Home Depot Breach May Be Largest Ever; Obama and Top Lawmakers Talk ISIS; Interview with Congressman Peter King of New York
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: They would only say that, yes, there was a breach, they are investigating that breach, and working with the appropriate law enforcement authorities. And they apologized for that breach. If you feel as though you would like to have some free credit monitoring from Home Depot, you can go to Home Depot's Web site and see the number to call to get that. Home Depot also says that we'll reimburse you for any financial losses you should suffer if the hackers have indeed bought your information on the dark web and had counterfeit cards made with your name, your address and your number. How big is this? This has been going on since April. Just last week, it came to the attention of Home Depot upper brass and that's because Brian Krebs, journalist -- a cyber security journalist noticed the cards out there on the open market being sold and traced it back to Home Depot. This is just like the Target hack only a little bit bigger. This is another reason why the retail community in particular has got to get it together and figure out how to keep all of your information, makes it easy for you to go buy your grass seed in the spring, they've got to figure out a way to keep that more safe.</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: In the same prescription I guess goes, it's buyer beware. You just have to -- now, you just have to monitor your credit report, take a look at your credit card statements. That's about it.</s>ROMANS: You know, we've automated so much of our financial life. It makes it easy to kind of like use your plastic and not paying attention. You need to check. I would check right now if you have used a credit card, at a Home Depot anytime since May, I would look right now, since April actually, I would look right now and make sure there are no unauthorized transactions and look at your ATM, make sure there are no $15, $25, $100, $20 withdrawals from your ATM. Track it all.</s>BOLDUAN: It just keeps getting bigger and bigger unfortunately. Christine, thank you so much. A lot going on there -- Chris.</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm doing it now. Everybody shops at Home Depot, 60 million people. Go online and check, good advice from Christine Romans. All right. So, this morning, members of Congress are getting briefed on the president's plan to swipe at ISIS. What are they going to do? President Obama is meeting face to face with top House and Senate leaders this afternoon in the Oval Office. This is the setup for his pitch to you on his plan to stop ISIS. And to be sure, the issue matters, a new CNN/ORC poll reveals seven in 10 Americans fear ISIS is in the U.S. and has the capability to strike. Let's bring in senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta. The stakes are certainly high here. This is going to be more a moment than people anticipated early on I think, Jim. Fair point?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Chris, and the president is laying the groundwork for this big speech on ISIS that is set for tomorrow. The president last night dined with both Democratic and Republican foreign policy experts here at the White House. He's meeting with senior congressional leaders on his plan later today as the public and the politicians appear to be giving him the green light for action against ISIS.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): The flood of violence unleashed by ISIS has mobilized war-weary Americans to take on the terror group. Even in a bitterly divided Washington, Republicans are backing President Obama's expected decision to hit ISIS hard.</s>SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R), GEORGIA: Wherever they go, we're going to have to follow. And if that leads into Syria, then I hope the president has not taken that off the table.</s>ACOSTA: A new CNN/ORC poll finds three-quarters of Americans would support new U.S. airstrikes on ISIS in Syria. But by an overwhelming margin, they don't want boots on the ground. So far, the public is unhappy with the president's handling of ISIS, 59 percent disapprove.</s>JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We will be successful.</s>ACOSTA: But the administration's message is patience as Secretary of State John Kerry tries to assemble a global coalition to dismantle</s>ISIS. KERRY: Almost every single country on Earth has a role to play in eliminating the ISIL threat and the evil that it represents.</s>ACOSTA: And the Obama administration has been briefing lawmakers on the ISIS threat. They did so yesterday with members of the House Intelligence Committee and the director of the national intelligence and the CIA director will be up on Capitol Hill later today. As for Secretary of State John Kerry, you just saw him on the piece there, he is heading to the Middle East later today to start lining up Arab partners for a broad coalition to take on ISIS, Chris.</s>CUOMO: It will be interesting, Jim. Certainly, the White House has its job to do and then it falls to Congress. Will they take up their responsibility in this situation?</s>ACOSTA: That is a big question. I think at this point it is unclear as to whether the White House will seek that authorization. They keep talking about wanting to give members of Congress buy-in but they haven't specified exactly what that means, Chris.</s>CUOMO: Jim, thank you very much.</s>ACOSTA: You bet.</s>CUOMO: Kate?</s>BOLDUAN: A breakthrough in the investigation into the beheading of James Foley by ISIS terrorists. Officials say that they may have identified the executioner shown in the gruesome video. Officials are not saying it's 100 percent positive ID, but sources tell CNN they may know who the masked man is. CNN's Pamela Brown has spoken with officials who are connected with this investigation. She's, of course, joining us from Washington. What more are you learning this morning, Pamela?</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, officials I've been speaking with say law enforcement authorities are confident they are closing in on the man seen in the gruesome ISIS video of James Foley's execution released several weeks ago. Right now as we speak, U.S. and British authorities are working in tandem to confirm it is the person they think it is -- a British citizen with ties to a ring of extremists based in Great Britain.</s>BROWN (voice-over): He's the man known as Jihadi John.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An attempt by you, Obama, to deny the Muslims their rights will result in the bloodshed of your people.</s>BROWN: Speaking with what sounds like a British accent and holding a knife to American journalist's James Foley's neck just before he's beheaded. Now U.S. and British authorities are honing in on who they believe is the man behind the mask. A British citizen, who was linked to an extremist group based in London. Officials are not yet naming the suspect, citing the ongoing investigation.</s>GARY BERNTSEN, AUTHOR, "JAWBREAKER:  THE ATTACK ON BIN LADEN AND AL QAEDA": If you had possession of that name, you wouldn't make it public. You would, would you want them to think that no one knew who they were.</s>BROWN: Investigators have spent weeks using human and technical means to identify Foley's alleged killer. Relying on voice analysis of the British accent and picking apart meta-data taken from the video. But former CIA official, Gary Berntsen said it's likely the human sources led investigators to a possible suspect.</s>BERNTSEN: This is about the human intelligence game. They have thousands of individuals that have gone through terrorist training camps and they no doubt have developed a network of people, probably able to identify the individual that did the killing.</s>BROWN: Just two weeks after the James Foley video was released, another masked man with a similar accent appeared in a second gruesome video, this time in front of freelance journalist, Steven Sotloff.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You, Obama have yet again, for your actions killed just another American citizen.</s>BROWN: But U.S. law enforcement sources say it's too early to make the connection the masked man in both of these videos is the same person. Now new anger from the family of Steven Sotloff claiming that ISIS paid as much as $50,000 to rebels who alerted them to the whereabouts of the journalist, and stating that the White House did not do enough to rescue Steven.</s>BARAK BARFI, SOTLOFF FAMILY SPOKESMAN: We know that for most of the beginning of this part of this year they were stationary. We know that the intelligence community and the White House are enmeshed in a larger game of infighting and Jim and Steven are pawns in that game and that's not fair.</s>BROWN: And in response to the Sotloff family's complaints about the administration's efforts to secure Steven's release, National Security Council spokeswoman Kaitlin Hayden says, "We understand the very real pain the Sotloff family is feeling at this time. Our thoughts and prayers are with them as they grieve Steven's loss. We condemn the murders of Steven and Jim Foley and we remain committed to bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to justice." Kate?</s>BOLDUAN: Pamela Brown in Washington for us -- Pamela, thank you. Chris?</s>CUOMO: All right. Kate, there is no question that this is a big moment. Let's bring in Republican Congressman Peter King of New York. He's a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. He was briefed by the CIA last night about ISIS. Congressman, it is good to have you here. Before we get into the politics of the situation, and I know you have to be careful about specifics.</s>REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Yes.</s>CUOMO: However, did you learn anything that gives credence to a specific threat against the U.S. from is or anyone else surrounding the 9/11 anniversary?</s>KING: No. I would say there's always threat streams being analyzed. There's a number of them now. But to directly tie them to 9/11, I would say no. And I don't want to be alarming anyone. I'm not aware of any unusual threats. There's always threats out there being analyzed and there's certainly several of them right now being looked at. But as far as directly tied to 9/11, I would say no, but I would also say that even prior to the original 9/11, there was no direct evidence of a threat coming to the United States. So, we always have to be on our guard and ISIS is certainly capable of carrying out a very serious attack in the United States.</s>CUOMO: I know, but with the anniversary coming up, you have the pin on your lapel, in the forefront of everybody's mind after so much is being lost. That's why I asked you about that first.</s>KING: We have to be on full alert. We have to be on full alert, Chris, no doubt.</s>CUOMO: Now, with what you were told, do you have more confidence in what the White House wants to do going forward after speaking with the CIA?</s>KING: I believe I do. But again, we have to wait and see what the president says. I think what the president has to do in showing leadership is not say what he's not going to do. He should say that our goal is to destroy ISIS, he will take whatever military measures are necessary, he will try to form the largest coalition he can. But this is a threat involving the United States. It's not just Iraq. It's not just Syria, it's not just Europe. This directly affects our national security, and we will do whatever we have to do and we will take the lead.</s>CUOMO: Now, in terms of that part, we will do whatever we have to do, let's talk about Congress. There are reports some of your brothers and sisters down there are ducking a vote. For all the complaining that's going on about foreign policy, will you stand up and force Congress to take a vote on this issue, because it would be highly irresponsible to duck it?</s>KING: No, what I will say is I fully support the president taking action. If it comes to a vote I will vote for it. I think what should be done quite frankly is the president has the power as commander in chief, the president take the action and getting Congress to vote retroactively, because if we wait for Congress to debate this over the next few weeks, believe me, I will vote yes the first day. I have no problem saying that right now. If this goes bad, I'm taking responsibility. So, I'm not trying to duck anything here, but this is so eminent, this is so critical. I want the president to take the action and then I think Congress should pass legislation supporting what the president does. But I don't want him to wait until Congress acts because I don't have full faith in Congress myself, to be honest with you. I know there's people who want to duck the vote and I don't want our foreign policy to be tied to that. But I'm telling you, I will fully support the president.</s>CUOMO: There's two problems with that. The first is, you already have Republican congressmen saying, you know, we may just let him do it, which is once again just giving the president power with the military that the Constitution probably did not anticipate, and say if it goes well, we'll say oh that's great, what took you so long, and if it goes badly we can second-guess him. This Republican is saying this out loud? What the heck does that even mean?</s>KING: There's too much politics on this issue. I'm telling you right now, if this goes good, I'll give the president the credit, if it goes bad, I'll take responsibility because I'm one of those calling for strong action. As far as the Constitution is concerned, presidents have deployed troops and have taken military action more than 100 times in the history, I think we've only declared war five times. Having said that I do believe Congress should step up. But I'm just saying, it's not going to happen in the next several weeks. I think the president would be smart to go ahead, take the action but Congress should definitely approve what he's doing. We owe that to the American people. I have no -- listen, to me, if you're afraid to vote on war and peace, then you don't deserve to be in Congress.</s>CUOMO: Well, that's the message, right? Because there's a lot of pressure, a high bar being put on the president. That's all about the politics of this. That's all about making it difficult for him to succeed tomorrow night.</s>KING: Chris, let me tell you this, I have been critical of the of the president, because we've known for eight months, actually up to a year, how severe and critical a threat from ISIS has been. Yet, during that time we had the president, whether we call them junior varsity or said we're back in pre-9/11 days --</s>CUOMO: Why didn't you convene Congress? Why didn't you call a vote on it right then? If you were so secure about the threat, why didn't you call? Why didn't you say we should vote on it?</s>KING: Chris, if you were listening to me I've been saying for the last year that al Qaeda is more dangerous now and its offshoots are more dangerous now than on 9/11, and I've consistently said this publicly. As far as calling for a vote, the president is the commander-in-chief, but he has to take the action, he has to propose the action but he should not have been telling the American people al Qaeda was defeated, he should not have been telling the American people the threat diminished when the threat was greater now than it was then. And that's where I've been critical of the president.</s>CUOMO: Look, fair point. You have been saying that. You said that to me on your show -- I'm using you as the royal you in Congress --</s>KING: Right.</s>CUOMO: -- because there's so much complaining going on about the foreign policy. Is it a fair criticism that too many people down where you are right now are trying to of it both ways? They're trying to set the president up tomorrow night with a very high bar of expectation and yet doing as little themselves as possible.</s>KING: Some are and some aren't. Yes, listen, I've had people in my party who are isolationists, people like Rand Paul were basically saying we shouldn't be involved overseas at all, and now, he's saying we should be attacking in Iraq and Syria. We have Ted Cruz saying we should bomb them back to the stone ages. No, there is too much politics in foreign policy. I've tried to be bipartisan on foreign policy, to be critical of the president when he think he's wrong and also to support him when I think he's right. If on Wednesday night, he says we're going to have sustained air attacks, we're going to line up allies, I will fully support the president of the United States. I just hope he doesn't say what we're not going to do. Let the enemy try to figure out what we're not going to do.</s>CUOMO: I think that's a great suggestion, I know a lot of other people do. You're getting a lot of play for putting that out there. Representative King, thank you for joining us. I think we'll hear what the president has to say to members of Congress tomorrow and to the rest of us and interesting to see what Congress does in response. Hopefully, they step up and don't sit back. Thank you very much for joining us.</s>KING: Thank you, Chris.</s>CUOMO: Mick, a lot of news out there.</s>MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Certainly there is, Chris. Fourteen minutes past the hour. Here is a look at headlines. We begin with preliminary findings out this morning from the investigation into the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. You'll recall it was shot down over Ukraine in July. The report says the flight broke apart in the air when it was struck by high energy objects. Investigators found no sign that flight data recorders were tampered with in the days the crash site was under the control of pro- Russian rebels. The final report of the crash is expected sometime next year. Federal health officials say a U.S. air marshal is being quarantined in Houston this morning. This is being done out of an abundance of caution after that marshal was attacked at the airport in Lagos, Nigeria. He was stabbed with a syringe containing an unknown substance. The CDC is now concerned the substance could be some form of the Ebola virus. Meanwhile, a fourth American infected by Ebola is about to arrive in the U.S. for treatment. The unidentified patient is flying into Atlanta this morning from Sierra Leone. The patient will stay in an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where two other aide workers successfully recovered from the disease. Another patient is being treated in Nebraska. Dr. Sacra is recovering right now, although his recovery remains uncertain. Those are your headlines, guys.</s>BOLDUAN: All right. Michaela, thanks so much. Running back Ray Rice cut by his team and suspended by the league after new video surfaces showing him punching his future wife straight in the head, and knocking her out cold. The question everyone is asking this morning, when did the NFL first see this footage?