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Turkey: Suspected ISIS Bombers Kill 41 at Airport; Istanbul Attack B ears Hallmarks of ISIS; Istanbul Attack Focuses Attention on "Soft" Targets at Airports; Witnesses Describe Istanbul Attack; Obama at North American Leaders Summit Meeting with Canadian, Mexican Leaders. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 29, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] ANTHONY MAY, RETIRED ATF EXPLOSIVES INVESTIGATOR: Now I understand the airport's already been turned back over and in operation within five hours. That's amazing because they still have not identified the bomber or the type of bombs being used.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: It's really remarkable that it's already re-opened.

Anthony May, Karen Greenberg, thank you so much. We do appreciate it.

Up next, right here in the NEWSROOM, we'll take you live to the scene of the explosions right outside the airport. CNN's Nima Elbagir is there.

Plus, moments from now, President Obama will hold a news conference likely facing questions on the attack.

And Donald Trump calling on the U.S. to bring back torture.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:35:05] BROWN: Welcome back. I'm Pamela Brown.

While investigators work to identify the remains of the three suicide bombers who attacked Istanbul's airport, police have also interviewed the taxi driver who drove them to the international terminal. He has been released. This, as flights are resuming and construction crews are working to repair structural damage caused by the blast. Though parts of the airport are blocked off, all day passengers have been walking among shards of glass, broken ceiling tiles, visceral reminders of the terror that occurred there just 24 hours ago.

Let's go straight to CNN's senior international correspondent, Nima Elbagir, who is live in the terminal -- Nima?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are in fact right in front of the arrival doors where the attackers pushed their way through, shot their way through to detonate that second bomb. It is almost unbelievable that here, these pavement slabs were covered in blood. These are the doors through which both the attackers went in and screaming terrified passengers fled out. And yet we're seeing passengers go through to join that security line. This airport is essentially almost fully operational, and that really speaks to the unfortunate reality here in Turkey. They are very, very used to having to pick up the pieces and patch together those ragged edges of normality in the aftermath of suicide and terror attacks. This is number 14 or 15 since last summer. But this is this year the highest death toll.

And while the investigation is ongoing, while they are seeking to glean what they can from that taxi driver, time is ticking down, and Turkish officials tell us what really is ringing their alarm bells is that as they've begun the identification process of those attackers, what little remains of those attackers. We understand it is only the lower halves of their bodies. They believe that these attackers were foreign. So immediately, they start thinking, well, what other broader network is here and are they trying to escape out of the country, and what else are they planning. So these next 48 hours -- we've already had 24. The next 48 to 72 hours are going to be so, so crucial here -- Pamela?

BROWN: Thank you so much, Nima Elbagir. We do appreciate it.

No one has claimed responsibility for this attack yet, but Turkish officials and now the chief of the CIA agree that it bears all the hallmarks of ISIS. This is the most deadly of at least eight suicide bombings in Turkey this year as we heard from Nima.

I want to talk more about this with Ambassador James Jeffrey, former ambassador to Turkey and Iraq. He is also a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute.

Ambassador, thank you so much for coming on.

You say that ISIS has had a campaign against Turkey for the past year. Why the past year, and why not before that?

JAMES JEFFREY, VISITING FELLOW, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE & FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ & TURKEY: Before that, Turkey was tied up in a campaign which it still is continuing against the Assad regime in Syria. ISIS was kind of a side show. ISIS was leaving Turkey, allowing Turkey to focus on other things. That changed over the past year as Turkey opened bases to U.S. aircraft and we started deploying troops across the border into Syria from Turkey as part of the campaign against ISIS. That is, Turkey became a more aggressive member of the anti-ISIS coalition. In return, ISIS has launched, counting this one, four major attacks in Turkey, killing almost 200 people. ISIS has not claimed credit for these attacks but, nonetheless, as CIA Director Brennan said, it bears all the hallmarks of an ISIS attack.

BROWN: On that note, he said it is common for ISIS to not claim responsibility for attacks in Turkey because they don't want to isolate anyone they may be close to recruiting, gaining support from. So in your view, does that risk outweigh the desire for credit? What's the point of ISIS launching this attack if it's not going to get the credit in their eyes?

JEFFREY: I think two-fold. First of all, it is a deliberate message to the Turkish government -- it won't be successful but ISIS doesn't know that -- knock off your support for the United States campaign against us in Syria and Iraq. Secondly, it does have a certain recruiting value because ISIS knows that everybody will attribute this attack to ISIS. They're reluctant to claim credit for it, in part, because infrastructure, basically cells underground in Turkey they don't want uncovered, and probably because it is an Islamic country, they're troubled about the implications of that during Ramadan.

BROWN: While Turkey is doing more to combat ISIS in the past year, I spoke to one official today who said it's still number-four on the priority list for Turkey, after PKK, after the Assad regime. Why hasn't Turkey done more to combat ISIS, and do you think that this attack, if it is indeed ISIS, will change that?

[14:39:52] JEFFREY: It will change it to some degree. The reality is -- that official was right, but maybe looking at it from an American perspective. From a Turkish perspective, ISIS is the number- three threat because the other two threats, Iranian-Russian, Assad Syrian regime, or the PKK insurgency that could include Turkey's 20 percent Kurdish population, a potential existential risks to Turkey in a way that ISIS is not. ISIS can kill people. It can cause turmoil in the tourism industry. But as you saw in the video clip, the Turks will put things back together and keep going on. ISIS cannot really threaten Turkey as a country. The other two threats do.

BROWN: All right, Ambassador James Jeffrey. Thank you very much. Interesting perspective.

JEFFREY: Thank you.

BROWN: Up next here in the NEWSROOM< with this attack taking place at the arrivals area of an airport, how concerned are U.S. officials that an attack could take place like that here at home. And what if anything could be done to stop it? Those are the big questions.

And moments from now, President Obama will hold a news conference likely facing questions on the attack and, of course, we'll bring that to you live.

You are watching CNN special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We are back with our breaking news. At least 41 people are dead and more than 200 injured after a coordinated series of bombings at one of the world's biggest airports.

I'm joined now by military advisor and retired Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann.

This attack is once again turning the focus to vulnerable soft target areas at airports and elsewhere. Just today we learned from a U.S. official that Homeland Security is considering extending security at U.S. airports to areas that fall outside of TSA checkpoints. But how likely is it to happen and financial costs of that?

LT. COL. SCOTT MANN, MILITARY ADVISOR & RETIRED ARMY SPECIAL FORCES: Hey, Pamela. Thanks for having me on.

I think eventually they'll get there. It is going to take too long. What concerns me is the reactionary measures that we take every time ISIS or al Qaeda or some other group hit us. The fact of the matter is ISIS is following a very deliberate campaign. Istanbul is just one attack of many that are going to come. And this is going to continue throughout the summer around on in to the year. Just reacting this way is not going to get it done. We're going to have to start demanding that we get in front of this problem and start hitting them where they are.

BROWN: What do you mean by that exactly? Because some U.S. officials argue they're launching these attacks because through our military campaign we're taking away ground from them in Syria and Iraq.

MANN: Yeah. But look, we're trying to wage interstate warfare on what is really an intrastate issue. This is an asymmetric threat that is leveraging marginalized communities to create safe havens. And what we're trying to do is strike them from the top down, Pamela. We've been doing this for 15 years. And dropping bombs and using predator strikes is not getting it done. What it actually does is mobilizes them against us in new and unusual ways. I mean, the Orlando shooting happened one hour from my house. These guys are demonstrating tremendous reach right now.

What's happening in Istanbul, your last reporter, I thought it was interesting, she said Turkey is getting used to this. If Americans don't want to start getting used to mopping up blood on the airport floors and flying the next day, we need to start demanding more of our politicians and strategists in how we fight this war, because it is not working.

[14:45:20] BROWN: There is this whole virtual movement taking place. We heard the CIA chief, John Brennan, basically say that his concern is that we'll see a similar attack here in the U.S., that ISIS would like to do something like that in the U.S. And it doesn't necessarily take an ISIS fighter who has strayed from Syria to carry out such an attack. As we've seen what happened in Orlando and San Bernardino, these are people already here in the U.S.

MANN: Absolutely. Look at how we are equivocating it. We are trying to define these attacks as a gun control problem or as a hate crime or workplace violence. Regardless of whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, this is an American issue. Look, leadership starts with us. It starts with Americans. If we're waiting on our politicians to take this threat seriously and put a strategy in place that's going to work, we're going to be waiting a long time. We've been in this war for 15 years. And we're not naming our enemy. We're not taking this threat seriously. When things like this happen in Istanbul and other places around the world, it is a harbinger of what's heading our way. And we've got to start getting smarter on enemy. And it starts with us, Pamela. It starts with every American watching this learning about ISIS, how they orate and what they're trying to bring into our communities, because it's coming.

BROWN: This is the age-old question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What do you do about these soft targets? How far out are you going to put airport security to prevent an attack? Eventually, there will be a bottleneck and a vulnerability at airports, at movie theaters, places all across the country. What do you do to protect those places?

MANN: Well, look, that's what Director Brennan said and he said that right. We are an open, free society, so we're always going to be vulnerable in that regard. But here is my concern. As I look across our country right now, the erosion of trust that we have in this country. I mean, our primary identity as Americans, you never hear anyone talk about that anymore. There are all of these marginalized communities on the fringes at the risk of being exploited by ISIS. My concern is that they are basically running the seams on us all day long because we don't trust each other as a society. At a community level that's the best defense we have. When communities are woven together, when there's trust, and we are operating and leading at a community level, that's when it is very hard for these guys to get by. We saw this in Afghanistan with our Green Beret teams. We saw it in Iraq. And it will work here at home. But until we start stepping up and leading at home and quit relying on politicians to tell us how the tune is going to go, I just think they're going to run the seams on us all day long. We have to wake up to what this threat is about and how they are exploiting us.

BROWN: Scott Mann, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

MANN: Thank you.

BROWN: Panic everywhere. Witnesses felt shockwaves from deadly explosions right inside Istanbul's airport. And some witnesses slipped and fell in the airport's blood-stained floor. Those who personally saw the horror unfolding told their stories to CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: He had the gun over here and he's checking out and shooting up two times and he is beginning to shoot the people. Like that.

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: We were just returning. There was no instruction to run one direction. Somebody called no, the terrorists are over there, then we started to hide.

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS (voice-over): Panic ensued. No one knew what was going on. People were hiding behind posts, hiding in alcoves. Of course, the corridors are all dead end so everyone was kind of stuck. UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: One guess the worst thing is when the

police were following us out of the airport. Clearly there had been families split up. Tour groups that had been split up. Friends that had been split up. People were looking back towards the airport shouting names and the police are pushing them out.

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: I was there in the kitchen with somebody, probably Chinese. We couldn't understand each other. We didn't have no language but we were there hiding. And other people were trying to break the glass trying to get out of the lounge.

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS (voice-over): From there we started on what was the taxi ride where you would he hailed taxi to be on your way. It looked like a disaster movie. There was just devastation, blood still on the floor.

[14:49:25] UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: I guess the Turks are just trying to move on as quickly as possible. I was in here this morning looking for my lost luggage and they just put a panel up. They were sweeping up debris. Some had hung a big Turkish flag pretty much right at the spot where the bomb had gone off as a sort of act of defiance.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:55:21] JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good afternoon. I'm Jake Tapper, live in Washington, D.C., for CNN's special coverage of President Obama's final North American Leaders Summit.

Moments from now, the president, along with his counterparts from Canada and Mexico, will hold a news conference in Ottawa. They are all meeting there to discuss a number of issues, including climate change, trade, and the respective economies of the three nations. They surely, of course, will be asked about the deadly terrorist attack at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey, yesterday, as well as the larger fight against ISIS. We also anticipate reporters will raise the questions of the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump. The presumptive Republican nominee calling on the United States to bring back waterboarding, which is widely considered torture.

Let's go live now to White House correspondent, Michelle Kosinski. She is in Ottawa outside the venue.

Michelle, President Obama trying to balance today's summit with reaction to the horrific attack at the Istanbul Airport. What did the president have to say?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He mentioned it right out of his remarks, as we expected him to. But it really underscores the fact that this is just the latest time in several now that the president's traveled abroad to talk about other issues and other relationships in the world is punctuated by, interrupted by, overshadowed by global terrorism. So he talked about his phone call with Turkey's President Erdogan this morning. Remember, it was just two weeks ago that Erdogan was offering him condolences after the Orlando terror attacks.

President Obama spoke about the continued threat of ISIS to launch these kinds of attacks and the commitment of countries, including Turkey, to defeat it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I had a chance to speak to President Erdogan earlier today to discuss with him not only how heartbroken we have been by the images of the injured and those killed, but also to re-affirm our strong commitment to partner with Turkey, with NATO, with the broad-based alliance that we've structured around the world to fight ISIL.

We stand with the people of Turkey and we intend to do what's necessary to make sure that these kinds of terrible events are not happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: The White House today saying they are concerned about the ability of is to keep launching these kinds of attacks.

They also talk about the ferocity of Turkey's border with Syria. That's been a concern since this conflict with ISIS started. The White House talked about prioritizing working with Turkey. There's still about 60 miles of border that ISIS has control of. That's progress since the beginning. But obviously that's a real vulnerability that's ongoing -- Jake?

TAPPER: Michelle, the borders between the United States and Canada, Mexico and the trade agreement, NAFTA, that the three countries entered into several years ago, that's got to be another issue being discussed there, because Republicans presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, not officially on today's summit agenda, but he has talked about getting the United States out of trade policies. How is President Obama anticipating addressing those issues?

KOSINSKI: Yeah, right? I mean, NAFTA's really come under fire now. It is actually an election issue. It is something you hear all the time in rhetoric. And rhetoric itself is going to come up. One thing the White House always says is, when asked, how does the Republican rhetoric out there affect security or affect America's relationships, because the White House says that that's been a problem, and they say it comes up all the time in meetings. The president's always having to discuss that with other leaders who want to talk about it, and that it takes up time. You look at -- the Mexican president here has used some strong words in talking Donald Trump. The Mexican government has called his rhetoric absurd, ignorant, racist. The president of Mexico himself said Mexico isn't going to build a wall. And he compared Trump's rhetoric not too long ago to the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. So it is not as if that topic is going to overshadow everything in these discussions that are really supposed to be about trade and cooperation. But surely it will come up. And you know they're going to face some questions in this press conference that's going to start soon -- Jake?

TAPPER: Michelle Kosinski, in Ottawa right outside the venue where we expect to hear shortly from President Obama and his two counterparts from Mexico and Canada. Michelle, thank you so much.

Joining me now, chief political correspondent, Dana Bash; senior political reporter, Nia Malika-Henderson; and senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny.

Dana, let me start with you.

The last time President Obama was at an international summit -- I think it was the last time -- he --