Transcripts For CNNW The Lead With Jake Tapper 20150225

Down on the southern part of the country. Last year it brought major cities to their knees. This time around, are they ready for it . Good afternoon. Welcome to the lead. Im jake tapper. We begin today with our National Lead. Just minutes ago the fbi issued a bulletin to state and local Law Enforcement telling them be on your guard. This comes as we learn that three men, new yorkers, are now behind bars for allegedly trying to join isis and plotting to commit acts of terror here on american soil including potentially trying to assassinate president obama. According to a Court Document unsealed just hours ago, the fbi collared three brooklynitis two of them wanted to join the socalled isis caliphate, the third tried to finance that terror pilgrimage to syria. The department of justice says these men comprised a terror cell in new york and were actively conspiring to join isis provide cash to the terrorists and if neither of those plans worked out, they would unleash chaos right here in the United States. Lets go to cnn justice correspondent pamela brown. These men first came to the attention of Law Enforcement last summer. If you read the complaint, its really quite remarkable the heinous acts they were plotting allegedly to carry out. Thats right. According to officials, the intent was there but whether or not they could carry out their plans is an entirely different story. But this case is especially concerning because for one of the first times in an isis related case we are seeing a level of organization according to the fbi, among multiple individuals living in the u. S. And wanting to launch an attack here that they couldnt link up with isis overseas. The fbi says two of the three Brooklyn New York residents were intent on waging jihad in syria with isis. Or launching an attack in the United States. A third associate was allegedly helping finance their mission. Court documents allege one expressed his desire to pledge fidelity to isis and in an uzbekistan online chat last summer saying to shoot obama and get shot ourselves, will it do . That will strike at the heart of the infidels. That alarming post brought fbi agents to his front door. He allegedly admitted to them he would harm president obama but did not have the means to do so and said if isis ordered him to he would also plan to bomb on coney island in new york city. They came as federal agents as members of the joint Terrorism Task force. They identified them as such. Reporter even after the fbi interview, Court Documents revealed the man then began communicating with an isis website administrator in iran who encouraged him to join the terrorist group overseas. Later communications revealed his coworker began coordinating travel to turkey, the gateway into syria. He allegedly told his friend once you cross the border of the Islamic State, someone has to receive you there. To prove a conspiracy you only have to show that theres been a material effort or forward step in furtherance of the conspiracy and clearly, those communications would indicate that there has been a forward step in the conspiracy. Reporter the complaint says both suspects purchased round trip tickets to turkey with the help of their friend who allegedly provided more than 1,000 for their travels. He allegedly told a confidential informant if he was detected at the airport they could kill a Police Officer and use the officers gun to shoot other Law Enforcement officers that arrived on the scene. The fbi says it arrested him at jfk airport today. They say he was trying to board a flight to turkey to join isis. Federal agents arrested the other at his brooklyn apartment. The third associate, the one in florida appeared in a courtroom today and the other two are expected to appear before a judge as well. Pamela brown, thank you. Appreciate it. I want to go to cnn National Correspondent deb feyerick in brooklyn outside the federal courthouse where two of these three men are set to be arraigned potentially any moment. What can you tell us . Reporter we can tell you they are going to be arraigned within the next 45 minutes. The judge came out and told everyone in the court, its a packed courtroom, as you can imagine, theres another terror trial going on upstairs on a higher court. Very interesting, hes an alleged al qaeda operative. The ideology that he shares very much similar ideology to the ideology of the two men who are scheduled to be arraigned. We want to tell you they are uzbek nationals. They do have legal residence here in the United States. One of the reasons that they had a sort of plan b is because the 19yearold, he didnt have his passport. His mother had actually confiscated his passport fearing that he would travel or try to get to syria, so he was planning other attacks here in the United States. They included joining the u. S. Military, perhaps funneling information to isis and then if that didnt work he was simply going to open fire on the troops. His other plan was simply to get an ak47 and attack Police Officers as well as fbi agents. The 24yearold, his colleague and coworker, he was the one who said he had plans to shoot president obama. All he needed was the go ahead from an isis member communicating via the internet. These two men were tracked online they ultimately took down their social pages, according to the fbi indictment against them and they were sort of maintaining silent communications. The 30yearold man, also a brooklyn resident he got his money running kiosks at local malls in savannah georgia, in philadelphia pennsylvania as well as virginia beach, virginia. He is alleged to have given the younger man, the 19yearold, 1300 to purchase tickets. He even went to a travel agency in coney island essentially to help him buy that ticket. The boy wanted more money he said because he had to repay a debt to his mother according to these Court Documents. Again, they never made it to syria. The 19yearold picked up today at jfk airport. He had a ticket to get to turkey and it was interesting because he ultimately did get his passport travel documents through the help of a confidential informant. When he told his mother that he was out of here that he was going to go to syria and fight with isis as was his duty his mother actually hung up with him. He was arrested at jfk. The other man, the 24yearold, he was also arrested. They are scheduled to be in court within the hour. Deb feyerick live at the Brooklyn Federal courthouse thank you so much. The fbi says one of these suspects had a backup plan if he wasnt able to get to syria to stay in the u. S. And kill or at least attempt to kill the president of the United States. Michelle kosinski is live at the courthouse. I dont know how seriously this threat should be taken but has there been any reaction from the Obama Administration or the secret service so far about this threat . Reporter we have reached out to the white house on this. This news was breaking as the president was taking off for a trip to miami to talk about immigration. We havent heard anything directly from them yet. The secret service did weigh in. They said this is a joint Terrorism Task force case multiagency and the secret service is involved in that. What they said was that the u. S. Secret service will take all appropriate steps based on that investigation. The u. S. Takes all threats seriously. It is not in a position to discount threatening statements until they are fully investigated. There is no one out there who wants to say they are not taking this seriously. What we have heard from analysts today is that these are boastings online that anyone could make. They are not the greatest things on earth to write online and obviously, its what will gain the interest of Law Enforcement out there, or somebody else who might be reading it prior, but its not enough to make an arrest at that time. Everything is case by case. But this case took some time past those postings online before it really got to the deep end of the investigation and finally the arrests. It was interesting to hear other people within the administration over the past few days talk about threats and how difficult it is to really get to them before they start to progress because lone wolves out there, thats what everybodys concerned about. So so far, the line from the administration is well were waiting for the investigation, were participating, were not going to say that this wasnt serious. We are taking all of these sorts of things seriously. We heard from the new York Press Conference it sounded like they were taking such online postings pretty seriously, especially one from the other young man who said that he was willing to go and find a machine gun to target Police Officers or fbi agents here in the u. S. Jake . Thank you so much. These arrests in new york may be just the beginning. Could they reveal even more plots in the works . More plots being perhaps more carefully crafted right here in the United States . The fbi says it is tracking homegrown violent extremists but wait until you hear just how widespread this problem may be. Thats next. Mouths are watering, lemons are squeezing and stomachs are growling. Or is it just me . Every minute between you and red lobsters lobsterfest feels like an eternity. And who could blame you for craving our largest variety of succulent lobster dishes all year . Dishes like dueling lobster tails. With one tail topped with creamy shrimp and a second tail stuffed with tender crab. 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How do you know . Duh. Try credit karma. Its free and you can see what your score is right now. I just got my free credit score credit karma. Really free. Welcome back to the lead. Im jake tapper. We will continue following breaking developments out of new york. Three men from brooklyn apprehended by the fbi. Court documents say two of them were trying to join isis. The third was trying to help them do so. If those two could not make their way to syria, they intended to kill police and fbi agents and even aspire to assassinate the president. Lets go to cnn Counter Terrorism analyst phil mudd former cia Counter Terrorism official. Also with us robert mcfadden, former special agent in charge for the naval criminal investigative service. Let me start with you. How serious a threat do you think these guys were . From what we know right now, very serious. Well done by the fbi, jttf and all their partners. It sounded like they were all over these three and their cell. You have human sources or confidential informants electronic means, tapping into the internet so very well done. But you know jake the thing that happens right now, while the high fives are going on about taking this cell down the intelligence part of it is going on full speed ahead. Thats paramount, we talked about this in the leadin to the segment, about how important it is to find out how broad or not this cell is. So that work continues as we speak. Phil i dont want to make light of this case. Obviously we all take it seriously. But if you read the Court Documents, at least one or two of them dont seem like the sharpest tools in the shed. Maybe thats just because these Court Documents show how they were caught but am i wrong for thinking for maybe not taking them as seriously as i should just because they seem kind of dumb . Look as we used to say in the business we dont always catch the smart ones. But before you discount these guys youve got to realize that as soon as they access a weapon as robert said if the joint Terrorism Task force isnt up on them and you miss this case and they murder two people nobody cares anymore how capable they were. They went from wannabes to terrorists in the space of 24 hours. I would agree some of these Court Documents will reveal and we have seen this for 15 years after 9 11 that the people we catch arent always the sharpest tools. That doesnt mean they cant murder people. All you got to do is get a weapon. Fair enough. Let me ask you, robert. This is the first time i can recall hearing uzbekistan or kazakhstan mentioned in one of these types of cases. Obviously the threat of islamic terrorism in Eastern Europe is very real. I guess you combine this with the tsarnaev brothers its coming here too. Look interesting part about this i dont want to create any kind of false connection before we know more however, there is something known as the Islamic Movement of uzbekistan that really essentially received exile in afghanistan in the late 1990s, upwards of 2,000 were there. They fought next to al qaeda and the taliban, for example, before 9 11. They show up in other places around the world. Granted, these individuals, too young really for that time frame, but there are a number small but still lethal that come from uzbekistan roots that show up in places like iraq syria and even yemen. First time im aware of that ethnicity being part of a recent plot within the United States. I want you both to take a listen to something the director of the fbi said earlier today. Those people exist in every state. I have homegrown violent extremist investigations in every single state. Until a few weeks ago, it was 49 states, alaska had none. Which i couldnt quite figure out. But alaska has now joined the group. So we have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states. Phil this appears to be if you talk to Law Enforcement, the new normal. I tell you, it is. Back early in the days after 9 11 we could focus on a target that was in some ways a bigger threat that is the strategic target of al qaeda and the 19 hijackers, a target that had taken down four aircrafts simultaneously. Back in 2008 i remember saying its not al qaeda anymore. It is an al qaedist revolution. You started seeing people on College Campuses and basements saying this ideology is interesting to me i have never met an al qaeda member but i would like to think about joining the organization. We are seeing that again in this case. The problem, though is in the past year or two with the dawning of whats happening in syria and iraq the ideology is accelerating once again. So 15 years into it i would say we dont have the kind of strategic problem we faced in 2002 but weve got a problem thats harder for an Intelligence Organization because its so dispersed. These Court Documents are written carefully and for public release, but as you alluded to there is assuredly a lot the fbi is not telling us about other people that may potentially be involved with this cell or other ones. Yeah, thats right. The ongoing investigation, nothing along those lines will be revealed of course because obviously the sensitivity. Typically, though just some supposition here you have a group of guys in this case known wolves or wolfpack. More often than not, its just them. Yes, they may have ties connections to conduits from Islamic State and other groups but usually its confined to the group that has been taken down so far but well see. Thank you both so much. Appreciate it. The world lead now. A small victory in the war against isis. One town no longer in its control but will this one fight, will one fight be enough momentum to defeat and destroy the terror group . Also snow ice, sleet, freezing rain. This time the south is getting pounded by a dangerous winter storm. The south. And the worst is yet to come. In my world, wall isnt a street. Return on investment isnt the only return im looking forward to. For some every dollar is earned with sweat, sacrifice, courage. Which is why usaa is honored to help our members with everything from investing for retirement to saving for college. Our commitment to current and former military members and their families is without equal. Start investing with as little as fifty dollars. Meet the worlds newest Energy Superpower. Surprised . In fact, america is now the worlds number one natural gas producer. And we could soon become number one in oil. Because Hydraulic Fracturing Technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. Supporting millions of new jobs. Billions in tax revenue. And a new century of American Energy security. The new Energy Superpower . Its red, white and blue. Log on to learn more. Welcome back to the lead. Im jake tapper. More now in our world lead today. New video showing isis quite literally digging in. Iraqi Security Forces unearthing what they say are isis tunnels, attempts to burro into the key city of ramadi. Overnight the Coalition Bombing campaign against the terrorists continued in earnest. Nine air strikes in syria, six in iraq. Lets get right to cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr. Is the coalition making any progress . Reporter well look jake at this point nobody is counting isis down and out. The iraqis making some progress but i think the big question still remains, what comes next on the ground. Iraq says their Defense Forces have nearly liberated al baghdadi the town in western iraq that isis has gripped for weeks. Its just a few miles from the al Assad Air Base where hundreds of american troops are on a training mission. For now, a victory for iraqi units. Just outside erbil, italian, german and dutch troops training front line peshmerga forces. Its still unclear whether the next big battle will be to retake mosul, iraqs second largest city. Amid worry iraqi forces still are not ready. If you go in there and its going to be tough fighting and if you lose or even if you have a stalemate, it looks like victory for isis. Reporter iraqi forces could first take on isis in western iraq which is less populated. But still an area with isis threats. A crucial hurdle for iraqi success, the need to include shia sunni and peshmerga forces. Its critically important the iraqi army get its fact together. Reporter Iraqi Forces Say they blew up the isis tunnels fighters were using to reach government buildings in ramadi. Elsewhere, isis still on a brutal offensive. Activists are reporting in northern syria, 150 christians kidnapped and threatened with execution after isis swept through several villages. Secretary of state john kerry says isis will have to be confronted directly on the ground across syria. A number of countries in the region have spoken of their willingness under the right circumstances to commit troops to that effort. Reporter in jordan the u. S. Embassy advising citizens to avoid shopping malls due to quote, credible threats. As isis threats continue to churn online the pentagon working on classified efforts to challenge isis in cyberspace tracking its encrypted web and social media accounts. That work is just beginning and i think because its live and were in a war time situation, we are not thats not going to be an area that we can talk about in a lot of detail. Reporter but back to that ground battle if it is going to unfold in the coming weeks and if u. S. Troops are going to be involved in it on the ground president obama is going to need to see a recommendation from the pentagon in the coming days. Jake . Barbara starr, thank you so much. While all this is happening, we continue to learn more about the three isis hopefuls the men whom the fbi say pledged their lives and Financial Resources to the terrorists mission of creating anarchy here in the United States. Lets bring in republican congressman from illinois adam kinsinger. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. I want to talk about these three new yorkers arrested. You had an arrest in your district of somebody accused of trying to bring Material Support to isis. Whats going on here . We didnt see this huge group of americans trying to join al qaeda. Whats going on with isis . Yeah. In rockford illinois, in my district, we had this pretty recently just a few weeks ago. We didnt have it with al qaeda because we were defeating al qaeda. Ever since basically we knew al qaeda was in existence prior to 9 11, but it wasnt really a big deal at that point. We had had some terrorist attacks in peoples minds but we didnt understand how big of a deal it was. On 9 11 we woke up to the threat al qaeda presented to us and went to war against them. You could argue with the tactics we used and places that we went but there was no doubt we were killing members of al qaeda and we were on the offense. With isis right now, the perception real or not, the president may argue with me but the perception is we are not winning the war, we are losing territory and its just like in chicago when the bears are good everybodys a bears fan. Right now when isis is appearing to be successful they are expanding into libya, then you have folks prone to this kind of jihadism maybe that havent actually signed on the dotted line for isis yet that at home radicalize themselves and say i want to be part of this successful movement. Do you think isis is defeating the coalition at this point . I dont think they are defeating the coalition. But i think they are gaining ground. So theres a lot of areas that the coalition isnt engaged in. Libya, for instance we are finding out they are joining forces in libya. They are probably going to expand into sinai if they havent already. We are seeing all over north africa. The other concern now is afghanistan, as we are withdrawing from afghanistan, isis is making a play to get built in into there. While theyre not defeating the coalition they are definitely gaining ground because the coalition i dont think is engaging robustly enough. This is going to be a long term fight. We know that. But i think frankly, we need to step up our ability to organize our allies like egypt. We have to call egypt an ally in this. And probably put some more assets on the ground imbedded with some native forces. We actually reported yesterday the administration is sending to iraqi troops to fight isis 10,000 m16 rifles laser sighted scopes 200 mraps to prep for this pending offensive. For an undertaking of this size do you think thats enough or will we need to send more . It depends. I cant say i have been in all those detailed negotiations but i think we need to send whatever is necessary. By the way, that includes to the peshmerga forces. A quarter of a million forces in the Kurdish Peshmerga are defending a 1,000 kilometer border with isis and we are also asking them not just to defend that border but also now to make gains into isis controlled territory. So both the iraqis and the peshmerga need to be directly armed by us and we have to ensure with the Iraqi Military that we have strong leadership imbedded with them which probably includes American Forces american advisors because with strong leadership the iraqis will fight. When their leadership melts away like we saw in mosul, your average soldier may have been eager to fight but if his captain runs away he will run away too. The west has been stymied at isis ability to bring in recruits. Listen to something that secretary of state john kerry said earlier today about that. Its not just kids from britain. There are several thousand people from russia. There are multiple hundreds of people from france from germany, from australia. The australians are in the targets now. Thinks a this is a spreading cancer. The state Department Says the number of russians in isis is in the hundreds not the thousands but if you include former soviet states the number easily exceeds 1,000. The three men arrested today from uzbekistan and kazakhstan the tsarnaev brothers obviously had family roots in dagestan in the wake of the paris attacks, a lot of attention on western europes ties to isis. Does intelligence have enough assets, enough language speakers to deal with the threat in Eastern Europe . I would say no. I think this has been part of our problem, frankly. We learned this on 9 11 that we rely too much on not human intelligence, and i think even in the last few years, we have seemed to shy away from that. I support the use of drone strikes against terrorists but sometimes when you do a drone strike against a terrorist, you are unable to capture him and get even more intelligence from that. You dont have the language speakers thats always been a tough thing. So i think we need to step that up. We need to understand military force is going to be important in this. Military force isnt going to solve all this problem. Intelligence plays an extremely Important Role in that. Again, showing to the folks that would be bent towards this kind of jihadism that if you join isis it will cost you your life or at least no matter where you are, your life is at risk people start making different calculations at that point. Congressman, thank you so much. Thank you. A big part of this country is feeling the impact of yet another major winter storm, a strong system is racing across the south. Some of you could get almost a foot of snow. Others dangerous ice. Its a region that is not really all that used to dealing with this kind of weather. How are the leaders in the south preparing for it today . We will find out next. Sfx opening chimes sfx ambient park noise, crane engine, music begins. We asked people a question how much money do you have in your pocket right now . I have 40 53, 21, do you think the money in your pocket could make an impact on something as big as your retirement . Not a chance. I dont think so. Its hard to imagine how something so small can help with something so big. But if you start putting that towards your retirement every week and let it grow over time, for twenty to thirty years that retirement challenge sfx crowd cheering might not seem so big after all. Welcome back to the lead. Im jake tapper. The National Lead now. If youre from part of the country where you were raised to believe that cheese grits should be its own food group, then you are probably one of the 20 Million People in the path of a dangerous winter storm sweeping through the south from texas all the way to virginia. This map shows the huge swath of the country being impacted. In total, 11 states will get a taste of the snow ice, sleet and or freezing rain with as much as eight inches of snow predicted for parts of georgia and North Carolina and while that might sound like more of a light dusting to you folks in say, buffalo, in the south, history has shown us that even a couple of inches can bring major cities to a complete standstill. Remember this nightmare on the highways in Metro Atlanta the last time a snowstorm hit . Cnns nick valencia has been on the road tracking the snow. Hes live from rome, georgia, just outside atlanta. Nick lets talk about Lessons Learned from last years snow disaster by the governor and the mayor of atlanta. What are atlantans and georgians doing differently this time around . Reporter certainly some big Lessons Learned from last time around. Its almost a complete 180 of what we saw in the first storm that came in late january, january 28th 2014 last year where you saw those images you just showed, grid lock traffic jams stories of people trapped in their cars for up to ten hours, sometimes more. I myself was even trapped in my own car for about four hours, stuck on the road in that snarled traffic. You see here on the road right now, some in the northeast may be looking at this picture, they could potentially say its laughable. We went through those storm systems, light snow flurries started and it picked up and has been more steady snow and you can see the remnants of what was left behind here. The good part about this time around jake is that the governor got out right in front of it the mayor of atlanta also in front of it. Community organizers and leaders trying to get people off of the roads, making sure that that was emphasized and so far, thats what we have seen. We havent seen any problems on the road. We have seen traffic moving smoothly as we have been about 35 miles or more outside of atlanta and so far, looks to be pretty good out there right now. Jake . Nick thanks so much. Both the governor of georgia and the mayor of atlanta, as i mentioned, took a lot of flack for seemingly flatfooted response to last years storm, but state and local Officials Say now they are ready in an effort to avoid some of the gridlock we saw on atlanta highways last year. The mayor put out a schedule of sorts to determine which residents should hit the roads today and when. The governor has also been doing some things to prevent what happened last year. Meteorologist Jennifer Gray is live in downtown atlanta. Atlanta is not expected to get hit hard with snow but it doesnt really take much there to wreak the kind of havoc we have seen in the past. You are so right. You saw what happened last year and it only took a little bit. It definitely helped with the staggered schedule sending people home. You didnt have the masses going on the interstate all at the same time like you had last year. Suburbs north of atlanta definitely got quite a bit more snow than say downtown along the i20 corridor and south. We are right in downtown. We are getting a rain sleet mixture around 2 00 3 00 this afternoon. We had pretty big flakes falling. It only lasted about 30 minutes and now it is just sleet. The problem will be when the temperature drops, though in the next couple hours and overnight. Thats when we could see some issues and some freezing on the roads. Its good that everyone is home. Lets go to the weather maps because i want to show you whats going on. Its not just atlanta but like you said it is all over the south. Anywhere from dallas say through shreveport along the i20 corridor got it earlier today. Now most of it in northern mississippi, alabama and even north georgia. You can see they are getting quite a bit of snow coming down even rome georgia, as well. So temperatures are right on that line. Theres a very distinct snow rain line. Anything south of that temperatures are going to be above freezing. 34 in birmingham getting a bit of a mixture. Greenville at 32. Timing this out, this is going to push to the east over the next couple of hours. Its a fast mover which is good news. We are going to see some trouble spots, especially in North Carolina as we go through the overnight hours into tomorrow. Places like raleigh and right outside of raleigh could see up to eight inches of snow and you can remember they just got hit pretty hard just a couple days ago. This is the fourth winter storm in about 10 or 11 days so the south has really been hit hard. Of course giving the northeast a bit of a break. The south definitely not used to this kind of weather. Jennifer gray thank you so much. Todays politics lead now. A possible gop frontrunner well before the 2016 president ial race. How Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may have turned socalled media gotcha moments into energy to create a campaign surge. Plus what his boost could mean for others looking to jump into the race. And before you book your next Airline Ticket how some southwest planes are able to fly without required safety checks. Eeeeeeeee financial noise financial noise financial noise financial noise alright, so this tylenol arthritis lasts 8 hours but aleve can last 12 hours. And aleve is proven to work better on pain than tylenol arthritis. So why am i still thinking about this . How are ya . Good. Aleve. Proven better on pain. The real question that needs to be asked is what is it that we can do that is impactful . What the cloud enables is computing to empower cancer researchers. It used to take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome; with the microsoft cloud we can analyze 100 per day. Whatever i can do to help compute a cure for cancer, thats what id like to do. Two weeks later. Look, credit karma are you talking to websites again . This website says free credit scores. Oh, credit karma yeah its actually free. Look, you dont have to put in your credit card information. Whew credit karma. Really. Free. In our house, we do just about everything online. And our old internet just wasnt cutting it. So i switched us from uverse to xfinity. They have the fastest, most reliable internet. Which is perfect for me, because i think everything should just work. Works . Works. Works works . Works. Works. Welcome back to the lead. Im jake tapper. The politics lead now. A poll released today could have big implications on the race for the white house in 2016. It shows Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker doing quite well among potential republican candidates in iowa a state that plays a key role in the president ial primaries. Its a surprising showing that underlines that this is really anyones race. To democrats and some in the media, Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott walker may have had a rough couple weeks, but dont tell that to Republican Voters in first in the nation caucus state iowa. There, scott walker leads the pack with 25 . In a new quinnipiac poll. Youve got to be crazy to want to be president of the United States. Reporter this comes after a wild past two weeks with walker sniping with reporters over whether he should be asked whether president obama is a christian or if thats just media gotcha about an issue few americans are wondering about. Walker is also demurred taking a position on evolution and unlike some of his republican rivals walker did not take issue with Rudy Giulianis assertion that obama does not love america. We are going to talk about the things that matter to every day americans and we will leave the nonsense to the media on the side. Reporter that seems to be working for now. In a dead heat for second place, senator rand paul at 13 . Ben carson and Mike Huckabee at 11 . What about that guy that walker seemed to be jabbing at this nashville appearance . Unlike some out there, i didnt inherit fame or fortune from my family. Jeb bush is in fifth plate with 10 . Thats the race with 622 days to go. 622 days to go. Lets bring in cnn chief political analyst gloria borger. Gloria are you surprised by how well walker is doing . He gave a good speech in iowa in late january that jazzed up the base and since then he has done very well with the base as you say we in the media think he did not so well on the Rudy Giuliani thing but it doesnt matter because he made it about us and thats always a good political strategy. What struck me in these polls is his low unfavorable rating 7 . Who has a 7 unfavorable rating . I dont even have that at home. Exactly. So what this shows is that either people like him in iowa or they dont know him very well. Right. He is a new quantity. How much do you think, obviously this is just your gut, we dont have science on this, how much do you think his fights with the media in the last couple weeks have actually helped fuel this rise in the polls among republican likely caucus goers in iowa . They certainly dont seem to have hurt him. If there were any group of republicans that would be most likely to help him, its iowa republicans. This is shaping up to be a very different kind of race than we have seen in the past. There is typically a establishment candidate and conservative candidate. Whats interesting about walker is he does seem to have appeal across the republican party. Thats one thing. The second thing is usually the antiestablishment candidates the field is split. This time walker has become a kind of antibush candidate in a way nobody really did against romney last time. I was talking to a conservative who is predisposed to support jeb bush because he thinks jeb bush can win the presidency against hillary clinton, but he said to me look you have to take walker very seriously, because he can unify the Republican Coalition on economic reform hes also shown hes got a spine when he came back in the state of wisconsin, he won a recall which is unprecedented in american history. And also social conservatives like him and he doesnt pound it into the ground but they know where he stands. So he said its like a rubiks cube kind of lining up all the colors at the same time and he thinks scott walker looks very serious out there. I agree. He does look like a serious candidates. I want to get your reaction to this quote from senator rand pauls father former republican president ial candidate and congressman from texas, ron paul, in a radio interview. I was always annoyed with it in congress because we had an antiwar official group, a few libertarian republicans and generally the black caucus and others did not, they are really against war because they want all that money to go to food stamps for people here. Thats ron paul not rand paul. Saying that members of the Congressional Black Caucus oppose war not because they oppose the wars but because they wanted the money to go to food stamps here. This is going to be an issue for senator rand paul. Certainly doesnt appear as though former congressman ron paul is doing everything in his power to help his son become president and comments like this coupled with a history of problems on racial issues are going to hurt senator rand paul. Abjectly but hes going to say thats my dad and i love him but im not him. Its at the same time that rand paul is trying to broaden the chance reach out to minorities hes going to historically black colleges and universities. Exactly. Reaching out to minorities. I talked to john kasich who may throw his hat in the ring and i asked him about rand paul. He said oh, you mean ron paul . He said oh, i always get them confused. His fellow republicans will do it im sure he really gets them confused. Yeah right. I dont think so. Thank you so much. Look whos here. Wolf blitzer is here with a preview of the situation room. We have a good show coming up. Senator chris murphy of connecticut, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee talking about the arrest of these three guys from brooklyn right now, supposedly getting ready to go off to turkey sneak into syria, hook up with isis if you will. We are talking about that. And ed royce is going to be joining us live as well. Theres a lot of stuff going on. Wolf blitzer in the situation room coming up in about eight minutes. Well be watching. Thank you. In the money lead it bills itself as a lowcost carrier but are you sacrificing your safety to fly on Southwest Airlines . Cnn is looking into why some planes can still fly despite not having gotten their required Safety Inspections in time. Thats next. Meet the worlds newest Energy Superpower. Surprised . In fact, america is now the worlds number one natural gas producer. And we could soon become number one in oil. Because Hydraulic Fracturing Technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. Supporting millions of new jobs. Billions in tax revenue. And a new century of American Energy security. The new Energy Superpower . Its red, white and blue. Log on to learn more. This is my body of proof. Proof of less joint pain. And clearer skin. This is my body of proof that i can fight Psoriatic Arthritis from the inside out. With humira. Humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. Its proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage and clear skin in many adults. 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The faa says Southwest Airlines can keep flying 130 of its jets despite having missed key Safety Inspections. Please recall this is the same airline that grounded jets after a sixfoot hole ripped open in the fuselage of one of its planes during flight not too long ago. Aviation correspondent rene marsh joins me now. Im a fan of Southwest Airlines. My motherinlaw used to work for Southwest Airlines. But how can the Airline Still fly these planes if they need to be checked out . Reporter we know that because of this issue, 80 flights yesterday were canceled but today, the faa is saying that they can continue to fly the planes if the issue is addressed in the next five days. If you have a flight booked on southwest, you are probably asking the question how can this be safe if these inspections were not done is it safe to fly on this plane. The bottom line is this is bad. An airline should not miss a routine Safety Inspection but you know what it indicates is sloppy recordkeeping, potentially sloppy Safety Record, safety culture. I want to kind of show you what we are talking about here. The system we are talking about is a backup system which essentially powers the rudder. This is the rudder here which essentially helps the plane to turn. So again, not a primary system a backup system. But the reason why aviation is so safe is because you have all of these redundancies. When you dont address and keep up to date with the backup systems, that kind of strips away a layer of safety. The bottom line is if you do have a flight booked on southwest i do not. Im glad. Because we need you here thursday and friday. But if you did, the faa would not allow these planes to fly if they felt that this issue would cause a crash. How is southwests Safety Record when it comes to complying with faa regulations . We can say i think thats the bigger story here because they dont have a squeaky clean past as it relates to following federal safety regulations. Just look back at 2006 the faa is proposing 12 million fine for a compliance issue there dating back to 2009. The faa fined them 7. 5 million for missing inspections in that case. So although they have a very good Safety Record when you look at all of their flights, no passengers have died as a result of a crash but you have a reputation and it doesnt look good when youre getting fined for missing inspections. Now they need to get on that. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Speaking of flying just one month after their country was rattled to its core by a terror siege, the u. S. Secret service is now assisting french officials in the probe over those mysterious drones that have been spotted hovering above paris landmarks over the last two nights. This stunning footage is not from one of those unmanned vehicles but several drones were seen flying above highly sensitive areas such as the eiffel tower, also the u. S. Embassy on monday. Just last night. Police are trying to figure out if last nights drones are connected to the flights on monday night or just copycats. Make sure to follow me on twitter. Check out our show page at cnn. Com for videos blogs and extras and you can also subscribe to our magazine on flipboard. Thats it for the lead. Im jake tapper. I turn you over to one mr. Wolf blitzer who is right next door in a place we like to call the situation room. Happening now, new york bomb plot. The fbi arrests three men living in brooklyn who allegedly talked of killing the president of the United States attacking police and blowing up a landmark while planning to join isis. Another mall threat. A major u. S. Embassy warns americans to be alert to potential attacks on shopping centers. We have details. North korea nukes. Kim jonguns ambitions and arsenal may be growing at an alarming rate. Why the dictator could soon have up to 100 nuclear weapons. Plus snow and ice. 43 million americans in the path of another big storm. Its bearing down