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Boris Johnson Bows Out; Turkey Bombers Traveled to Syria; Joint Base Andrews on Lockdown. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 30, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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


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[09:33:34] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

The race to beat Britain's next prime minister just got a little smaller. In a speech widely assumed to be a campaign kickoff, the former London mayor and vocal supporter of the leave campaign, Boris Johnson, shocked political watchers when he said he would not enter the race to lead parliament, to become the new prime minister. Diana Magnay was at the London announcement just a short time ago.

Hi, Diana.

DIANA MAGNAY, FREELANCE JOURNALIST: Hi, Carol.

Well, it felt a little as though Boris Johnson was leading us all on. He built up this huge speech, up to a crescendo, about how Brexit would provide a new opportunity for Britain to stand tall in the world, and a new leader would be heralding in a new era, and then this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, FORMER LONDON MAYOR: I must tell you, my friends, you who have waited faithfully for the punchline of this speech. That having consulted colleagues and in view of the circumstances in parliament, I have concluded that person cannot be me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MAGNAY: That person, or leader of the Tory party cannot be Boris Johnson. Why is that? Well, earlier this morning, Michael Gove, who was the man who campaigned for leave alongside Boris Johnson, suddenly turned around and in a major act of betrayal, essentially a stab in the back, said that he didn't have confidence in Boris Johnson's leadership abilities and that he was going to run himself.

[09:35:14] So now the front-runners in the conservative leadership contest are Michael Gove, he's the justice minister, and Theresa May. She is the interior minister. But Tory leadership contests, Carol, or leadership contests, generally are a little like referendum. They're very unpredictable. And this week in British politics, nothing has been predictable. Carol.

COSTELLO: That certainly is true. Diana Magnay reporting live from London this morning, thank you.

We are following two major developments in that terror attack at an Istanbul airport that left 43 people dead. A Turkish official now telling CNN that the three bombers, one of whom is shown here, are from Russia and from two former Soviet states. That news coming as its senior Turkish government source says there is, quote, "strong evidence the bombers were in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, before heading to Turkey to carry out this attack. That source adding that ISIS leadership was involved in the planning.

With me now, James Woolsey, former CIA director, and Jill Dougherty, advisory board member for the Cannon Institute, which works to improve U.S. knowledge about Russia and other states in the region.

Welcome to both of you.

James, I want to start with you. Sources say ISIS leadership is tied to this terrorist incident, but ISIS has yet to claim responsibility. Why do you think that is?

JAMES WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I'm not sure. They play all sorts of games. And I think it doesn't matter much what they claim and what they don't claim. It's clearly a movement that seeks by adding to its size, the caliphate, to dominate much as it can in that part of the world. And one thing that this brings out is that the Muslim populations of the former Soviet Union have radicals that are very much willing to be involved and eager to be involved.

There's one demographer recently wrote that by the middle of the century, by 2050, the Russians will be a minority in their own country. So the Russians need to pay attention to how they are going to do a good job of culturally integrating Muslims from these caucuses and central Asian states. And they're not very good at it. We're not bad at integrating people from all sorts of places all over the world. The Russians are not.

COSTELLO: So before we get more into that, I want to go back to the notion that ISIS leadership itself planned this attack. What does that mean for Turkey?

WOOLSEY: I think it means that they were beginning to regard the Turks as a real enemy. The Turks are helping against ISIS, not as much as we would have liked, but they were doing and have been doing a good deal. The Turks and the Kurds are probably the two best disciplined and best fighters in that part of the world, and they presumably felt that they needed to make a contribution to keep them from -- from -- keep from getting shoved around, essentially.

COSTELLO: OK. Wait, I'm hearing breaking news. One second.

WOOLSEY: OK. COSTELLO: There's a -- there's a report -- there's a report of an active shooter at Joint Base Andrews. That is in Maryland. Of course that's home of Air Force One, right?

WOOLSEY: Yes.

COSTELLO: This is very disturbing. Apparently that other information that you just gave me, Michelle, can I report that? There's a report of an active shooter. Was there a drill going on at the time? OK, so there was -- there was -- there was some sort of training drill going on at the time, and then during that drill, an actual call came through, and now Joint Base Andrews is on lockdown.

And since I have you here, James, just your reaction to that?

WOOLSEY: Well, that is used by the president's aircraft and other important government aircraft on no particular schedule that I know of, but they -- it is used that way. So Andrews is a very important facility and that's a very in your face move if some entity did it. If it's one crazy individual, if it really is, you know, workplace violence, then, OK, but this doesn't sound -- this sounds more as if somebody had decided they wanted to stick their fingers in the eyes of the United States, and this was one way to do it.

COSTELLO: OK, I have CNN analyst Art Roderick on the phone right now.

And we -- we -- you're right, James, we don't know exactly what's going on. It could be a case of workplace violence. It could be something more. It could be absolutely nothing.

So, Mr. Roderick, what do you make of it?

ART RODERICK, CNN ANALYST (via telephone): I think, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if it was some sort of drill, but generally they would announce that immediately on the -- on their Twitter page. The -- that base in particular, right at 9:00, has about -- I believe it's got four gates. So that place -- that place is usually full, you know, with people coming in out of the gates, usually show up for work at exactly that hour. But I think we've got to confirm if that's a -- a -- if it's a -- if it's a drill or if it's really an active shooter at this point in time.

[09:40:28] COSTELLO: Well, this is a -- this is a tweet that came from Joint Base Andrews. I'm not sure what time it came over, but it was recently. It says, "the incident is ongoing at the Malcolm Grow Medical Facility. First responders are on scene now. All personnel continue to shelter in place."

So it certainly is on lockdown and it's supposedly this incident is taking place at a medical facility, Art.

RODERICK: Yes, I've talked to some of my law enforcement friends who seem to think this could -- could be -- could be, I say, a false alarm. That has not been confirmed yet, obviously. But, you know, we still -- it's still early on. And as we know in these types of situations, the initial information we generally get is either not correct or off by -- by some sort of means. But I -- you know, this is still early on in this situation, but the information I'm hearing is it's either a drill or a false alarm.

COSTELLO: OK. And you have good sources telling you that information?

RODERICK: Yes. Yes, I do.

COSTELLO: So why would they put it on lockdown, just out of an abundance of caution?

RODERICK: Yes. And in any of these situations now, I mean, you know, especially with what's been going on in the past couple months, they would -- they would automatically put this on shut down. Now, this being a military base, they do this sort of training -- active shooter training all the time. They take this active shooter situation, these scenarios, very seriously. These mass casualties trainings they do on a regular basis. And what usually occurs with these sorts of situations is, they train on all these military bases to -- in an active shooter situation to shelter in place if possible or flee if you can get away safely, or actually try to confront the individual.

COSTELLO: OK, again, we do not know if this is real or not. Art is getting information from his sources that this could be a false alarm. And, of course, we hope that's true. But as of right now, we do know that Joint Base Andrews is on lockdown and all personnel have been advised to continue to shelter in place.

There is a Pentagon briefing that's going to be happening at any moment now. It was prescheduled. It's not about this. But we expect that they may want to say something just to calm things down or to tell us exactly what's happening out in Maryland right now.

And, James, I'll turn to you. You know, whenever you hear of this, you just, the worst things go through your mind. And it's just the times we live in right now.

WOOLSEY: Well, it is the times we live in, but there are some things we could do about it. We are at war. The president and the administration don't admit that. They don't like to use the word. They don't even like to use the word "Islam." But we're at war with a hard line side of radical Islam. At least they're at war with us. We may not be at war with them.

And what that means is that a lot of the things that we could enjoy in excellent peace time, let's say early '90s, in which everybody had about as much privacy as we wanted and everybody had about as much security as we wanted and not much of a problem. When you're at war, and especially people are killing folks in Florida and California and maybe Maryland, we don't know, you've got to focus on the fact that there are going to have to be some compromises. And the way to do that, I think, is to get industry, particularly the part that manages our infrastructure with respect to data, together with the government and work out public/private partnerships so we can keep track of the terrorists and people who might be terrorists.

There's the publicly available data out there to buy and to acquire trillions and trillions of bits of data that nobody, you know, you don't have to pay anybody for or you do, it's publicly known and available. And you don't have to intercept anybody's communications. That could be something that we could do a lot with if people were willing to work together. We need a president who does what FDR did the morning after December 7, 1941, and pulls everybody together and say, OK, we're at war. He's in charge of Detroit. He's in charge of such and such. Let's go. We don't have such a president.

COSTELLO: Getting back to Joint Andrews for just a second, because I know that you're very familiar with it. We know that it's the home of Air Force One. The president is out of the country right now, so that plane is going to land at some time. I don't know. What else is Joint Base Andrews used for?

[09:45:11] WOOLSEY: I think the joint means Air Force and also a unified command. I'm not sure. They changed the names of these bases all -- all the time on me and I haven't been at Andrews in some time.

COSTELLO: That's OK. I've got Tom Fuentes on the phone.

WOOLSEY: Good.

COSTELLO: Tom, you there?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, I'm here on Skype.

COSTELLO: OK, you're here on Skype. That's good.

What are -- what are you hearing from your sources on this situation?

FUENTES: I'm hearing that there's no confirmation yet of anything actually occurring. So they have the report. They're instigating. We'll wait and see if they find anything.

COSTELLO: Art said that, you know, there was a drill going on. This could be a false alarm. But we do know that Joint Base Andrews is on lockdown. So what does that tell you?

FUENTES: You know, it's interesting because when I was in the FBI, I was involved in several drills where we notify the public, notify everybody that it's a drill, and yet some other person sees something, thinks it's real, and called in. In some cases called into the media. The media didn't know there was a drill and it kind of took a life of its own. So that's why I agree with Art that it's a very good possibility that somehow something that might have been part of the drill could have been falsely called in, or not. We just don't know yet.

COSTELLO: And is this, I mean, they're acting out of an abundance of caution. Is that because of, you know, the president's plane takes off and lands at Joint Base Andrews?

FUENTES: Well, that's part of it. But I can tell you, nobody is going to get near that aircraft or any of the other Air Force aircraft that even look like small Air Force Ones, and I've been on a couple before. We nicknamed them Air Force One-Tenth, the G-5 aircraft that are there. But nobody's going to get close to the president's aircraft, drill or no drill. So I think I wouldn't worry about that part of it.

COSTELLO: You know, I just -- I just -- I'm just loathed to scare people because we just don't know what's going on.

FUENTES: Exactly (INAUDIBLE) --

COSTELLO: So, Art, again, tell us -- I just -- we don't know. But we do know that -- that the -- that Joint Base Andrews is on lockdown. That's pretty much all we know. We know that a safety drill was ongoing, and then suddenly, in the middle of that drill, something happened. And something happened at the Malcolm Grow Medical Facility. This tweet is from Joint Base Andrews. It says, "the incident is ongoing at the Malcolm Grow Medical Facility. First responders on scene now. All personnel continue to shelter in place."

Anything to make of that, Tom?

FUENTES: Not really. Not yet. But we're just going to have to wait a few minutes for more confirmation.

COSTELLO: James?

WOOLSEY: There's a point to be made here. I think that when something like this happens, there's a long history during the Cold War of training events and turning a radar on for the first time, the software of which isn't programmed right, in which it looks as if something terrible has happened or may be happening. The (INAUDIBLE) gulf incident in '64 is one very good example.

And it's important that the next leader of our country do what you're doing and ask questions and not jump to conclusions and get it sorted out and not shoot from the hip. So one of the things we all need to look at with our two likely presidential candidates is, are they basically going to do what you were doing, which is what they ought to do, rather than fly off the handle?

COSTELLO: Are you talking specifically about one candidate over the other?

WOOLSEY: No, I'm equally willing to look at both.

COSTELLO: Gotcha. OK.

So, Art, you've been talking to your sources at --

RODERICK: Yes.

COSTELLO: I don't know if they're at Joint Base Andrews or not, but what are they telling you?

RODERICK: Well, the word I'm getting is it's -- it's a -- it's a false report. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean -- that doesn't necessarily mean that -- that, you know, even if it is a false report, they will follow this through, follow the protocol that they have set in place. The military is probably the best set up and best trained to handle active shooter scenarios on any of their bases as we've seen unfortunately what's happened in the past couple of years on a lot of military bases. So even if this is a false report, they will have the protocols set up, they will follow this through. They' will search buildings. They'll put people on lockdown. But the information I'm getting is that shortly after I came on with you, I received information that it was a false report.

COSTELLO: OK. So we are just getting -- things are breaking, so stick with me here.

[09:50:03] So Jeh Johnson is testifying on The Hill. He's the secretary of Homeland Security. He said he may have to end his testimony early because something is happening at Joint Base Andrews. He didn't say exactly what it was. But, of course, he's testifying on terrorism on Capitol Hill.

So I don't know what's going to, Tom Fuentes.

FUENTES: You know, that's exactly what happens, though. A situation like this, they report it up the chain to the head of DHS, the head of the FBI, the head of the CIA, the president. But the information has to come from the people on the ground at that facility. And when it's not there, it's not there. They're being alerted that there might be something. There's been a report of something. That doesn't make it a confirmation, no matter how dramatic his exit may be from a congressional hearing, that doesn't make it a fact that there is an actual active shooter. So it's just something that we'll have to see.

But, to me, and to others I've talked to, it's highly coincidental that they're having a drill and somebody calls in that there's an active shooter. Often during these drills you'll have people running around with weapons and it looks like something big is going on because the drill is something big, but it's a drill, and not everybody gets the memo that it's a drill.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Tom, a lockdown is now in place and personnel are being advised to shelter in place. What does that operation look like?

FUENTES: It just means to shut everybody down, stop everything. Stop the drill. Stop the presses. Let's find out what's happening and go from there and just not have any more confusion than there already could be by having people running around associated with the drill itself. So now there's no longer a drill. There's no longer a reason for people to be out and about on that base or near the entrance to the base. And investigate. Find out what actually is happening.

COSTELLO: Gotcha.

I'm just looking at the Twitter of Joint Base Andrews to see if there's anything new. I'm going to ask my producers in the control room if they've done the same thing. Have you guys seen anything new on Twitter?

OK. We're just keeping our eye on it. I don't see anything new either.

So how much longer will this go on? When will they be sure, Art? Are they -- do they have to search the whole base? What do they have to do to satisfy themselves that this is just a false alarm?

RODERICK: Yes, they -- it sounds like it's located in one particular facility. And as you recall, we went through this same exact process a few months ago out in San Diego at the medical facility out in San Diego when it was determined it was a false alarm. And it took several hours before the all clear came out from the military and from the first responders. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is exactly what's going to occur here.

The military has standard operating procedures on all these types of scenarios and they're going to make sure that it's absolutely 100 percent a false report before they put out the all clear. So everybody's locked down. We haven't heard anything about any shooting going -- any reported shooting going on at all, other than that there's been a report of an active shooter. And this is exactly what happened out in San Diego a few months ago. But it did take time to go ahead and search the facility, search the surrounding buildings before they lifted the lockdown.

COSTELLO: And, Tom, we know that the president's plane -- the president's plane takes off and lands at Joint Base Andrews. What else is done on that base and how big is it?

FUENTES: Well, all of the congressional delegations that depart Washington fly on the smaller jets that, as I mentioned, look like little Air Force Ones. And that's how they depart and go around the world, you know, doing what they do. So there's a number of other Air Force aircraft that are there.

And then, of course, you have the president's Marine Corps helicopters that fly the president in and out of Andrews, from the White House to Andrews, which is probably about a ten-minute helicopter ride, so it's not that far from Washington, D.C. But the base is well-protected.

I recall an event several years ago where a 16-year-old boy tried to drive through the gates, tried to crash the gates at Andrews and was shot dead. It turned out that they believe he was mentally disturbed, but it didn't matter, when he went through the gates, that was it and they shot him. So it is -- they don't -- they take their security serious. They always have at that base. And they will be thorough, as Art mentioned. They're going to make sure that it's clear.

One of the things they'll do also is immediately try to figure out who called it in. What did that person see? In some of these events, like we've had at Navy Yard in the past where it was an accidental call-in of false information, and they're able to resolve it quickly. Or it could be a deliberate hoax just to watch everybody scramble around or test the security. And that's another thing they'll worry about, is somebody, you know, calling something in. But the fact that it happened in the middle of a drill, that wouldn't be a good time to test the security at Andrews, if it's already being tested in progress.

[09:55:17] COSTELLO: All right. We're getting -- we have a little bit of information from Joint Base Andrews' FaceBook page. It -- and it's -- it's not much more information, but I'll read it to you, just to inform you what they say is going on. It says, "there were reports of an active shooter incident on base at Malcolm Grow Medical Facility at approximately 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time today. Personnel on the base have been directed to shelter in place. The base was scheduled to conduct an active shooter exercise. However, reports of a real world active shooter situation were reported at Malcolm Grow Medical Facility. First responders are currently on scene to secure the location. Due to the serious nature of this report, the base is reacting to ensure the safety of all personnel." And then they say, "more information as it becomes available."

Also on the phone with me now is former NYPD Detective Joe Giacalone.

Hi, Joe.

JOE GIACALONE, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE (via telephone): Hi. How are you, Carol?

COSTELLO: I'm good.

What do you make of this situation?

GIACALONE: Well, I mean, this is the -- the heightened state of alert that everyone needs to be on. And this is -- we also don't want to discourage anybody who did see something and then said something. So even if the information is false or proven to be, you know, inaccurate, we want to make sure that people continue to call in with information that they would deem to be a threat to not only the public but also our military personnel.

COSTELLO: And, you know, if this really were a serious situation, Art, wouldn't Jeh Johnson leave his testimony on The Hill to attend to matters more important?

RODERICK: Well, absolutely, especially if it's at Joint Base Andrews. I mean, I -- you know, the other interesting thing too about this is, we haven't heard in the tweets or e-mail messages or text messages coming from anybody that would possibly be involved in the shooting in that facility. And I'm sure, you know, family members would have been calling 911 by now and this would have been out on the air, as we've seen in past incidents.

So I think the military is just doing what they do. They do this the best. And, you know, they're making sure that this is a false report and that they're going to continue searching these facilities until they give the all clear.

COSTELLO: And, Tom, they were conducting a drill when the call of an actual shooter came in. How do you suppose that drill went down? What were they doing, do we know?

FUENTES: We don't know. I don't know how the drill started or if it started or what it involved. It involved people moving around on that base with weapons displayed. And that could be the basis of the call from someone not knowing that there's an actual drill going on as opposed to a live incident. We just don't know yet what it is. COSTELLO: And again, if you're just joining us, Joint Base Andrews is

on lockdown. Of course, that's in Prince George's County, Maryland. That's where the president's plane takes off, you know, Air Force One. It's the home of Air Force One. You know it from there. That's why there is such a big concern.

We believe there's an incident at the medical facility there. And that is called the Malcolm Grow Medical Facility. And everyone on base is on lockdown. They're being advised to stay inside. Also, people living around the base are being advised to stay in their homes and to stay away from this area.

But as Art, our security analyst, has been telling us, he thinks this could be a false alarm. Tell us again what your sources are saying.

RODERICK: Just that shortly after this was reported, local law enforcement and -- local, state and federal law enforcement had been called, and I had spoken to a couple of individuals and basically they had been notified early on that it was a false report. And that's generally how these things usually run. I mean Joint Base Andrews has its own security there. So they would be the first responders. But when the call would go out, everybody that would be in the neighborhood in that particular area would respond, state, local, and federal officers would respond. So you've got FBI, U.S. Marshals, ATF, they're all in the area right there around -- right around that joint base. So it wouldn't take them long to be able to respond to that particular facility. But the call seemed to have gone out fairly early that it was a false report after the initial tweets came out from Joint Base Andrews.

COSTELLO: All right, Art, stand by. I want to go to the Pentagon, to Barbara Starr. She hopefully has some new information and can tell us what is really going on here.

Hi, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol.

[09:59:56] It is in fact still a very confused situation at this hour. Here at the Pentagon, Air Force officials are telling me that they have been told -- and let's just step through this carefully.