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New Evidence Suggests ISIS Planned Attack; Turkish Forces Detain 22 in Terror Sweeps; Pentagon's Anti-ISIS Campaign Gets Failing Grade; Trump, Obama War Over Trade Policies. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 30, 2016 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:00] CAMEROTA: And so valuable for the community also.

CUOMO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: To employ people.

Great story. Thank you. And Victor, great to work with you.

CUOMO: Great week.

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BLACKWELL: Thanks for having me.

CUOMO: See you again.

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All right, time for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello.

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. I will. Thanks. Have a great day.

NEWSROOM starts now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Planned by ISIS? A senior government source telling CNN that the terror group's leaders appear to have helped plot the attacks on Istanbul's airport. This, after we learn the nationalities of the three suicide bombers. They're from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The source says there is strong evidence they entered Turkey from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa and Syria. In the meantime Turkish police and counterterrorism troops have

detained 22 people, including several foreign nationals. Just around dawn, the raids swept across the capital and along the coast.

Also new this morning, video that shows one of the airport attackers shooting an undercover police officer. According to the Turkish newspaper, the officer had stopped the terrorist and asked for his I.D.

And the death toll climbs to 43 after two of the wounded die of their injuries. Nearly 100 people remain hospitalized this morning.

We're following all the major developments this morning and breaking them down with our correspondents and experts. But let's begin our coverage with CNN's Matthew Chance in Moscow.

Hi, Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. That's right. Turkish officials now saying the identity of the three suicide bombers and attackers inside Istanbul airport have been made -- have been public. They're saying that there's an Uzbek, somebody from Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, and somebody from Russia as well. So all former Soviet Republics.

The Kremlin, and we've spoken to them in the past few minutes, have said that they can't -- have that information on that right now. They can't confirm what the Turkish authorities have already made public, but they're not expressly ruling out that a Russian national could have been involved in those heinous attacks as described by the Russian president Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation that he had with his Turkish counterpart yesterday.

But it does bring into focus the problem Russia and other former Soviet Republics in the region have with Islamic militancy. Thousands of Russian citizens, even the south of the country, in Chechnya, in Dagestan, and regions like that have already left Russia to join the ranks of ISIS. And so it's quite possible that one of these attackers could indeed have been a Russian citizen, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Matthew Chance, reporting live from Moscow this morning.

Now let's turn to this morning's terror raids within Turkey. Troops detaining 22 people, as investigators scramble to identify who was behind the airport attack and whether more terror strikes are planned.

CNN's Alexandra Field outside of the airport with more.

Hi, Alexandra.

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Carol. These Counterterrorism raids that were, of course, initiated by the attacks here at Ataturk right behind me. We know that police have taken nine people into custody from the coastal town Izmir and then another 13 people who they have detained from Istanbul. They've brought all these people in for questioning. It isn't clear what kind of links they believe that these people may have.

We do understand from officials in intelligence sources, they've told CNN that three of the bombers who had traveled from Raqqa as Matthew just reported had spent about a month in Istanbul prior to this attack. They have located the flat that these men have rented, so certainly that will now be a focus of the investigation. They'll be not only looking at that, of course, but also quite likely speaking to any of the neighbors, anyone who may have seen these men coming and going from that apartment, trying to glean more information about what else they could have potentially been planning and who they could have potentially been working with.

Also to that end, we know that within the last day, they were able to locate the taxicab driver who dropped these three attackers off at this airport. That person has been questioned. He provided a statement to the police and he has since been released.

Investigators are also learning more about how these men carried out this attack with a mix of explosives and AK-47s. We know that one of them went to the departure hall, another one went to the arrivals hall and another one hit outside of the airport.

This is an airport, Carol, that places a high premium on security. We know that it had a high level of security measures in place. Airport authorities say that those measures exceeded international standards. To that end, we know that one of the attackers didn't even go past a security gate. He just fired his AK-47 into the arrivals hall at the crowd that has gathered there before detonating his explosive.

And we've been able to see now from closed caption television that one of the attackers shot what is being described as an undercover police officer. That according to the news agency Haberturk. So there were measures in place. It simply was not enough to stop these attacks from happening. The death toll standing right now, Carol, at 43.

COSTELLO: Alexandra Field, reporting live from Istanbul, Turkey this morning.

With me now to talk more about this, Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling. He's a CNN military analyst and a former Army commanding general in Europe with the 7th Army.

[09:05:02] I'm also joined by CNN contributor and senior editor for "The Daily Beast," Michael Weiss. He's also the co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

Welcome to both of you.

General, a senior Turkish source says there is strong evidence, ISIS leaders themselves helped planned this attack in Istanbul, that the bombers came Raqqa in Syria. We're also learning the terrorists were originally from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. What do you make of this?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, two things, Carol. First of all, from my time in Europe, what I'll tell you is on a daily basis, we monitored the dozens of terrorist organizations, Islamist extremist organization coming out of the caucuses. And each one of them is very -- separate and distinct and they're all tough fighters.

Now I'm going to take you to my time in Iraq. During that time in northern Iraq what we found were some of the toughest fighters as part of al Qaeda who were coming from the caucuses. So certainly what you're seeing I think if all of this holds true and we're still in the early stages of the investigation, the potential for some of the toughest fighters coming out of the fight in Syria and Iraq, going back potentially to the caucus region, and I think as Matthew Chance pointed out, this is going to be a very big challenge for Mr. Putin and his Russian provinces.

COSTELLO: Michael, sources also say the attackers actually rented an apartment, a flat in the month leading up to the attack in Istanbul. They think ISIS leaders may have been supporting them financially before the attack what does that tell you.

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It's very easy to rent an apartment in Istanbul. I was embedded with a bunch of Syrian rebels in 2012, late 2012, they had taken bomb-making courses in Turkey through an assistance program with the Turkish Intelligence Services. So, look, getting to Istanbul from Raqqa is fairly easy. I mean, it's an arduous grand ground journey if you take a bus or a taxi. It can be about 14 hours. But it's not impossible.

So -- and Turkey has a huge network of ISIS sleeper cells and ISIS operatives, you know, scattered throughout the country from Ankara, to Istanbul to, you know, southeastern Turkey where ISIS agents have actually assassinated Syrian activists, anti-ISIS Syrian activists and journalists. So Turkey is completely penetrated by this.

And also, I have to add, the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SBR, has conducted assassinations on Turkish soil against Russian federation nationals thought to be jihadists, or suspected of jihadism, including and especially Dagestanis and Chechens, and the suspect that's named as the Russian national here is said to be a Dagestani.

COSTELLO: General, we do know that one of the Boston bombers, you know, the marathon bombers in Boston, was born in Kyrgyzstan. We know the younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said he killed because of America's war against Muslims. Are we seeing something similar here? Is it -- is it the same?

HERTLING: Well, Carol, again, as Michael just pointed out, the number of terrorist groups in this region is boundless. There literally are probably three or four dozen different organizations within Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. In fact several attacks occurred in Europe when I was commanding there from Uzbeki terrorist groups. So yes, you may say hey, they're the same nationality, but does that mean there is a connection? Probably not.

These are people who have grown up under a very repressive regime from the Russian government and they have been attempting to find an Islamic State of their own in the Caucasus region. And unfortunately what you're seeing is now is a combination potentially of ISIS and some of these other horrible terrorist groups.

COSTELLO: I want you both to look at this airport security video. It is from Haberturk. It's disturbing so I'm going to warn my viewers now if you -- I mean, it really is disturbing. It shows someone shooting at another human being, but sadly this is the reality people in which a lot of people live in.

This is one of the terrorists in the airport. An undercover police officer asks for his I.D. You can see the terrorist is in all black. He simply pulls a gun and he opens fire on that security guard, and the gunman he calmly walks off.

This is how ISIS terrorists operate with no -- I mean, just walked calmly on. He didn't even seem to react, Michael.

WEISS: Yes. Well, I mean, look, I thought from the very beginning that these guys had had some combat training, given the sort of coolness and calm with which they perpetrated this massacre. If they were -- if this was a central ISIS leadership plot planned in Raqqa, I guarantee you they have had extensive battlefield training.

They may have -- look, you know, it's very easy for these guys in Dagestan, it's called going into the forest to link up with any number of militancy and insurgency groups there. These are the most battle hardened and die-hard fighters that ISIS has got. They've got a battalion called the Uzbek battalion. These guys are on the frontline in Fallujah, the city in Iraq that ISIS just lost to pro-Iraqi government forces.

[09:10:02] If you talk to anybody who's ever fought ISIS, the worst people you can go up against are the Chechens. And people in Syria refer to all Russians as Chechens because that is the reputation that these guys have. Their former war minister, al-Shishani, who was killed a few months ago, this guy actually led ISIS' first major military operation against the Assad regime at Menagh air base. I think it was late 2012 or early 2013.

He sent two suicide bombers in trucks to blow open the gates of a pretty important military base by which ISIS was able to gain a tremendous haul of weapons and ammunition material and so on. These guys know what they're doing.

COSTELLO: And, General, I -- I just want to ask you about one thing before I have to let you both go. So the Turkish president, he apologized to Russia for shooting down one of its planes over the Turkish-Syrian border. He reached out to Russia for a new relationship. So what happens now, General?

HERTLING: Well, there are a number of things that are complicating this matter, Carol. First of all, the certain discomfort between the Russia-Turkish relationship, the fact that Turkey and Israel recently signed an agreement after almost six years of being at each other's throat over the ship-boarding in the Mediterranean. You also have the end of Ramadan, which is affecting this. So several things may have contributed to this attack, but as Michael said, the Chechens, they have this fighting in their blood. They've been doing it for multiple decades, not only in their province, but also all over the world. They've been attempting to gain their freedom.

So I'll re-enforce what Michael said. These are some of the toughest fighters you have. Mr. Putin knows he has a problem on his southern border and Russia knows that this flow through Istanbul and other airports is also problematic.

COSTELLO: All right, General Mark Hertling, Michael Weiss, thanks to both of you.

U.S. officials do say hundreds of ISIS militants may be dead, killed in a series of air strikes that targeted a convoy of fighters trying to flee southern Fallujah. The mission comes just days after Iraqi forces say they've re-claimed the city. Between 40 and 50 vehicles may have been destroyed. In the meantime, an exclusive interview with CNN -- in an exclusive interview with CNN, the chief of intel for the Air Force warns the Pentagon's anti-ISIS campaign still has a long way to go.

CNN's Barbara Starr has more on this.

Carol, the CIA is saying there may be a long way to go still to make significant progress against ISIS, just as a top Air Force intelligence officer is telling me he also thinks that targeting ISIS is not what it should be.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): In exclusive interview, the chief of Air Force intelligence tells CNN airstrike targeting against ISIS gets a failing grade. On scale of 1 to 10, how far behind is targeting?

LT. GEN. ROBERT OTTO, U.S. AIR FORCE: I would give us a five, which means we have a lot of work to do.

STARR: The problem?

OTTO: The problem is not having enough fighter jets to drop bombs. The problem is having enough legitimate targets that we can strike that can put ISIL on their heels.

STARR: The Pentagon has been trying to find better ways to select ISIS targets that if bombed really would hurt the organization. But the general describes a disjointed process.

OTTO: We are tracking targets off of probably a couple dozen spreadsheets and it's not coordinated between all the agencies.

STARR: A startling assessment after 13,000 airstrikes.

OTTO: There's always room to improve.

STARR: The airstrikes are helping take back territory. On this section of the Syria-Turkey border, the U.S. is focusing on shutting down the flow of fighters back and forth, conducting airstrikes around this key area of Manbij in northern Syria.

BRETT MGGURK, U.S. ENVOY TO THE COALITION AGAINST ISIS: The sophisticated attacks like Paris and Brussels planned in Raqqa. They go up through this Manbij pocket area. They coordinate and organize in Manbij City, and then move out through Turkey to conduct their attacks.

STARR: And airstrikes can disrupt ISIS finances. One example, half of ISIS' $300 million a year in oil earnings has been wiped out by airstrikes, but still leaving them $150 million a year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's a lot of money. You can fund a lot of things across the globe.

STARR: Including the attack in Istanbul. ISIS is building a network of dozens of terrorists it can still send into Europe, officials tell CNN.

JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: ISIL is training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks. ISIL has a large cadre of western fighters who can potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: There may be a lot of senior military officers who don't exactly agree with General Otto about the five out of ten assessment, but some do.

[09:15:02] And it is worth remembering, General Otto has decades long experience in military intelligence -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Barbara Starr reporting, thank you.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: President Obama and Donald Trump and President Obama trading punches over trade policy, and it goes international.

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COSTELLO: Donald Trump and President Obama locked in a war over trade. Trump is set to fire back in a speech later today, after Obama ripped into the presumptive Republican nominee. The president calling Trump's trade policies nativist, xenophobic and bad for global trade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The prescription of withdrawing from trade deals and focusing solely on your local market, that's the wrong medicine. You are right to be concerned about the trends, but what you're prescribing will not work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:20:04] COSTELLO: Jason Carroll is following the Trump side of the story. Good morning.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you heard the president speaking there in Canada. And I would expect Donald Trump to go after the president when he holds his rally later on today in New Hampshire. The president going after Trump, saying his trade policies would not help the United States, would lead to a loss of jobs, would hurt the economy. He also went after Trump, saying he is not a real populist.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL (voice-over): President Obama laying into Donald Trump's protectionist trade agenda as not feasible, calling it a prescription that won't help U.S. workers, but actually hurt them.

OBAMA: Withdrawing from trade deals and focusing solely on your local market, that's the wrong medicine. Our auto plants for example would shut down if we didn't have access to some parts in other parts of the world.

CARROLL: Speaking at a rally in Bangor, Maine, Trump again laid out his plan which calls for possibly pulling out of NAFTA, the North American free-trade agreement, his proposals drawing criticism not just the left, Trump firing back at the usually GOP-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The United States Chamber of Congress is upset with me. They say we're going to lose a trade war? We're already losing the trade war, folks.

CARROLL: Trump's attacks coming on the heels of two days of critiques from the Chamber of Commerce, live tweeting during Trump's economic speech on Tuesday, "Under Trump's trade plans, we would see higher prices, fewer jobs, and weaker economy.

Trump now accusing the chamber of being controlled by special interest groups, boasting that if elected, he can negotiate better deals.

TRUMP: We lost the trade war. They're getting killed. Nothing can happen worst than what is happening now. We're getting killed.

CARROLL: The presumptive GOP nominee, threatening agreements with China in the process.

TRUMP: I want to renegotiate a deal. I want to terminate the deal and do a good deal. And that's all I want.

CARROLL: The president, making a point to dismiss Trump's so-called populist message.

OBAMA: They don't suddenly become populists because they say something controversial in order to win votes. That's not the measure of populism. That's nativism, or xenophobia.

CARROLL: Trump taking aim at Hillary Clinton, by trying to appeal to Sanders supporters.

TRUMP: Bernie Sanders cannot stand Hillary Clinton. You wouldn't think this, but there is one thing that Bernie Sanders and I are on complete accord with, and that's trade. He said we're going ripped off. I say that we're being ripped off.

CARROLL: Trump also taking a swipe at old foes, calling out his former GOP rivals for their lack of support.

TRUMP: You know, these people signed the pledge. Remember, they all wanted me to sign the pledge. They broke their word. In my opinion, they should never be allowed to run for public office again.

CARROLL: And Trump's allies aren't letting up attacking Elizabeth Warren's heritage. Conservative radio host Howie Carr opening Trump's rally by mocking the Massachusetts senator.

HOWIE CARR, HOST, HOWIE CARR SHOW: You know Elizabeth Warren, right?

CARROLL: Picking up on Trump's incessant jabs, calling Warren, "Pocahontas".

TRUMP: Pocahontas, that's Elizabeth Warren.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: A number of Native Americans offended by those comments there.

Want to pick up on the battle between Trump and the U.S. chamber of commerce. They point to an op-ed Trump wrote for CNN where he did not call for pulling out of NAFTA. In fact, he sounded more like a globalist. I want to read a quote for you, "We will have to leave borders behind and go for global unity when it comes to financial stability."

But, look, having said, you know, Trump's rank and file supporters will say when you look at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, these are members of the GOP establishment. Of course, they're going to be against Trump. So that's why they're still falling in line behind him, and not surprised by this criticism comes from the Chamber of Commerce.

COSTELLO: Jason Carroll, thanks so much.

CARROLL: You bet.

COSTELLO: Mr. Trump is making it easy for Republicans to rally around him. At this rate, will he be forced to go at it alone?

Joining me now to talk about this is Jackie Kucinich, the Washington bureau chief for "The Daily Beast", and Ryan Lizza, CNN political commentator and Washington correspondent for "The New Yorker".

Welcome to both of you.

JACKIE KUCINICH, THE DAILY BEAST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here.

Ryan, Donald Trump cannot seem to rally Republicans around him. So, he seems to be trying to shame them. Will this convince John Kasich, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush to jump on the Trump train?

RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: More than that, too, right?

I believe Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, who also ran against Trump, has not endorsed him.

I don't think so. Look, what most of these Republicans are looking for, and have not seen it yet, is for Trump to change, right. That's what they keep saying.

They want to see growth. They want to see him pivot to use the cliche of the moment towards the general election.

[09:25:05] They want to see him run a more professional campaign and they want to see him stop attacking important Republican interest groups, like the Chamber of Commerce, and focus all his energy like a laser beam on Hillary Clinton.

And every time he sort of takes a baby step in that direction, there is a lot of, you know, sigh of relief, but let's be honest. Trump has been in public life now running for president for a year. He is who he is. He is not likely to change significantly in the next four months until the general election. And I think a lot of Republicans are just, you know, coming to terms with that.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, Jackie, Trump's Republican opponents are also still bitter over his vicious campaign tact particulars. Listen to Utah Senator Mike Lee, talking about why he is not on the Trump train.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SEN. MIKE LEE (R), UTAH: He accused my best friend's father of conspiring to kill JFK. We can go through the fact that he has made statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant. We can get into the fact that he's wildly unpopular in my state, I hope I can get over these concerns. I hope Mr. Trump can help me identify them. But don't sit here and tell me, Steve, that I have no reason to be concerned about Donald Trump.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So, Jackie, what's the answer for Mr. Trump?

KUCINICH: You know, he really hasn't really made much of an effort to reach out to these Republicans like Mike Lee, consistently. He does it behind closed doors, tells them it will be okay, but then goes out in public and does exactly what we're talking about, and Republican who signed the pledge who aren't endorsing him, saying they shouldn't be able to run again. That doesn't exactly breed good feelings. Mike Lee is someone who is

known as sort of the policy wonk of the Heritage Foundation type Republicans. So there is also a policy issue here, where you know, the orthodox Republicans can't get on board with Trump because they don't agree with him on basic issues. So until he extend as an olive branch to Republicans like Mike Lee, why should they support him?

COSTELLO: Well, I will say, Ryan, Mr. Trump has one friend, it's the NRA. The NRA has released an ad, a service member who served in Benghazi. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I served in Benghazi. My friends didn't make it. They did their part. Do yours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So is the NRA powerful enough to, you know, to cancel out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

LIZZA: Well, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the biggest spenders in presidential elections traditionally, American politics, right? I really don't see them lifting a finger for Donald Trump, given his views on economics and tariffs. He wants to start a trade war with China, and not to mention immigration, pro-immigration reform.

Trump has been consistently very, very pro-NRA stance on guns with one recent exception where he made comments that they disagreed with. Trump got beat 26 million to 0 in terms of ad spending between the Trump campaign and Hillary and her affiliated entities in June. That's a lot of money, $26 million to nothing. So the NRA is stepping any believe with a $2 million buy to start hitting Hillary Clinton, and they're much more scared of Clinton, given how the Democrats have moved left on the issue of guns than they would have been in a previous cycle.

And I think that's actually interesting that they're that pro Trump, because Trump on some other big civil liberties issues that a lot of NRA members traditionally care about is not so great. But their core issue of guns, he is much better than Hillary Clinton. But you know, one interest group like the NRA spending a couple of million dollars isn't going to make the difference.

The Trump campaign knows this, and they're starting to actually raise some money now, breaking his previous pledge that he would sell funds and they're trying to post a big number by the end of the month.

COSTELLO: All right, I have to leave it there, Jackie Kucinich, Ryan, thanks to both of you.

Still to come to THE NEWSROOM --

LIZZA: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Before Istanbul, how much contact did the bombers have with is. I'll talk with a former CIA director, next.

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