CNN "The Situation Room"- Transcript: Terrorism

Interview

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I want to talk about all of this now with the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Congressman Ed Royce of California.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.

And I want to ask you about the first item we saw Barbara reporting on, which was this hack of the Pentagon Joint Staff's e-mail system, they believe by Russia. What do you know about it? And what should the response be to it?

[18:25:03]

REP. ED ROYCE (R), CALIFORNIA: Well what we do know is that, in both China and Russia, they have stood up basically -- in Beijing, for example, it's the equivalent of the air force or their navy or their army -- a separate branch of government dedicated to this and carrying out offensive capabilities against the United States.

They have accessed some 20 million accounts here. In terms of Russia, these are several thousands accounts that Moscow have accessed. But, clearly, we in the United States have not stood up this kind of an operational capability. And we should be doing that.

And we should be doing more as a consequence of putting this as a first priority to defending our infrastructure. You can see if you go to a major corporation, they often have taken steps and put them in place that the bureaucracy is not putting in place.

So this has to become a much higher priority. We have legislation we put into the Senate to try to counter some of this hacking. We understand now the president has indicated he might sign the bill if it comes out of the Senate. That's a good step.

KEILAR: OK. I want to ask you about these U.S.-trained Syrian rebels. About 60 of them, we know five were captured, one killed. The rest seem to have scattered. Do you know of any U.S.-trained Syrian rebel that is ready to fight, that is fully trained and ready to fight?

ROYCE: Well, part of the problem with the way in which we have handled ISIS from the beginning was that we did not -- the administration did not take the advice of those who said, use airpower early to stop ISIS just as it was leaving its encampments in Syria.

It took 14 separate cities, each time without any airpower used, as ISIS was out on the open road, to degrade or destroy those ISIS troops. Now they're embedded. And so now we're in the process, having watched for years this training process, of finally seeing some Syrian -- Free Syrian Army forces that we have trained fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army that's holding out in Aleppo and elsewhere.

They need air support. And without close air support, I'm afraid they will be overrun by al Qaeda and ISIS units. So I think we also have an opportunity here with the Turks. For the first time, Turkey is saying, we would give air support if you're talking about a no-fly zone to protect Aleppo and other areas, if you can -- if you will work with us, we will put -- we will dispatch units, we will dispatch airpower. KEILAR: But what that? What about concerns we have heard, for,

instance from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard that they're targeting Kurds over ISIS?

ROYCE: We have got to keep the pressure on the Turkish government not to get off the theme here of going after ISIS and carrying out their tit for tat with the Kurdish Syrian forces.

KEILAR: How do you do that?

ROYCE: That's going to be an -- you're going to have to put a lot of diplomatic power. You're going to have to explain to the Turks they have two million Syrians living inside their country right now. It's frankly helping to bankrupt local economies up there.

And if they want to get this thing solved, they have got to assist with airpower along with the United States and they have got to cut off the ISIS fighters that come through the airport up there in Istanbul. They're starting to help on that.

But we have got to keep the pressure on them, because they're part of the solution here if we can leverage our considerable pressure through NATO. They're NATO partners. It does not make sense for us not to be putting more pressure on Turkey to help solve this problem.

KEILAR: OK. I have many more questions for you. So, stay with me.

We will have more on ISIS with Chairman Ed Royce after a quick break.

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KEILAR: We are back with the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Congressman Ed Royce of California. We are going to talk with him in just a moment about some significant changes involving ISIS recruits.

[18:34:02] CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto has details on this. And what you've learned, Jim, is that the profile of an ISIS recruiter is really different today than when this war with ISIS began?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's evolving and it's something that security services, both in Europe and here, have to keep up with. One, the recruits are getting younger. We're talking about kids in their teens that are coming in. We're talking about foreign fighters.

Also more girls. We've seen more young women. You might remember the case in February, the three British girls left East London without telling their parents and went there, and we've since learned that two of them have been married. What's interesting about it is that many of them they're seeing

are going for nation-building, for lack of a better phrase, not so much for terrorism. But they see themselves as taking part in this great cause of building an Islamic State. And that's a problem, because it shows how enduring the appeal is of ISIS. As you know, that appeal is extending to the U.S. homeland.

KEILAR: Is Europe doing a better job of stemming these recruits?

SCIUTTO: The general feeling is, yes. You hear from European officials, you hear from American officials, as well, Turkey in particular, Turkey is on the border, they are doing a better job of interdiction.

[18:35:06] But what's interesting is Turkey is saying, "Hey, it can't be all on our shoulders." They're saying to the Europeans, "Stop them before they leave your airports, right? We can't be catching them right before they go across the border."

And speaking to officials, for instance, in the U.K., they're doing things now like confiscating the passports of suspects who they think are going to travel there so that they can travel there. A difficult thing to do, though, because you're kind of in a pre-crime era here, right? Before they do something. You're trying to stop them.

KEILAR: And I do want to talk about this -- thank you, Jim Sciutto, for your report -- with Republican Congressman Ed Royce. He is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

So give us that perspective, Congressman, of this strategy that ISIS is employing with recruits.

ROYCE: ISIS right now has about 21,000 English language followers, for example. And they're recruiting all over the world by -- with social media.

And a big part of this also is selling the idea that, when these young men come -- remember, one of the big human trafficking problems right now is that ISIS controls a population of 5 million people, primarily in Syria and part of Iraq, and they're taking young girls and basically offering them as concubines to these young men.

And so that, the nation-building, the idea that they can't be defeated -- that's why it was important to use air power early on and really, really show that they could be turned back.

So at this point, they're on a roll. And they've got 31,000 fighters on the front lines right now, as well. So it's a big problem.

KEILAR: While I have you here, Congressman, I want to ask you about this face-off between congressional Republicans and the State Department over some of Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

Senator Chuck Grassley is holding up 20 State Department nominees over what he says are unacceptable delays in getting Hillary Clinton's documents. Do you worry that Republicans could be overreaching here?

ROYCE: Well, let's -- let me give you an example. There are certain oversight responsibilities that the Senate and the House have. Now, we went through a period of five years without this administration appointing an inspector general at the State Department. Why did they not appoint one? It now looks as though they didn't want the oversight, right? And so when you're...

KEILAR: There was an interim -- there was an interim one, just -- jut to put that in there. I believe there was an interim one at some point. But you're right. But you're right.

ROYCE: At one point there was an interim one without the authority and the full responsibility. And once we got an actual inspector general, now we're finding out a lot of information we didn't know.

So what tools does the Senate have at its disposal, you know? And this is one of the tools, is to say, there's information we've asked you for, and so here's something you want, in terms of these political appointees or whatever. And before we move forward, let's get the answer to our questions.

If we hadn't gone through the experience that we did on the House side, trying to get an inspector general appointed and watching that take five years, as Democrats and Republicans in the House tried to get this administration to do that, I wouldn't be as sympathetic as I am right now to Senator Chuck Grassley. Because he's got questions that are not being answered, and he needs to find some leverage to get those answers.

KEILAR: Congressman Ed Royce, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

ROYCE: Thank you, Brianna.

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