, you know, kind of in the mornings as male, in the evenings as female, and going home and changing at lunch and the thing that Caitlyn said earlier and to Diane Sawyer about just wanting to wait long enough for fingernail polish to chip was something that I remember going through too. You could never, you know, have something on that long.

I remember one day I was going to work, and my lipstick wasn't coming off properly. I had to call a bunch of friends and say, what do you do? I guess there's some magic way to get this off.

BALDWIN: Right. Right.

REED: But, yes, just feeling like you have to present one face to some people and another face to other people, it's really exhausting. And it's not even just gender issues. I mean, I think a lot of us do that all the time, and gender is a specific thing to look at that - where we - where we do an awful lot of presentation that may not be ourselves. But I think a lot of people can relate to that, whether it's, you know, you have to be this one person at work or this other person around your family.

BALDWIN: It would get exhausting.

REED: Yes.

BALDWIN: I can't imagine. But - and also doing this with all the world to see. I mean, obviously, it was her choice to be on the cover of "Vanity Fair," but my question to you then would be, isn't this then the beginning of, when does the reality series roll out involving Caitlyn Jenner? Tell me about that.

REGIS: Well, it comes out July 26th is the premiere episode on E! and so they have been taping it all the while, sort of under wraps, before she announced that she was actually becoming transgender. And so, yes, we'll see on July 26th the whole unveil. But you, of course, E! has been doing so many series about Bruce following after his Diane Sawyer interview. They've been slowly petering out this information, but we'll really see Caitlyn in her own, on her own show for the first time on July 26th.

BALDWIN: Again, the big "Vanity Fair" magazine hits newsstands tomorrow. Kim Reed, I cannot thank you enough for coming back. We'll see you again I am sure.

[14:10:00] REED: (INAUDIBLE).

BALDWIN: And, Sian-Pierre Regis, my friend, thank you so much as well. I really appreciate it.

Next, Senator Rand Paul has managed to bring Republicans and the White House together. They're both livid with him and they say America is less safe today because of him. Are they right?

Plus, ISIS executing dozens of Iraqi police officers as this unconventional war becomes even more unpredictable.

And, quote, "how can it be that Joe Biden has to bury a child once more?" Just an incredibly touching tribute as the White House grieves over the death of the vice president's son. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

For the first time in seven years, the National Security Agency is not collecting your phone data, but that will not likely last very long. The acquisition of the bulk data turned off specifically at 7:44 p.m. Sunday because the U.S. Senate allowed key provisions of the Patriot Act to expire.

[14:15:10] Our brand new poll shows six out of 10 Americans wants Congress to allow the collection of American's phone data to fight terrorism, but many are blaming/crediting the Patriot Act's temporary stall to Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, saying he is putting his ambitions to be president above national security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Even the authors of the Patriot Act say that the Patriot Act in no way gives authority to the president to collect all of your phone records all of the time.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MAJORITY LEADER: We shouldn't be disarming unilaterally and our enemies grow more sophisticated and aggressive.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Isn't this program as critical as it's ever been since its inception given the fact that the Middle East is literally on fire and we are losing everywhere?

PAUL: People here in town think I'm making a huge mistake. Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BALDWIN: So did Senator Paul get what he wants? Perhaps not totally. My next guest says key parts of the Patriot Act may have expired, but a quote/unquote zombie version lives on. With me now, Shane Harris, who also wrote the book "@war: The Rise of the Military Internet Complex."

Shane, welcome back.

And to your point, saying, you know, listen, this really actually doesn't matter, that the government is going to collect your phone, your e-mail records some way. How do you mean?

SHANE HARRIS, WRITER, "ZOMBIE PATRIOT ACT WILL KEEP U.S. SPYING": Well, first of all, with the phone records, they're actually going to move those over to phone companies and a new system will be set up where the government can go inquire with the phone companies if they want your records.

But, look, it's not as if this one provision in the Patriot Act is the only tool that the government has for collecting all kinds of electronic information on Americans. Now, they may not be doing it in the magnitude, in the bulk fashion that they were before, although there may be, by the way, other bulk collection programs we don't know about that haven't been exposed the way this was.

BALDWIN: Good point.

HARRIS: But there are authorities in the Patriot Act that retroactively allow this collection and it looks like the Senate may well come back on Tuesday or Wednesday and re-enact most of the provisions that expired at midnight last night. So it's not as if the government is outs of the business of collecting information on people around the world, including the data of Americans.

BALDWIN: So in this interim time between, you know, kind of last night and the Freedom Act, back to Senator Paul and his, you know, victory, albeit perhaps brief, over the White House, over many of his Senate colleagues. I mean here he is, this freshman senator, who basically, you know, shut this - you know, any attempt at a temporary extension down. Again, hearing him say people here in town think I'm making a huge mistake. Some of them I think secretly want there to be an attack on the U.S. so they can blame it on me. My question is, I mean hasn't he really become public enemy number one for both parties, including a good friend of his from Kentucky, Senator Mitch McConnell?

HARRIS: Yes, and I think that that last comment that you played of him saying people secretly hope there's a terrorist attack did not help him.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HARRIS: That seemed, for me, to be a bit over the line, frankly. But, no, look, he has made himself really into sort of a kind of enemy number one or someplace where they can vent all of their anger. And I should add, that's very convenient really for the leadership in the Senate, and particularly Mitch McConnell, who many of his own Republican colleagues have been saying did not manage this process very well and at least bear some of the responsibility for taking this down to the wire where the Senate was voting.

BALDWIN: But has McConnell even endorsed Paul?

HARRIS: He has endorsed him for president. And so you imagine that there's probably some good humor left between the two of them.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HARRIS: But, you know, Rand Paul, really, by putting himself out there, you know, he, look, he did make himself a target for all of the animus within the Republican Party that traditionally, by the way, has been vented at Democrats who have tried to stand in the way of Patriot Act reauthorization, which makes this politically very strange and unusual. But he took a public stance, and I do think it was a principled stance.

It is also the case -

BALDWIN: It was a principled stance - it was a principled stance. But when it comes to the electorate, again, let me repeat our poll, 61 percent of Americans say they want Congress to, you know, renew the NSA surveillance program. So, you know, maybe it doesn't exactly bode well for him and, you know, outside of his base, who I'm sure he's firing up here, it doesn't bode well for him.

HARRIS: Right. I think it -- you just hit on the key point there too, Brooke, it's his base. Is this is the thing that animates his base. And among a very crowded Republican field, this is the thing that makes him unique. He is the guy standing up in the Republican Party to government surveillance. But I do not think that's going to be something that broadly plays. And what he's maybe overplayed his hand here is somebody who now is being seen as obstructionist or standing in the way of national security authorities that we vitally need. I don't think that's the case. I think these authorities actually we could do without some of them, but that is sort of the risk that he has created for himself and the box that he now finds himself in.

BALDWIN: OK. Shane Harris, thank you so much.

HARRIS: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, a chilling admission on exactly how many American weapons are falling into ISIS' hands. A live report from Baghdad when we come back.

[14:20:03] Also, a valuable relic. Folks, we're talking vintage Apple here of the Steve Jobs era, turning up at a Silicon Valley recycling plant. Why the search is on to find the owner who ditched a rare Apple One computer.

You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: More women and children are among the dead in Fallujah, a city overrun with ISIS terrorists and just less than 50 miles from the capital city Baghdad. Witnesses telling CNN at least 31 people were killed in the last three days of ground and air assaults by Iraqi forces. And this is the aftermath here. This is the aftermath of the deadly bombing attack on a mosque there.

We are also now learning about a surprise attack at a joint Iraqi security forces base near Samara (ph). This is just north of Baghdad. An ISIS fighter driving a tank rigged with explosives through the entrance, detonating, killing 34 Iraqi police officers. This attack happening as we learn that ISIS now has at least 2,300 Humvees taken from the Iraqis when ISIS overran Mosul last year.

[14:25:21] Let's go live to Baghdad to our senior international correspondent there, Nick Paton Walsh.

And I know you've been looking into, Nick, the Iraqi security forces' role in this war. Some damning allegations about their failings. Tell me what you've learned about the fall of Ramadi.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, the incident you're relating to is really what started this recent panic about ISIS' advance towards Baghdad and around Iraq. Then they captured Ramadi weeks ago now. There were many doubts as to why it was that they weren't able to defend it, the Iraqi security forces. It had been a months' long fight. ISIS advance long telegraphed.

Well, we have just spoken today to arguably the most powerful Sunni politician in Iraq, the speaker of parliament, Salim al-Jabouri, and he's part of a bunch of MPs who are looking to this part of a parliamentary inquiry and he made a very stark allegation that, in fact, there was a withdrawal of elite special forces that have been trained by the U.S. years ago from Ramadi. They're called the golden division. And he wasn't sure who had given the order, but he was sure that the Iraqi prime minister hadn't known about it. Let's hear what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SALIM AL-JABOURI, SPEAKER, IRAQI PARLIAMENT (through translator): The military commander who was present was speaking about the collapse of morale in the army and made a decision in a clear way to give the order to pull out. And after that, Ramadi fell. And even the prime minister, and he's the general commander of the armed forces, was not aware of the orders dealing with pulling out. And that was led to the big question marks for us. Who has an interest in a direct way in the army pulling out (ph) and not confronting ISIS? And after that, ISIS entered Ramadi and controlled it directly.

WALSH: Who gave that order?

Al-JABOURI: Who was there in the command is called the golden division. Who authored that withdrawal and collapse occurred and ISIS controlled Ramadi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Now, those accusations - in fair, he is saying that it's not clear who gave that order, but there was a moment in which they chose - chose to leave. It goes right to the heart of the issue here in Iraq about the divide between those mostly seen as pro-Shia politicians who run Baghdad's government and that man, the speaker of parliament, you just heard, who is really representing the Sunni side of all of this. Anbar, Ramadi, their Sunni territory. They will be fought (ph) in by Shia fighting groups to push ISIS back. And there are real fears that really this part of the conflict is just igniting again that sectarian divide in Iraq that saw so much bloodshed during the American presence here and is raising its ugly head again. Now ISIS is taking ground here, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much, in Baghdad.

Next, Tracy Morgan today breaking his silence nearly a year after the crash that nearly took his life. What he remembers from that tragic night.

Also ahead, Vice President Joe Biden, truly an example of how to persevere through personal tragedy after tragedy as he is preparing to bury now a second child. We'll talk to Paul Begala coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)