Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140922 : vimarsan

If youre going to preach the stuff, you need to live it. Host our last caller in this segment. Up next, Susan Crabtree joins us. She is the White House Correspondent for the Washington Examiner. Isisll talk about recruiting western fighters. We will be right back. Here are just a few of the comments we have received from our viewers. The historical educational informative and highly educational. They are invaluable to a Young Society today. I highly encourage you guys to show more. I am watching nancy pelosi. I accuse cspan of being a liberal. This is a classic example of what i am talking about. We dont need her giving a weekly briefing. Dietn sees that we get a of nancy pelosi. Most of the time she never tells the truth. Give us a break. I enjoy your programming. The examination of little bighorn and all of it is very good programming. Whatntinue to let us know you think about the programs you are watching a. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Campaign 2014 debate coverage continues tonight at 7 30 p. M. Eastern with the pennsylvania governors race. 9 00, theight at Nebraska Senate race. Next sunday, the Iowa Senate Debate between bruce braley and jodi ernst. More than 100 debates for the control of congress. Washington journal continues. The Susan Crabtree is Washington Examiner White House Correspondent. Pastdid we learn from the week about the issue of homegrown isis threats in the United States . Was a lot of attention to this on capitol hill. They came out of those with wide eyes. They have never seen such a threat since 9 11. We have learned a lot. There are two different types of homegrown threats they are concerned about. One of those are people who are called out to syria, they are recruited by isis and other organizations operating in syria. One is isis. It they go over there and they train to be suicide bombers and train to fight with them. Then they come back to the ad states. That is the main concern. Types that are radicalized locally. They are reaching out to the internet and social media. They are seeing wellfunded propaganda from isis. They have a very Sophisticated Media operation. There is fear they will use their passports and visas. Host what is the scenario that lawmakers are more worried about . A widely coordinated attack . Wolf, one person attack . Guest i think theyre scared of both this point. There is a group called cores on in syria. It is entirely different. It is a cell from out data al qaeda. Focusing on western attacks. This is a new threat. It peter king talked about it last wednesday. Jeh johnson just shut down talk aboutand cannot it in a classified setting. They were asking about it at the white house briefing. From completely different from isis. They are coming from all over the place. They are mainly coming from yemen and saudi arabia. We have not fully reported on it because it is so new. People on capitol hill are worried about it is they would not speak about it in an open hearing. Host you talked a little bit about recruiting efforts. Can you talk about how those efforts work and what the scenarios are to get upwards of 100 americans it been recruited at this point by isis . Rochester wasn operating a convenience store. Jury indicted him. It was unsealed last week. Eric holder announced this tuesday night. He was recruiting different people. He was spending 600 of his own money to send these guys over to syria. He was recruiting local new yorkers to go to syria. He was planning attacks. Attack u. S. Military coming back from iraq. He is now under indictment and we will see how that jerry plays out there in they discovered him through twitter. They were looking at his twitter account and it was interesting. Radical jihadist statements. It doesnt seem like he knew the fbi could catch on to that. Host they are concerned about. Alf again that campaigns this is jeh johnson talking about isis and their propaganda campaign. We will play that and come back. Thatthink it is important in our efforts we not enable the than we recruit faster can capture or kill the enemy. ,hen it comes to the homeland along with the efforts of our military and along with the overseasf our partners to take the fight directly to isis, there has to be an effort to counter their propaganda and their social media. There has to be an effort at engaging potential violent extremist threats here at home. Out, these pointed groups in the current age are very good at propaganda and recruitment. Doc nt have to and indoctrinate them in a terrorist training camp. On counteracting the literature and the that isis, the notion is an Islamic State. That is false eeriest it is not a state and it is not islamic. It is a group of murderers and kidnappers. It they are a group of depraved individual that have captured the worlds attention. I think i am addressing the premise of your question. It has to be a comprehensive agent effort. Host how does that work . What are the strategies to do that . Guest theyre trying to get different imams to stand up and say this is not part of our religion. This is a radical extreme version and we denounce it. They have been releasing weeksents over the last showing different leaders of the muslim faith that are standing up against isis and saying it is not legitimate. Host is this something new with isis . Is this not true of al qaeda . I think it is more aggressive. This is even more barbaric. People are taken aback on capitol hill. This is aein says completely different version than what we have seen before. Felt like there might be something happening but we did not know what the threat was. We know what the threat is. They are declaring us a strategic enemy and are plotting attacks. Host we are talking to Susan Crabtree. If you have question or comments for her, phone lines are open. Susan crabtree, the u. N. Is meeting this week. There is going to be a meeting held specifically on isis threats. What do we know about that meeting question mark guest we have a wednesday address from president obama. There are 15,000 from even to syria tontries fight with isis. They want to know how we can stop this. Do we need to revoke passports . Do we need to make it illegal for people to go to syria . Britain has arent taken steps to stop their citizens to go to syria. There is a movement that is building steam on capitol hill to make it illegal for americans to travel to syria. That is very difficult because you can go to turkey and jordan and they are our nato allies. I expect the president to speak about this on wednesday and hold a big assignment with other World Leaders. Host we want to get to your calls. Dakota is in oregon on the republican line. Caller good morning. I have several questions for you. I study Foreign Policy at the university of portland. Andstened to your comments the videos that were given by cspan as examples. I follow with great enthusiasm statements given by the Prime Minister of britain and the president of the United States. Of we have no strategy for isis was sort of fire, he flaming the was trying to be honest and genuine with the press. To get your opinion on how certain statements could the ind as a defensive weapon terms of mocking us. Guest i wouldnt say we have a strategy to defeat them. We have the fbi has been tracking different people. A florida man went to syria, he came backsis to the United States and went to see his parents. This was an americanborn a person who was raised in the United States. This is according to videos he released on youtube before he went back to damascus somewhere in syria and blew up a restaurant with Syrian Regime soldiers in it. He felt the fbi was on his trail. You also have the Justice Department, as i just mentioned, and feeling an indictment against rochester, new york. Being developed to late last year. It is not like our government is doing anything and i do not want to send that message in any way, shape, or form. You had jeh johnson in the Homeland Security Committee Last week saying we have a reasonable degree of confidence that we know when people are traveling but we do not know who is traveling there and that is of deep concern. We also have president obama with a strategy of arming syrian rebels. We are taking steps. Aemphasize that there is not direct we do not have aced that we knowt about right now, that the Homeland Security department and other intelligence agencies are working very actively to track as many people as we can fighting over there but there is knows as of the threat and that does not mean anything. As i was told last week, we did not know before 9 11 either. Were talking about recruiting efforts and shared the video of jeh johnson talking about recruiting efforts. Examine the pitch for recruits and you will find religious governments were talking about the threat isis poses here in the homeland. David is in maryland on our line for independents. Good morning. I have a question. We heard jeh johnson and probably other World Leaders say very clearly that the Islamic State it is not a state and also not islamic there is some us who do not know any better have a really hard time understanding how it is not islamic. Againstany muslims are who are against what the Islamic State is doing. How is an entity not islamic doing such a better job at ,ecruitment than al qaeda was less radical than the Islamic State . Is the Islamic State radicalizing muslims who are otherwise from moderate backgrounds . How are they doing that . Finally, this insistence among our leaders that these guys are not islamic, is this a way to prepare us for going to war with them . We might also get to this question from twitter asking to explain the exact meeting meaning of the term radicalized. You had john kerry last week in his Foreign Relations Committee Hearing saying they are exactly what you just said. They are not islamic and he even said, they are the spawn of help. I was taken aback. You do not hear that kind of language because john kerry knows what it means to say that. Said, i wouldg say how are americans and other westerners supposed to take this . We always see coming out of syria and iraq, these beheadings, and that just captures the public. We will associate that with the muslim religion and islam in general. It is something i think muslims really need to consider and they need to take greater stance to announce this. These groups if you look at them, they are more interested in Holding Power and me, then, it seems to really talking about their religion. All religions are supposed to be aspiring to help people. This is not something that i just think if you look at what people on capitol hill are saying, that these are thugs and holdingn power territory. How you go from a kid, a florida kid whose 22, a college dropout, how do you go from playing basketball for your High School Team and talking about how you like a goes on fourook to going to fight in syria. It is a process, people say how could it happen better than al qaeda. It is because social media right now is much different than we had 10 or 13 years ago. Before 9 11. Intelligence agencies are concerned about how quickly people are becoming radicalized. Radicalization means you are reaching out to people in syria and reaching out to these terrorist groups and they are giving you information about how to build bombs. There is a magazine called how to teaching people build bombs. It is readily available on the internet and you have youtube audio spirit it seems people in this country are looking for a movement, looking for a cause. They have strongly held opinions for their background and theyre looking for a way to join forces. 22yearold,ida the accounts i have seen and read, talked about how he was promised a wife over there when he got there, that he would be martyred, that he would be in heaven. It is something we obviously need to learn more about. What are the estimates in the number of westerners who have gone over, specifically to join isis . There are at least 100 americans. Believe there is 1500 or more, around 2000 is the most ive heard, 1500, from the west. Otheroes not include countries out there. I have seen a map, a chart, that shows recruits from every country in europe, russia. Theyre coming from everywhere, and it is up to 15,000. Lets go to virginia on our line for independents. Kevin is waiting. Go ahead. Hello. The other factor in this nation is probably our prison systems. There are so many muslims in our state prisons and theyre angry, bitter people to begin with. You could always guys in jail such, theyments and are recruiting people all the time. To know anything about the 100 or so americans that have gone over the estimates, or have you been able to check who the people are and what their background is . We have certain cases coming forward. Three comingast from minnesota. Minnesota has a huge somalian population. All. Not new for them at i chuck i spoke to john kline. Somalisr, you have the from a smalley population in st. Paul and minneapolis, going over. O somalia this has been a growing concern, but like jeh johnson said and the Homeland Security Committee Last week, we do not know exactly. We do not have a high degree of confidence that we know everyone going over there. Eleanor is up next, springfield, massachusetts, on our line for republicans. Good morning. Lets start with the battlefield at home. We have languages, and it should be more than one language, because the people on the other side of the paper call in and. Ote have instantaneous instantaneous citizens. So this article one, section eight, and by press the president and put on the border eight, ction eleanor brings up the border and i want to stay on that for a second. How much concern on capitol hill is there for the border and how much isis is trying to specifically target the southern border . What jeh johnson said, again, was that he did not have any knowledge of people coming across the border for isis related or other terrorist groups. He would not be definitive. This, he said, let me make sure and get back to our people at the Homeland Security department and get back to you on that ear from my knowledge, i can say, there were no examples he could cite. One other official on capitol hill being asked the question, director of the counterterrorism center. I hear a bit of his testimony on homeland terrorism and threats to the United States. We have seen nothing to indicate there is any sort of operational effort or plot to infiltrate or move operatives into the United States to the southern border. Are there further hearings that will be scheduled . Any committees coming back to talk about the issues and a time between now and november 12 . Not that i know of era as you know, you probably reported on, there will be a big and huge debate when we get back to november about the authorization process and whether president obama needs to renew the 2001 authorization that allows president bush to go after al qaeda and is september 11 attacks to post a threat then. Now, president obama said we do not really need that but we welcome the debate. We expect that to take place in november. I am certain the homegrown threat will continue to be a problem and there will be a continuous issue that people focus on and there will be an effort and focus on hearings when Congress Gets back. We have about 15 minutes or. O courage, our line for democrats, good morning. I am calling to thank cspan for having richard gage and the architects and engineers for 9 11 truth. I would like to see you have more people on like that. Pilots for 9 11 truth and physicists. The topic were talking about now, do you have a question . Are talking about terrorist attacks and if we get the truth out, we understand all the fear mongering will not get us anywhere. I want to touch on Something Else you covered, the discussion on capitol hill to possibly suspend the visa Waiver Program, about isis, radicalized isis fighters coming back and using the Waiver Program as a way to get in the country. Can you talk a little bit about that . There are 38 countries that allow people to come to the United States from those countries and they do not have to have a visa at all or they can just come here for business and pleasure and stay for 90 days without question. There is concern that because we cannot track these homegrown fighters to go to isis, to go to syria to fight with isis, they would go to norway and some of these participating countries, and be able to come here very easily. There is some talk about suspending the program but the bigger issues in the bills that are getting more traction in capitol hill are those to make it illegal to travel to syria completely. Representative frank wolf has a bill to do so. That would be good for our Law Enforcement agencies. Right now, you have the fbi director on capitol hill last week saying he is really concerned about due process and we need to protect our due process rights. He needs to figure out if we can take those it has to be a crime. You have to have evidence against these people in order to stop them or revoke their passports. The state department is the only institution right now that can revoke passports. You cannot revoke passports without any kind of criminal activity or evidence of criminal behavior. We can go to syria and prove that, immediately, we can