Face the Nation Transcripts November 15: Sanders, Nunes, & Burr
(CBS News) -- Guests included Elizabeth Palmer, Margaret Brennan, Mike Morell, William Bratton, Bernie Sanders, Devin Nunes, Richard Burr, Farah Pandith, Danielle Pletka, Peggy Noonan, Jamelle Bouie, and Nancy Cordes.
JOHN DICKERSON, HOST: Today on FACE THE NATION: Democrats face off at our CBS News debate in Iowa, but the focus is far away in Paris.
The death toll stands at 129, following multiple terror attacks on the French capital Friday night. We will have latest on the investigation and look at the impact the attacks will have on the war against ISIS.
We will talk to the chairman of both the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees, Devin Nunes and Richard Burr, plus, Mike Morell, the former number two at the CIA. And we will hear from New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton about what efforts are being made to increase security here at home.
Then we turn politics, where the show went on last night in Des Moines, but with a more serious tone when it came to national security. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders joins us this morning to talk about the debate and the race.
As always, we will have analysis on all of this. It's all ahead on FACE THE NATION.
Good morning. And welcome to FACE THE NATION.
We had planned to join you from Des Moines following last night's debate. But after the terrorist attacks in France Friday, that plan changed. We will talk about the debate later in the broadcast.
Right now, the latest on the Paris attacks that left 129 dead and 352 wounded.
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer joins us from outside of Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 89 people were killed during a terror rampage on Friday.
Liz, what's the latest?
ELIZABETH PALMER, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.
Well, a much clearer picture has emerged of what happened in about two-and-a-half-hours on Friday night. Six locations were attacked, pretty much simultaneously, and at least seven terrorists were involved. Police say those men are all dead.
Paris is in shock, of course, and the country has begun three official days of mourning. The police immediately working with forensics team set out to identify these seven men and they said they have got it, although they have only named one of them. They were relying on DNA evidence and in some cases body parts, so they sound pretty sure of themselves.
The guy they have named is a French citizen. He comes from the Paris suburbs. He is a petty criminal and he has been on the security services' radar since 2010, when he was apparently radicalized. The search has gone international for accomplices. It turns out that the car that was driven to the Bataclan concert hall was rented by a Belgian citizen. And the police picked him up yesterday. He was trying to get back into Belgium from France.
They have also arrested three other men from a suburb of Brussels, which is known to be a home to Islamic radicals. And at least one of them, say the police, was in Paris the day of the attacks.
People are wondering why the intelligence services didn't pick up any chatter on these attacks. They were relatively complex. They involved a lot of people, some of whom are dead, and some of whom are clearly alive. But the fact is that the security services here have been completely overwhelmed.
Not only have there been French citizens who have gone off to Syria to fight and have been coming back who have to be thoroughly checked out, of course, in the last few months, there have been hundreds of thousands of migrants flooding into Europe in a pretty chaotic fashion.
And the security services, frankly, have been very worried that some of them will be coming in as terrorists disguised simply as asylum seekers. That may turn out to have been the case in this instance.
DICKERSON: Elizabeth Palmer for us in Paris, thanks so much, Liz.
We go now to CBS News foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan, who is traveling with President Obama in Turkey.
MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
The bloodbath in Paris has turned the focus of this G20 summit from the economy to ISIS. President Obama said the skies have been darkened by those horrific attacks. And his very first meeting here was with the president of Turkey, a country that has also recently been hit by ISIS.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The killing of innocent people based on a twisted ideology is an attack not just on France, not just on Turkey, but it's an attack on the civilized world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRENNAN: He said the U.S. is committed to hunting down the perpetrators, but he did not say whether that meant the U.S. will ramp up the fight.
Up until now, President Obama has argued that airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have kept ISIS contained. But now allies like Saudi Arabia and even critics like Russia's Vladimir Putin argue an imminent threat requires a much stronger response.
In the meantime, President Obama is trying to broker a cease-fire in Syria. That war zone has not only sent millions of refugees scattered throughout the Middle East and Europe, but it has also created a safe haven for the growth of extremists like ISIS.
DICKERSON: Margaret Brennan, traveling with the president for us, thanks so much, Margaret.
Joining us now is CBS News senior security contributor and former Deputy Director at the CIA Michael Morell.
Mike, let's start, what are implications about this in this terms of what we know about ISIS?
MICHAEL MORELL, CBS NEWS SENIOR SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: So, I there's two major points here, John.
The first is that ISIS for the last year has been trying to build an attack capability in Western Europe. I think this is the first manifestation of that effort and that success. And, eventually, they will try to build a similar attack capability in the United States.
So, I think that is the first fundamental point. The second fundamental point is, in the last two weeks, we have had an ISIS affiliate in the Sinai apparently, we don't know for sure yet, but apparently bring down an airliner, only the third airliner brought down by a bomb in the last quarter-century.
And we have had the second largest terrorist attack in Western Europe since 9/11, since -- the largest since Madrid in 2004. I think when you put those two things together, and you put together this attempt to build an attack capability in the West, I think it's now crystal clear to us that our strategy, our policy vis-a-vis ISIS is not working and it's time to look at something else.
DICKERSON: And then if you were briefing the president, that's what you would tell him?
MORELL: Yes.
DICKERSON: And what would you tell him? What is the something else to look to?
MORELL: So, that's hard. This is a very complicated situation.
But I do think the question of whether President Assad is -- needs to go or whether he is part of the solution here, we need to look at again. Clearly, he's part of the problem, but he may also be part of the solution. Right?
An agreement where he stays around for awhile and the Syrian army, supported by the coalition, takes on ISIS, may be the best result here, may give us the best result. I think we need to have that discussion again.
DICKERSON: So, the United States, Russia, Syria all fighting against ISIS together?
MORELL: Exactly.
DICKERSON: That's what you're talking about?
MORELL: Exactly.
DICKERSON: What -- going back to this attack capability that you talked about, this was a -- give me your sense of the sophistication of this attack and what we can tell from that.
MORELL: Right.
So, it looks like -- right -- we don't know for sure, but it looks like this was planned, organized, directed from Iraq and Syria. So, that first -- that point makes this complicated. Right?
Second is, you are moving operatives around. You have got a large number of operatives. They have to get explosives. They have to get weapons. They have to communicate among themselves and communicate back to Iraq and Syria. That is a level of sophistication that we have not seen since the London bombings in 2005.
DICKERSON: So, just to -- so these weren't kind of a bunch of lone wolves? These are people who have a connection to a headquarters?
MORELL: It seems that way, yes.
DICKERSON: And how does that communication take place?
MORELL: So, I think what we're going to learn, we don't know for sure yet, but I think what we're going to learn is that these guys are communicating via these encrypted apps, right, the commercial encryption, which is very difficult, if not impossible, for governments to break, and the producers of which don't produce the keys necessary for law enforcement to read the encrypted messages.
DICKERSON: When we compare ISIS to al Qaeda, there used to be a distinction. Al Qaeda had these big aims. ISIS was working on a caliphate.
Well, now we're in a new situation here. How then does the command-and-control of al Qaeda that people may be more familiar with match up with what you are seeing emerge with ISIS?
MORELL: So, the difference between the two has -- largest -- John, the largest difference between the two is who is going to be in charge. Right?
ISIS didn't want to fall under the leadership of al Qaeda. That is the biggest difference. The other, more subtle difference was al Qaeda's view that we have to defeat the West and then get a caliphate. ISIS' view is, let's get the caliphate and then defeat the West. All right? So, I think what we're now seeing is, they have their caliphate. It is very much like a state in almost every respect, except they don't have any recognition in foreign relations, but it's very much like a state.
So, what you're actually seeing now is something akin to state- sponsored terrorism in the West by ISIS.
DICKERSON: If there is a battle against -- going back to this encryption, what would a step be in terms of legislation or what kind of tools would be needed to combat this?
MORELL: So, we need to have a public debate about this, right?
We have in a sense had a public debate. That -- that debate was defined by Edward Snowden, right, and the concern about privacy. I think we're now going to have another debate about that. It's going to be defined by what happened in Paris.
DICKERSON: All right, Michael Morell, you are going to stick with us. Thanks so much.
MORELL: OK.
DICKERSON: For more on what the terror attacks in Paris might mean in terms of increased security in the United States, we turn to New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton.
Commission Bratton, when there is an attack like this in Paris, what do you immediately do in New York?
WILLIAM BRATTON, NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMMISSIONER: We significantly ramp up all of the existing capabilities.
There's not a city in America that has the resources that we have here in New York, understandably, based on the 9/11 experience. So, we are constantly on alert here, but we have the resources to very quickly, as you have seen over the last two days, significantly increase our presence at, in this case, many of the French institutions in the city and our significant areas of public interest, at sporting events, Times Square, areas like that.
The attacks in Paris clearly attacked a sports stadium, attacked restaurants, nightlife, attacked an entertainment venue, all of the things that ISIS hates that -- and tries to work against.
In New York City, we have no shortage of those, but we also have no shortage of soft targets, which is the problem, in the sense that we can protect the larger venues, if you will, but the soft targets, we're going to have to rely very heavily on public awareness, as we always try to do, see something, say something.
We have very active offense in terms of our intelligence gathering capabilities with the FBI. And, in fact, this week, we celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Joint Terrorism Task Force here in New York City. We also have extraordinary defense capabilities, as you have seen in the last couple of days, and, if an event were to occur, that we have been training very vigorously to deal with the active shooter concept, the idea of going in.
What is new with this one is that -- we're going to have to take a very careful look at what happened in Paris -- is the fact that every one of these individuals apparently was prepared to die and was equipped with a suicide vest. That is something we need to be aware of in terms of protecting our first-responders as they go into the situation, as we now train them to do.
DICKERSON: Have you been informed by intelligence officials about any heightened threat as a result of this or surrounding -- in the wake of Paris?
BRATTON: This is the new paradigm we're now going to have to deal with.
As your previous guest just talked about, the concern about going dark, as head of the FBI has described it, these apps, these devices that now allow these terrorists to operate effectively without fear of penetration by intelligence services, this is the first example of this.
I will be very interested for our purposes to see what type of phone devices were they carrying, what type of apps might have been on those devices? We in many respects have gone blind as a result of the commercialization and the selling of these devices that cannot be accessed either by the manufacturer or more importantly by us in law enforcement even equipped with the search warrants and judicial authority.
This is something that is going to need to be debated very quickly, because we cannot continue operating where we are blind, which is our offense, gathering intelligence and acting on it. The French clearly in this instance had no understanding that this was going to happen. And we're seeing the ramifications of that.
DICKERSON: In the past, there has been concern about lone wolves in America, but what Mike Morell just described earlier is a much more coordinated operation.
Has that changed the approach for you, or is that why the -- getting at the communications, these encrypted communications, is that why that is so much more central than it might be for just a lone wolf who has been self-radicalized?
BRATTON: The last two years, we have been adjusting significantly our strategies here in New York, indeed in America, but speak specifically to New York.
After Mumbai, and when I was chief in Los Angeles, we adapted the capability to respond to multiple events. We have significantly ramped up our capability in New York to deal with multiple events similar to what just occurred in Paris. But what we are also doing as part of our efforts is to trying to deal with the social media skills of al Qaeda. Al Qaeda -- excuse me -- not al Qaeda -- ISIS, different than al Qaeda, has mastered social media. They have now clearly understood the ability to spread fear by not only just building up the caliphate, but taking on the West, taking on the West in the sense of the plane bombing, taking on the West with the massive bombings in Lebanon, and now the multiple attacks, coordinated attacks, in Paris.
All of these are issues we're going to have to look closely at as we go forward trying protect our interests, as well as our offense in terms of trying to understand what happened here and how do we access it.
DICKERSON: All right.
BRATTON: This event is, in many respects, similar to the events of 9/11, in terms of the game-changing aspect of it.
DICKERSON: OK.
Commissioner Bill Bratton, thank you so much for being with us.
We will be back in one minute with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Joining us now from Des Moines is Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Senator Sanders, I want to ask you, pick up right where we left off last night. You mentioned that climate change in fact is related to terrorism. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-I), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, that's not only my observation, John. That is what the CIA and the Department of Defense tells us.
And the reason is pretty obvious. If we are going to see an increase in drought and flooding and extreme weather disturbances as a result of climate change, what that means is that peoples all over the world are going to be fighting over limited natural resources.
If there is not enough water, if there is not enough land to grow your crops, then you're going to see migrations of people fighting over land that will sustain them. And that will lead to international conflicts.
I think, when we talk about all of the possible ravages of climate change, which, to my mind, is just a huge planetary crisis, increased international conflict is one of the issues that we have got to appreciate will happen.
DICKERSON: But how does drought connect with attacks by ISIS in the middle of Paris? SANDERS: Well, what happens, say, in Syria, for example -- and there's some thought about this -- is that, when you have drought, when people can't grow their crops, they're going to migrate into cities.
And when people migrate into cities, and they don't have jobs, there's going to be a lot more instability, a lot more unemployment. And people will be subject to the types of propaganda that al Qaeda and ISIS are using right now.
So, where you have discontent, where you have instability, that's where problems arise. And, certainly, without a doubt, climate change will lead to that.
DICKERSON: I will switch now to domestic issues.
The topic of Wall Street, I want to ask you both about the political idea of Wall Street, and then also the substantive debate you had with Hillary Clinton.
First, the Democrats have been having a debate about how to build the party, why Democrats are doing poorly at everything but the presidential level. And some Democrats argue that the fight over how to regulate Wall Street, the idea of breaking up the banks, the idea of basically making Wall Street a boogeyman, is important, not just substantively, but also to send a message to voters across the country that this is a party that wants to realign the playing field.
Do you see that in -- do you see it in that way?
SANDERS: Well, I think, in this case, good public policy is good politics.
What you have on Wall Street is a handful of banks with incredible economic and political power. These are the people whose greed and recklessness and illegal behavior destroyed the lives or impacted the lives of millions and millions of people who lost their homes, their jobs and their life savings.
Then they got bailed out by the taxpayers. And, today, three out of the four largest are bigger than they were before we bailed them out. These are with -- six large banks have assets equivalent of 56 percent of the GDP of the United States of America.
To me, it is obvious. And, by the way, I should tell you, as somebody who led the effort against deregulation, we have got to break them up, so that we don't go through another economic meltdown. And we have got to break them up because they simply have too much economic power.
They issue two-thirds of the credit cards and one-third of the mortgages in America. So, I think reestablishing Glass-Steagall and breaking them up is good public policy. And it is what the American people want to see happen.
DICKERSON: After the first Democratic debate, Paul Krugman, who -- wrote in "The New York Times" a piece that said, basically, because there's going to be Republican House, there -- it's limited in terms of what a Democratic president can do to change the banks, and, therefore, you and Hillary Clinton are roughly equivalent, because you would never be able to get passed what you would want to get passed.
What do you think of that argument?
SANDERS: Well, John, you know, I have heard that argument many, many times. And I really don't accept that.
What I am trying to do in this campaign, with some success, is to call for what I call a political revolution, to rally millions of people, many of whom have given up on the political process, young people who have never been involved before. Working people have been so alienated by big money in politics, they have kind of tuned out.
And we're trying to bring them together. And when you bring people together to fight for an agenda, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, pay equity for women workers, creating millions of jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure, and taking on Wall Street and breaking up these banks, I think you can do it.
You can only do it, however, if millions of people get involved in the political process in a way that they are not involved right now.
DICKERSON: Senator, I have -- we have just a minute before the commercial break. I feel it's like last night all over again.
(LAUGHTER)
DICKERSON: I want to ask you about the CBS poll that we have on this question. We asked, who could bring more change to Washington? Sixty-two percent said Hillary Clinton; 51 percent said you.
Do you need to draw the distinction between you and Hillary Clinton more starkly for Democratic voters?
SANDERS: Well, I think the answer is yes.
But I have to tell you, John, we started this campaign at something like 3 or 4 percent in the polls. We have come a long way in the six months that I have been in this race. I think, the more people are familiar with Bernie Sanders and the programs that I'm advocating and what I have been trying to do in Congress, the better we are going to do.
But Hillary Clinton and I have very substantive disagreements on a number of major issues. And I think what democracy is about is letting the American people hear those differences.
DICKERSON: Well, thank you, Senator Sanders.
We did that last night. And we look forward to doing it with you again on this show.
We will be right back in a moment with our Democratic debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: When word came of the multiple attacks in Paris Friday, the road map for our CBS News Democratic debate changed dramatically.
We had planned to question the candidates about how to they would deal with a crisis, but, suddenly, there was an actual crisis, an escalation of a serious international terror threat, that presented a host of questions for the next president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to look at ISIS as the leading threat of an international terror network.
It cannot be contained. It must be defeated. There is no question in my mind that, if we summon our resources, both our leadership resources and all of the tools at our disposal, not just military force, which should be used as a last resort, but our diplomacy, our development aid, law enforcement, sharing of intelligence in a much more open and cooperative way, that we can bring people together.
But it cannot be an American fight. And I think what the president has consistently said -- which I agree with -- is that we will support those who take the fight to ISIS.
MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would disagree with -- with Secretary Clinton, respectfully, on this score.
This actually is America's fight. It cannot solely be America's fight. America is best when we work in collaboration with our allies. America is best when we are actually standing up to evil in this world.
And ISIS, make no mistake about it, is an evil in this world. ISIS has brought down a Russian airliner. ISIS has now attacked a Western democracy in -- in France. And we do have a role in this.
SANDERS: This is a war for the soul of Islam. And those countries who are opposed to Islam, they are going to have to get deeply involved in a way that is not the case today.
We should be supportive of that effort. So should the U.K. So should France. But those Muslim countries are going to have to lead the effort. They are not doing it now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: CBS News conducted an overnight poll of Democratic and independent voters who watched the debate; 51 percent said Hillary Clinton won, 28 percent said Bernie Sanders, and 7 percent gave the win to Martin O'Malley.
We will have more poll numbers and analysis on last night's debate in our next half-hour.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Some of our CBS stations are leaving us now, but, for most of you, we will be right back with a lot more FACE THE NATION.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION.
For more on the terror attacks in Paris, we go now to Devin Nunes, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.
He is in Tulare, California, and Senate Intelligence chairman, Richard Burr, who is in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Chairman Burr, I want to start with you.
What does this attack tell you about the shape of the ISIS organization now?
SEN. RICHARD BURR (R-NC), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, John, it just confirmed what Devin and I have said for the last year, that there are more threats -- threads of threats across the, not only this country, but globally, and that we always saw Europe as probably the most advantageous target. And in the last 48 hours, we've seen that become reality in -- in Paris in a huge, horrific way.
DICKERSON: Chairman Nunes, what do you make -- France, since then "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, has increased its intelligence, has been on the watch and yet this was able to be a sophisticated coordination under French authorities' noses.
What does that make you think about U.S. intelligence and the ability to stop these kinds of attacks in the U.S.?
REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Well, I think you have a couple of things.
First off, you have a strategic failure on behalf of the administration on not having a real plan to fight ISIS.
Secondly, I really think we should take to heart what FBI Director Comey has been saying over and over and over again, and that is that we are losing the capability to track these terrorists around the globe.
DICKERSON: Chairman Burr, what about that capability?
How can you improve it?
What would you do to try to fix this question if encryption and the ability of these terrorists to communicate with each other without being watched?
BURR: Well, John, technology is going to be a tough thing to deal with, but we've got to redouble our efforts to make sure that we're able to get the communications we need to give us lead time to give us a better understanding.
But I think Devin hit on the key. We've got to have a strategy. We don't have a strategy in Syria as it relates to ISIL.
The president talked the other morning about ISIL was contained. America learned within 24 hours, it's not contained. It's rampant everywhere in the world that they intend to carry out these horrific acts.
It just so happens the United States is a target. But Paris was easier. And if we don't get a strategy, tactics don't make a strategy. So these pinpricks that we've had as far as a tactical effort in -- in Syria, really is not a strategy.
We've got to have a strategy and hopefully -- hopefully, President Hollande will -- will call Article 5 of NATO in and maybe we'll put together a coalition that can, for once, attack this horrific terrorist element before they have a -- the ability to carry out another coordinated attack like this.
DICKERSON: Chairman Nunes, let's talk about that strategy. If you were to create one and author one, it would presumably have a piece that deals with Syria and Iraq, but then also an intelligence piece for protecting America.
What's -- what would that strategy look like for you?
NUNES: Well, I think more than that, John, the -- the point that I've made all along about ISIS is that the president has tried to talk about and developed a containment strategy for Iraq and Syria, when ISIS is stretched from Morocco to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
So we just saw, just a couple of weeks ago, what appears to be an ISIS attack on a Russian jetliner coming out of Egypt. We continue to -- a lot of people talk about the migration of -- of fighters flowing out of Iraq and Syria into Europe, but what they forget is there's many people, migrants, coming out of North Africa.
So you can't fight ISIS unless you are willing to put a strategy together that deals with North Africa, the failure in Libedi -- Libya, the problems in the Sinai, Iraq and Syria, and the Afghanistan- Pakistan region.
And then -- and I think more complicated, is what are the Europeans going to do now that it appears like ISIS has rooted themselves into Europe with a command and control structure?
DICKERSON: Chairman Burr, you mentioned NATO and Article 5.
What -- what should be the -- what should the United States be prepared to do to join with France or to take up this -- this army? And -- and what should Americans be ready for if this is a new phase in an attempt to defeat ISIS?
BURR: Well, John, I would tell you today, the American people want to eliminate this threat. So we should be prepared to bring whatever to the table, that coalition of NATO partners, and hopefully, that would be joined with Gulf state partners, it may be joined with a -- with Russia, individuals that see ISIS as a real threat, not just in the region, but globally.
And I would hope that like we've sent investigators from the FBI and we will send others to Paris to help out, I hope we'll make a commitment to President Hollande that we're 100 percent beside them, not behind them, beside them, and we're willing to lead.
DICKERSON: But Americans may want to eliminate this threat and being willing to lead, Chairman Burr, is important, but I mean what does that really mean in practical terms?
I mean are we talking about more Special Operations, are we talking about operating in lots of different theaters?
Give us some concrete examples that people can balance their desire to get rid of ISIS with their weariness about extended engagements of the U.S. military.
BURR: Well, John, I'm not in the business of military strategy. I'll leave that up to DOD.
But we've got to have individuals on the ground that are collecting intelligence. We've got to have better intelligence about targets. We've got to make sure that we carry the fight to ISIL, which means probably more Special Operations efforts in that region.
You can't do this with 3,500 Americans in an advisory role, 50 Special Forces, which we've just upped in the last two weeks. That's not enough to -- to make a big impact.
But mirror that with a global effort and we can take this fight to a very difficult and barbaric terrorist organization.
DICKERSON: Chairman Nunes, in the last 45 seconds we've got here, I'd like your assessment of what the United States should do about the Syrian refugees coming into the United States, how to screen them and what your view is about that.
NUNES: There's no possible way to screen them. It should be stopped immediately. Look, we feel for these refugees, but the bottom line, if you don't want refugees, then you have to go into Iraq and Syria and defeat ISIS.
And, you know, the challenge is -- you know, people talk a lot about boots on the ground. Look, we've had boots on the ground there for over a year. The problem is, as Chairman Burr said, trying to use pinpricks with our -- for air strikes and, you know, having -- you know, the first rule of war for the Obama administration is not to take collateral damage.
Well, that's not war. And if that's what you're going to -- if you're going to strap down the United States Air Force and our allies with these types of rules of engagement, we are never going to win and you're going to see more and more refugees flood into Europe.
DICKERSON: All right, Congressman, Senator, thank you.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: We're back again with CBS News senior security analyst, Michael Morell, plus Farah Pandith, former special representative to Muslim communities at the State Department. She's now at the Council on Foreign Relations.
And American Enterprise Institute's Danielle Pletka.
Thank you all for being here.
Danielle, I want to start with you.
The response to the attacks in Paris should be what for the United States?
DANIELLE PLETKA, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: I think we need to look at the challenges that we face on the ground, recognize that if we don't do something, we will see what happened in Paris in New York, LA, Washington, somewhere in the United States.
We need to have a clear strategy that address the challenge in both Syria and Iraq, but also Yemen, North Africa, Libya. We could keep going here.
We need serious partners on the ground. We need more volume of troops on the ground. When a concerted effort.
DICKERSON: Farah, what's your assessment of what we should do (INAUDIBLE)?
FARAH PANDITH, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: So there's a military component, John. And certainly that's important and we can't do without it.
But the other half of the strategy is obviously the non-military. And that includes three things.
One is when we think about the money, when we think about the moment, when we think about ideas.
One is stopping the ability for money to flow to these terrorist organizations. And that's something primarily government can do and it's also something to build public awareness about, the ivory trade, the sale of antiquities. There's also (INAUDIBLE) in terms of the emotional and psychological moment that is taking place with this group, moving into the minds of all of us, whether it's fear, whether it's emotions that are moving us in a particular way.
But the most critical component is the idea space. And that is what we would call the war of ideas.
How do we engage in bringing down the number of recruits so that ISIS doesn't have armies?
And because ISIS is using the digital space, we need to build a digital army. And we need to do it proportionally and at scale.
DICKERSON: Aren't those things intentional when you're trying to win the war of ideas and you're also using drones to kill and that whips up lots of anti-American fervor that it would seem to me you -- no number of tweets and Facebook and so forth could overcome what has to be done militarily.
PANDITH: So let's be really clear. What's happening in the ecosystem obviously makes a difference. But there are almost a billion young Muslims under the age of 30 across the world. That's the pool from which the extremists are recruiting. And because they're millennials, they're using the digital tools that we all have to move them forward.
We have yet to go at this at scale. We have yet to go all in and really create the kind of momentum in the digital space that we need.
In order to do that, we need to get credible voices scaled up. There is no scarcity of credible voices. What we are missing is the scale up, the proportional response in the online space. And I'm not just talking about Tweets that are going back and forth. I am talking about ideological influence for these young people who are being lured in by predators online.
And we need to think about it like that.
DICKERSON: Mike Morell, let me ask you about momentum. As it's been explained to me, ISIS benefits from these successes. So does what the coalition or the United States has to do in retaliation, have to have a big kind of showy aspect to it on the military side.
MIKE MORELL, CBS NEWS SENIOR SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, I think if you look at the strengths and weakness of ISIS, their greatest strength is the sense that they're winning and the momentum that that creates and the followers that it brings and the foreign fighters that it brings and the radicalization of young people around the world that it brings.
That is one of their great strengths. They just benefitted significantly from that with the downing of the airliner and -- and with this attack in Paris.
So pushing back on that momentum is really, really important. DICKERSON: You know, Secretary Clinton said in the debate last night, this cannot be an American fight alone. There's this -- this sometimes semantic, but debate about where America's role is in this fight.
Martin O'Malley running to her right in this argument, basically said America has to lead and they'll bring other people along.
Give me your assessment of that.
PLETKA: Let me utter the words I've never uttered before, I agree fully with Martin O'Malley.
I thought that remark on Mrs. Clinton's part was rather strange. She has always been a proponent of American leadership. When she was secretary of State, she recommended that the president be more forward-leaning on Syria.
Look, we are the only ones with the capacity to actually lead on this fight.
Now, should we be alone?
Absolutely not. We should be working with parties on the ground, we should be working with allies. But we haven't shown the leadership up to now, we really haven't, not on refugees, not on fighting ISIS, not on fighting al Qaeda, not on helping good guys.
DICKERSON: And there's this argument that countries in the region should do their share. You hear it a lot from the administration, the free rider problem.
Are they going to be in -- I mean can you wait them -- wait it out long enough for them to do their share, or, again, does the United States have to move and then perhaps bring them along?
PLETKA: Look, this is sort of, you know, football fantasy camp foreign policy. You know, when -- when you're talking about the Saudis or the Emiratis or the Turks or whoever it is doing their share, what we end up with is foreign policy priorities that belong to the Saudis or the Turks or the Emiratis or the Qataris.
And that's the challenge for us. We have a desired outcome here that is actually not the same as the desired outcome of parties in the region. That's why when you subcontract to Saudi Arabia or you subcontract, God forbid, as John Kerry seems to always what to do, to Iran or to Russia, you end up with outcomes that are ultimately dangerous for the United States.
DICKERSON: All right, let me ask you a question here.
In response to these kinds of attacks, when you talk about that -- that space, the battle for ideas, is the government doing it wrong?
I mean is there an overreaction that sends a different kinds of -- kind of message? PANDITH: So I think that there are things that the government has done, both in the Bush administration and in the Obama administration, to take hold of the ideological space. I mean there's only, I have to say, only so much you can do in the government space.
The way we have to go at it is to look at the armies that we can build professionally outside of government. Those are the credible voices, the former extremists and others, who can make a difference.
Where can government make a role -- play a role there?
Their money can go to some of the core funding for some, of these organizations that are doing it, not in terms of how they message or what they message, but in terms of setting up these organizations to do something.
These organizations are working at a pace that is really quite excellent, but they don't have enough money to be able to scale up the way they need to do this.
The second piece the government can make a difference is to ask the private sector to go all in with us, that is to say, not partner with government, but to partner with the actors on the ground who can actually make a difference.
And the third, by the way, is to say that we can actually go at the ideological war with the kind of will and determination that ISIS has. They aren't sophisticated. They are determined.
We need to be determined, too.
DICKERSON: Quickly at the end here, Mike, the administration says, well, this is a long war, so what do you -- what do you hear when you hear that from the administration?
When they're criticized about the pace on ISIS and taking the fight to ISIS, an administration official says, well, the president always said this was going to be a long war?
MORELL: There's a difference between the ups and downs in a long war, the victories for us and the victories for them, a difference between that and what is clearly the momentum in their favor, what is clearly them -- them advancing their capabilities.
DICKERSON: Thanks so much, all of you.
We will be back in a moment with our political panel.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: And we're back with our political panel.
Peggy Noonan is a columnist for "The Wall Street Journal" and a CBS News contributor.
And you've seen Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent for "Slate" magazine here before, but this is his first appearance as a CBS News political analyst. Congratulations and welcome to CBS, Jamelle.
And Nancy Cordes is our CBS News Congressional correspondent, who sat in a plane seat next to me flying overnight from Des Moines, so she has gotten as little sleep as I have. But nevertheless, welcome.
Thanks for being here -- Nancy.
NANCY CORDES, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good to be back with you, John.
DICKERSON: Yes.
Peggy Noonan, the debate last night. Afterwards, we did a poll and those -- Hillary Clinton won that debate.
How did you see it?
PEGGY NOONAN, "WALL STREET JOURNAL" COLUMNIST: I didn't see it as such a clear win, actually, on her part. I suppose she had her moments. So did Mr. Sanders. So did Mr. O'Malley.
It seemed to me that they all struggled pretty much with the issue of what to do after Paris with ISIS. And I think Mrs. Clinton had some awkward moments with regard to Wall Street.
DICKERSON: Jamelle, in our poll overnight, Hillary Clinton -- on the question of handling foreign policy, Hillary Clinton came in at -- 67 percent said that she handled it the best. Sanders and O'Malley were far behind. Sanders at 22 percent and then 11 percent for O'Malley.
How much did that matter?
How much does that matter?
What -- what did you make of the debate?
JAMELLE BOUIE, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: I think as far as the Democratic primary goes, I'm not sure that it matters all that much. It's sort of a given that Democratic voters trust Hillary Clinton more on foreign policy. She was the secretary of State. That's long been her wheelhouse.
I think for the general election, it matters quite a bit. Like Peggy said, Secretary Clinton had a hard time answering on the question of what do we do after Paris?
And I think part of the problem is that she was secretary of State during the rise of ISIS. And she's hewing so closely to President Obama's administration that she has no room to break out, despite the fact that there's real evidence that Clinton has a differing view on these questions than Obama does.
DICKERSON: Right, but she was not anxious to show that differing view or distance with him.
Let's talk about Wall Street here for a moment. And I want to play her response when she was asked about the Wall Street contributions that she gets and she was hit on -- Bernie Sanders hit her saying basically those contributions make her compromised. Let's listen to her response here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I represented New York. And I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked. Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York, it was good for the economy and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: Nancy, in the debate, what do you make that have moment?
CORDES: Well, think what she was trying to say was, of course, these people support me, I was their senator. I did a good job for them, why wouldn't they give me donations? But it struck a lot of people as tone deaf, because she was essentially saying because of 9/11 that's why I get millions of dollars.
And so, we were getting a lot of traffic on Twitter from people saying you know that just doesn't sit right with me.
And I think to be honest, when we asked her the question, she was a little surprised because I don't know that she actually realized the way that it came off and quickly tried to self correct.
DICKERSON: Yeah, that's right. You brought up the tweet that had been sent in saying why did she raise 9/11 in defending herself against Wall Street?
Jamelle, how much of the Wall Street issue is a real problem for Hillary Clinton or just one where she's not trusted but it won't be real obstacle?
BOUIE: So, I go back and forth on this one because I think it's very awkward for her. I think it's real problem in terms of trying to get these liberal voters to trust her as a nominee.
I'm not sure how much in a general election it will matter given the extent to which the Republicans will do quite well with Wall Street as well. And so it's sort of a wash.
I think what is really challenging is that there is an answer for this, and it's just not one that Democrats want to hear, which is that Hillary Clinton and her husband were part of a movement of Democrats who are pulling the party to the center. And I think there's a way to make a defense of that, right, to say that, listen, we had 12 years of Republican presidents. We had to do something and this is the thing that we did.
But I don't know that anyone on the Clinton side wants to litigate all of this. And other than litigating it, it is going to sound awkward. There's no way around it.
NOONAN: I just thought it was one of those great moments in lame debate answers that you can put a reel together and that would be about number four. The Clintons are tight with Wall Street. Wall Street is pretty darn tight with the Democratic Party. That is what it is.
I understand Bernie Sanders' critiques, that was not serious answer to a serious critique.
CORDES: On the other hand we gave him the opportunity to explain what it is in her record as shows that that she is beholding to Wall Street. And he really couldn't name anything.
BOUIE: Part the macro issue here is that Hillary Clinton is pretty much a generic Democrat in many ways. And she goes where the party was. When the party was very tight with Wall Street she was very tight with Wall Street as the party become less tight with Wall Street, she's at least rhetorically less tight with Wall Street and that's a difficult position to be in versus someone like Sanders who is very much ideologue, this is where I've always been, and this is where I'm never not going to be.
NOONAN: Yeah, but the ethos of the Democratic Party used to be I'm for the little guy, not for I'm for Goldman Sachs. I mean, if you think about it, she is in a particular position that does need some answers I believe.
DICKERSON: Let me ask you, Nancy, about in our poll of independent and Democrats who were watching Bernie Sanders didn't do well on foreign policy front, but on the economic front, Sanders on the question of who can handle the economy, Sanders came out of 43, Clinton to the 40.
When comes to income inequality on that issue, he got 58 percent and Hillary Clinton got 31.
So, on the issues Democrats care about it was wood night for him.
CORDES: It was a good night for him. And I think that, you know, the issue of income equality was really in his wheelhouse. You could almost see him chomping at the bit to get past foreign policy and get into the issues where he's the strongest, talking about single payer, for example, talking about a $15 minimum wage, which was really striking debate last night between him saying it should be $15 no matter what, Hillary Clinton saying that could have unintended consequences, I'm more comfortable with $12.
But you're right, clearly more Democrats came down on his side. NOONAN: But, working against him was I believe the fact that last night, and more strikingly today on your show, Bernie Sanders essentially said a major problem with all of this ISIS stuff and terrorism and what's going at the west a climate change and global warming, which makes him to many people look slightly daffy, like someone who doesn't understand what the real subject is, and is leaning outside to sort of leftist or progressive nostrums that he can talk about. It's about terrorism, it isn't about climate change and deserts and people migrating because it's hot.
DICKERSON: All right, the last word to you, Peggy.
Thanks to all of you. And we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Until next week, for Face the Nation I'm John Dickerson.
We leave you with the voices of New York's Metropolitan Opera and tributes to the people of Paris from around the world.