People taking to the streets as you see there live. Plus this weekend takeover the trump convention. A special one hour ahead of the rnc. Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight, fair, balanced and unafraid. Im in for bill oreilly. This is a fox news alert. A coup underway in turk y the military is trying to throw president erdogan out. At this moment its unclear who is in control. Tanks are in the street. President erdogan has told the people to take toot streets. Facebook, twitter, youtube have all been shut counsel. Passenger flights all headed toward turkey all turning around as the istanbul airport is shuttered. It is closed. Unfolding and dangerous situation. Live Team Coverage continues right now from its istanbul where grn correspondent laura wells is standing by. What provoked this. There is so much thats gone into this. Rumored for years those
who opposed the president erdogan that Something Like this might happen. Turkey has a history of military coups. And now we are looking at one. Although one general tonight said that this is only part of the military. Another general has asked all of the soldiers to go back to their paces. Although its rumored that the military chief of staff has been taken hostage in the military office there now some of erdogan supporters have taken to the streets as he has asked being on private networks through phone interviews. Mainly going to mosques in major cities. They are using the sound systems there to call upon the supporters to gather. And some of them have even gone on to the bridges, which were closed earlier tonight by the military, the two main bridges in istanbul, and there are reports that social are firing on his supporters. So, this is getting hairy very quickly. There is some shock for people that dont remember the successful 1908 coup when there was martial law. There was a new constitution drafted and turkey became a closed economy. There is just no telling where this is going now certainly its a very difficult situation no one knows where president erdogan is. He had been rumored before the coup started he was marmouth. I have a Family Member there. They are saying no ships are allowed in and out. The navy has around the bay there. He is rumored to be staying with a businessman on the coast. And that all of the roads are closed in and out of that town so were seeing the Prime Minister, again only on phone interviews. We dont know where his location is and we dont know where its going at
this time. Continuing into the tonight. Whats being reported now turkish fighter jet has shot down a helicopter used by the military. This is really escalating. We are reading reports that there are tanks on the streets. That people have taken to the streets. Its bizarre that president ered done erdogan. He calls in to cnn network and face times because everything has been shut down. Have you got the internet essentially shut down and airports closed. Where are you in istanbul . Dont tell me your exact location. You can look out the window and see anything unusual . Right now i am outside really since the coup was announced istanbul turned into ghost towns because the soldiers also took over state media and they said that they had instituted a curfew. No one really wants to face tanks and soldiers who have called a curfew. Remember, that turkey has the second largest army in nato. This is a very large, very powerful army. Now erdogan supporters are gathering. So, if this isnt managed well either way, you know, we could be seeing citizen on citizen strife. Well, you know whats so even just give a little background to the viewers is that erdogan, correct me if i am wrong, laura is very religious. And pushing the country in a more conservative islamic direction. Not a secular direction. He is a nato ally nomination. Military one of the reasons for the coup is that they dont like this drifting away from a secular government. Is that a very simplistic way to say whats going on right now . I would say its accurate. You are giving basically what is happening here and why so many, about 50 of the population is upset with president erdogan. It goes beyond his islamist
tendencies, his use of religion for political gains and popularity. They also dont like the fact that he is trying to turn it from a parliamentary system into a president ial one. That has been on at the forefront of his agenda recently. He doesnt want a president ial system like the United States, he said. He wants one more like, say, putin. He didnt mention russias system. He would never accept what obama accepts with congress and the balance of powers there. He certainly has brought part of the judiciary under his thumb. Certainly some of the private sector some are estimating 08 of thed me is under governments control not literal control. He is a highly controversial, divisive character. And the fact that a week ago he announced that the Syrian Refugees would get citizenship thats 3 million and across the political spectrum that was highly controversial and most
people reacted negatively. Of course as a nato ally, we use a base there to help in our war against isis. And you have got the situation where turkey borders syria and iraq. And there has been some thinking by assad in syria that erdogan was allowing foreign fighters to get into the country to fight against him. So, this is disruptive to the whole region, plus, its disruptive to us because heres a guy who is trying to get away from a constitutional, secular government to a more islamic government and is he a nato ally. Again he has been rit sized for being islamic. Some of the foreign fighters in syria came from turkey. Certainly the government did turn a blind eye. There is no doubt about it they wanted assad to fall. They believed this was the best way to do it. Since then turkey has been taking it very seriously. Also, 3 million Syrian Refugees from mostly from
syria, i should say. Some are from iraq, afghanistan and other places. That is a real difficulty. Even though he was not popular and very highly criticized by most eu leaders. Now that we have the eu migrant deal i dont think they are going to risk 3 million more refugees coming into their borders. Also, United States just as you said, at first, turkey was very reticent to allow the United States to use their air bases to fight isis especially in syria. They did allow that starting last summer. That is something the United States liked. And now germany is doing that as well. Again, are they going to risk it . Doesnt seem very likely. Here is some very Important News. As we are trying to figure out what position the United States is going to take is that president obama and secretary kerry have spoken. And they have said that all parties should support an elected government. So that obviously is Important News coming out of our white house. And there is also news being reported by state run television or state run media in turkey that 17 Police Officers have been killed in some sort of helicopter attack. We will get more information on that. But this is certainly very grim situation in turkey. Laura, thank you very much. Thank you. And joining us former u. S. Spokesperson to the United Nations rick grenell. Rick, you know a lot about turkey. And this situation is a very, i dont know, i dont know what to say about it. The president and secretary of state want the parties to support the elected officials. Your thoughts . Well, i think thats actually the right public statement. President obama and secretary kerry need to be able to say those things. This is a nato ally. This is a country that has elected erdogan. You go back and look at the
history of erdogan. No one should be surprised that its a secularists inside the military have decide to do take over. And to at least launch a coup. The concern that i have right now is that the coup doesnt look like it worked. So, if you go back to the last time this happened in 1997, the coup didnt work either but the Prime Minister was force to do resign within several months after that because he was weakened. I think whats going to happen, greta is one of two things. Either if this coup, you know, cheaperly didnt work and local police loyal to erdogan are going to take to the streets and scare, i think. Turkish people into following the rules and we will see from erdogan and his team an aggressive outreach to try to take back power in any way that he can. And the question is going to be is it going to become even worse in terms of freedoms and democracy
inside turkey because erdogan is grabbing power or are the people going to say enough is enough and were probably going to have citizenoncitizen violence. It could be bloody. Im fearful that this turkish ally of ours, which truly they are a great nato ally of ours is going to start experiencing some very indepth violence and problems and take several months, if not longer to figure out who is going to be in charge. Well, you know, you say outreach i dont know if i would use the term outreach because this is a president who has more journalists in prison than i think any other nation. Refers to women who dont have children as half human. He has quite an interesting pack ground to put it lightly. Is he a nato ally. But, is he a good friend of the United States, rick . Beyond all this, is he really our friend . He hasnt been great. The one thing if you look at
syria, he has said assad should go. He has been focused on assad. He has been trying to get the u. S. To focus on getting rid of assad. Thats the u. S. Policy. He hasnt done a done in terms of going after isis. But, no, i think the answer to your question is he hasnt been a great friend of ours. So, thats why i say the public face of president obama and everyone should be he is legitimately elected. We stand for, you know that. But, i think we can do a lot. We can work with the military. The secularists inside the military have been our friend. We know they are from democracy. We know they have seen istanbul bombing. They were very uncomfortable with the leadership of erdogan getting too close to the islamist. This is why we had the palming. The nice attack was just the icing on the cake for the military leaders, the secularists who said if we dont do something to right this ship back in turkey
steer us away from the islamists. We are going to see more violence like the istanbul bombing and nice. This is a move from the military it doesnt look like it was successful partly because over the last several years erdogan has replaced secular generals with his own islamist types. So the military itself has been changing. The leadership of the military has been changing. And thats a concern because now that they tried this coup, it doesnt look like it has worked. We will wait and see. If it hasnt worked, i think we are going to see blood shed over the next several months for our ally turkey. And i should point out it looks like on the screen, the viewers can make just as much as a judgment on this as i can. It looks like civilians fighting against people in a tank. Obviously, they are there is fighting going on. You know, rick, as i watch. We will be able to see military versus police. Rick, its interesting. As i watch this, and watch i dont know if there is going to be a change in power or not or whether president erdogan is going to power. You have to contrast it we just had a change of power in britain and how different was the change of power in britain with cammeron stepping down to may. Some nations in south sudan civil war where the president is fighting with the vice president. Now you have this a military coup and erdogan who has not necessarily been our best friend but is he elected so we are publicly supporting him. If he doesnt regain control, you know, whats next . We have seen these countries where these horrible leaders we dont like get overthrown or get changed and what comes along is worse for us, rick. Yeah. I see that i dont have that fear in turkey because they do have an incredible history, the military has an incredible history of guarding against the islamist. What is happening in turkey
is the reaction to say the elected official erdogan is getting too close to the islamists. So people are rising up, military types are rising up and saying we dont want this future for us. Thats why my concern is with erdogan. Is he going to try to curb them and may go even more toward the islamist. If he is removed, i think the military would make sure that the next leader was somebody more in line with the soak could you larrists. The problem, rick, as you and i discuss in such a clinical fashion, you know, about this the islamists and the secularists, what we look at of the pictures though is a very enraged situation where you have got people fighting. Have you got tanks on the street. Have you got airports shut down. You have facebook. Youtube. I mean, it doesnt seem like a clinical, intellectual discussion when you look on the street it looks like a big problem. It looks like a huge danger. Well, thats exactly right. I think its a good point because when you look at the military and who they are loyal to it is different than the local police. The jurisdictional fights of who is controlling whom and all of the citizenry taking different sides, we definitely have a major problem thats developing and for all of us who have so many friends inside turkey, tourism is obviously going to be greatly affected this is a problem for the United States that n. That as a member of nato turkey is not only a great ally but on somebody we have relied on middle east policy for. We have a problem with turkey because their islamist leanings away from their traditional middle east policy. For instance, the flotilla, when president erdogan sent the flotilla to gaza it raised the traditional allies like the united
states and israel. And they had a diplomatic, you know, cease basically with the israelis. That has been fixed only recently we have had a long history of erdogan not doing the policy. If you look at syria, greta, the turks have fought with everybody. They fought with the russians, they have been not on the same page with the americans. Literally picks sides with every side of the conflict. We dont know who is in charge of the country. We dont know where president erdogan is the military and police are at each others throats. People are on the streets there are tanks there the airport is shut down. There is no there is no youtube. State media has been shut down. At least some of it. And we have got a situation
where, you know i dont know where this leads at this point. I was going to say i talked to a friend inside istanbul tonight right before i got on air here i asked them do you have any information of whats going on . He said we really dont. We have heard a formal statement. He thought at first there was some sort of terrorist attack in toxsim square. When we see the fighting on both sides, there is a reaction from individuals inside turkey with very limited information. And so thats one of the problems when you have the power like erdogan to be able to shut down media because you control the media, thats extremely problematic. Thats not something that we in the nato. And i have to say, i have to go back to we have seen this coming for a long time in terms of erdogans move
towards the islamists. We have been very uncomfortable with this. But we havent spoken out enough. I think that the u. S. Policy. The u. S. Muscular Foreign Policy needs to be much better to push our allies when something takes place right in the beginning when we first saw him shutting down the media arresting journalists, we should have had a much more forceful reaction than what we have had. Rick, thank you for joining us. Now to what u. S. Intelligence is hearing at this hour. Fox news chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge joins us. I wants to repeat that apparently president obama and secretary kerry have spoken and their position is all parties should support an elected government which, of course, is erdogan good news is here bedrock relationships members of the Intelligence Community and members of the military. The military is the one launching the coup in turkey. And then also at a diplomatic level these are
relationships which are sustained over administration. So they have better channels of communication. So what i anticipate now is that those channels, they are attempting to open. The other thing that has really developed in the last five years by the Intelligence Community is the use of social media and ago grey gating what theyre able to literally suck up in that vacuum to try and take the temperature of whats really going on because there are two Different Levels here. There is what we are seeing on television. There is what the government is saying through state controlled media. And then there is the same sort of strategy. You have assad who doesnt like erdogan. He thinks erdogan has helped get foreign fighters in there to fight him. You have that situation. The kurds who are separatists inside turkey who have been battling with him forever. It seems to me and you look at whats going on in the
streets there, it seems to me a very unstable situation. And we may have these great relationships but we have these great relationships with people who are in a very unstable environment. At least tonight. I mean, look at the streets. Right. When you look at this whole region now, now versus five years ago, what you see is that the borders that we have known or grown up with these have really disappeared and dissolved. The administrations stated strategy is to keep iraq whole, but whats understood private privately is that iraq is gone and there are these three separate entities within that country. Whether you have that level of stability. It has that spill overeffect like a balloon. You put pressure on one end and then it comes out on the other. So what we are seeing here it might not be quite the right phrase but its the domino effect of this disintegrations of iraq. Which is really terrible. It started in iraq with the sunnies and the shiites. These arguments though with the turks and kurds. That has been going on for decades. Then all the the sudden we had the origin of the caliphate in syria. And we had the with the civil war in syria and turkey was pretty much at least somewhat stable. We had a lot of connections and friendships and base. And running our war against isis out of the base in turkey and we had a reasonably Good