Transcripts For CNNW Crossfire 20140205

0 volgograd blast. they're not really a corporate structure. they're separate cells, often very young, a lot younger than some of the militants we've seen in the past decade, often in their early 20s. the oldest ones get to 30 before they're killed by russian special forces, but they're the ones with the radical ideology, organization, and in cases the sheer will to die in cases like these. we've seen people who sought the culture, sought the fundamentalist underground that they provide and possibly if you see some of the more recent acts they've done, the bombmaking seems to be a little more sophisticated. possibly this may be with where the concerns are emfa naturing from. >> nick paton walsh on the ground in sochi. ivan watson watching what's going on as well. thanks to both of you for your excellent eyewitness accounts for what is going on. that's it for me. thanks very much for watch. "crossfire" starts right now. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome to "crossfire." i'm sally kohn on the left. >> i'm s.e. cupp on the right. there's breaking news tonight. cnn learns that airlines are being warned to be on the lookout for possible bomb ingredients in toothpaste tubes that travelers are taking to the olympics. moments ago peter king, a senior member of the house homeland security committee, gave this disturbing account of russia's failure to fully cooperate with the united states. >> they are not sharing enough intelligence or virtually any intelligence with us as to what's happening within russia. they're afraid that somehow we will use that to our advantage. we are getting some information about what's happening outside of russia, some external threats, that type thing or potential threats. i don't want to overstate that. but we have very close relationship with our allies other than the russians, but the russians the, for instance, are cooperating nowhere nearly the british did, the chinese did, the greeks did. >> let's bring in cnn's wolf blitzer for new details. wolf, what's the latest? >> s.e. and sally, a government source tells cnn the threat is real, adding -- and i'm quoting now -- we have very good information from a credible source. the threat involves either a toothpaste tube type bomb or some other types of concealed explosives in cosmetic tubes. officials also assume the explosives would be on a plane coming into russia from europe, shall we say, rather than from the united states, but that's an assumption. the source saying the u.s. is taking this threat seriously, so are other countries. so there's a lot going on right now certainly only hours before the start of these winter olympic games. back to you. >> indeed, thanks, wolf. so my question is why are we having the olympics in sochi anyway? it's already a target for terrorists and host country russia is an untrustworthy bad actor with a history of human rights abuses. we're sending them our olympic athletes while al qaeda might be sending terrorists with bombs in toothpaste tubes and vladimir putin sits with his leopard harboring edward snowden and mocking us. >> except for maybe the snowden part, i kind of fairly agree with you there. it's not like russia was rolling out the red carpet for us gays. >> that's right. >> and now all of these mounting threats, you know, is just deeply unsettling, why we're even supporting these olympics. >> i agree. in the "crossfire" tonight, lawrence kor and michael reagan who is a critic. larry, let me start with you. today we heard congressman peter king say he would not go to the olympics. we heard mitt romney say that he would go. john kerry said go if you want to go. let me ask you, would you go? would you thake your family? >> yes, i would. you can't buy perfect security. i think every time you get on a plane you're taking a risk. i think what was important today, what was our department of homeland security who probably got the information from some intelligence sources who warned american airlines and european airlines watch out for this. you go back and you take a look. underwear bomber, shoe bombers, they figure out what they can do to get around the existing system. the problem with the boston marathon, they like big events like this. if not the olympics, they'll pick something else, the world cup in brazil. >> do we know that it was u.s. intelligence? >> that's classified, we don't know. but we know the warning came from dhs, that we do know. >> larry made a great point of we can never be 100% protected. interesting to me in this post-9/11 environment we try to comfort ourselves that we can be. we take off our shoes, dump out our water. there's only so much we can do and only so much the united states government can do to protect americans and others in sochi, in russia. but be honest, michael -- >> i'm not going to be honest? >> god forbid if something happens in sochi, how are republicans going to blame this on obama? >> i don't think you can blame it on obama. >> that's refreshing. >> this is all set up for vladimir putin to take credit for everything in russia. he's pulling the strings so much today in the world that we live in, whether it's syria -- >> iran. >> whether it's the olympics, iran. i call him the puppet master. we're all on the strings of this puppet master. he makes sure once you arrive in sochi, nothing will happen. the safest place on the planet because he's been given the authority to kill if he needs to. >> i hope you're right about the safety. i'm glad there's some good news today coming from michael reagan that republicans will not blame problems in russia on president obama. >> it seems the united states has empowered russia to be a bigger player on the international stage than maybe they deserve credit for. let me show you some numbers, larry. russia is ranked among the worst countries when it comes to all kinds of international terrors. top tier for human trafficking and worst ranking for human rights, when it comes to corruption they rank 127th out of 175 countries. have we enabled russia? have we empowered them to have an outsized place of significance on the world stage? >> no, we haven't. for example, one of the things we've done under the bush administration and clinton continued it was to enlarge nato. we move right up to the -- they were not happy about that. basically what we've also done is we've got them to put sanctions on iran. you know, the sanctions against iran, they were part of it, and they're part of the negotiating thing now, so we've got that. nations don't have permanent friend ors enemies. they have permanent interests. we work with the russians where it helps us. and our congress would not even republicans wouldn't support syria, so we had to get the russians to help -- >> we also great about what the russians are -- but can we trust putin to keep our athletes af? >> yes, they will. because michael's right. if it doesn't work well, it's bad for him. he wants it to be secure. >> but here's what's interesting, when you think about the fact that our president, our leadership has said to putin, we'll let you be in charge. you pull the strings. we'll come along with whatever direction you in fact want to take us, whether it's syria or wherever it might be in fact in the world today. remember, it was president obama that sat down with the president of russia who said, wait till after the election. i can work with putin a lot differently than i can today. i think he's proven that out, whether it be syria, iran or any place else. the fact that all of a sudden we trust them now to be negotiating on the world's behalf. russia only negotiates on russia's behalf. >> we'll come back to that in a different segment. >> that was another era. >> that was reagan. >> putin was not the president when the president said that. >> but it was the puppet of putin who was the president. >> it goes back to the administration i think you know a lot about and i do, when your father was negotiating with gorbachev, he was no day at the beach either. you've got to do what's in your interests. one of the things obama did with the russians was cut down the nuclear -- number of nuclear weapons, something that your dad started working there with them. not because we like them, but because we both have them and it's in both of our interests. >> my father also said trust but verify. >> we are verifying just like we are in iran. >> verify the fact that syria is already a day late and a dollar short. >> i agree. you heard what kerry said, if you don't keep it, then everything is back on the table. >> we'll find out. >> michael, you criticized the fact that he even had the conversations. we'll come back to a in a second. i have to say -- >> you like me, don't you? >> i'll get the hate tweets out of this one. >> uh-oh. >> but the whole notion of the olympics, come on. we know they don't stimulate the economies of the cities that host them. in fact countries pour billions into them. >> you are going to get hate mail. >> russia already has the horrible anti-gay laws, shouldn't we just pull out? >> why don't we get rid of the super bowl because human sex trafficking is rampant in new york during the super bowl. let's find a reason not to have any anything, whether any competition amongst anybody. >> i'm not talking about the super bowl, russia. >> forget about the money it brings in. the relationships that are built for the future, you don't know who you're going to meet at the olympics who ultimately may be a leader in their own country in the future that you will become a leader and you will have built a relationship that happened at the olympics. >> you'll support us talking. >> don't you see the olympics as some sort of self-diplomacy. >> in theory, and in general, but in this case the united states and other countries said that they're going to politically boycott the olympics, they won't send those high level delegates. >> we made one in the '84 and 96 olympics. they're not a capitalist society, but we made money in the '84 and '96 olympics because of the way it was run. >> i'm sure their books will still read profits. >> diplomacy through curling, i can't wait to see it. >> i have the broom handle. >> republican ps reflexively criticize everything president obama does, but next i'll explain why the president is just george bush 2.0 and why it's progressives who should be upset. open to innovation. open to ambition. open to bold ideas. that's why new york has a new plan -- dozens of tax free zones all across the state. move here, expand here, or start a new business here and pay no taxes for ten years... we're new york. if there's something that creates more jobs, and grows more businesses... we're open to it. start a tax-free business at startup-ny.com.