[Bolduan:] Welcome back to NEW DAY. The president's plan to degrade and eventually destroy ISIS is moving forward this morning. The Senate approved a measure to train and arm Syrian rebels to fight back against the terror organization. The House signed off on the measure earlier this week. But there are still serious doubts about the president's strategy really coming from both sides of the aisle. At the same time, all the members of Congress, they've all now left for until the election in order to campaign for reelection. For more, let's discuss with Congressman Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan and of course the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Chairman, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming in.
[Rep. Mike Rogers , Chairman, House Intelligence Committee:] Thanks, Kate. Great to see you.
[Bolduan:] Thank you so much. I do want to ask you we've got a lot to get to about the threat against ISIS and the vote. But Dana was just on, just moments ago, and we were just talking about the simple fact and I know I've seen it every time when I was covering Capitol Hill November is a long way away. But still members of Congress, they voted and they ran for the exits, all of them saying, as they're leaving, "I want to have a debate. Why aren't we I'd be open to a vote. But no one's going to do it. So we're all going to leave town." You're now retiring, kind of relieved of that pressure, if you will. Why is Congress leaving if the threat from ISIS is so great?
[Rogers:] Well two things. I think we're going to see a vote when we get back. Certainly those I'm pushing for that vote after the election. I think a lot of folks are pushing for that vote. So this was the first phase. This is a phased campaign, if you will. If it was only training and equipping these rebels that we find and vet and train from Syria to go after ISIL, this plan is not going to work. It has to be bigger than that. And so I think you're going to see a phased approach. You're going to see increased kinetic action in Iraq. And you're going to see, I think, hopefully some degrading of their capabilities in Syria, as well as the training component. Because this is going to be five months. So this got it going. I don't you know, I would have liked to have had a vote before we left. Don't think we absolutely had to have one. It sent a very clear message to both our adversaries and our allies that we're serious; we're going to help fix this problem in the Middle East.
[Bolduan:] Many folks are still wondering, though, what is going to get done in the lame duck, that period of time between the election and the next session. Because the White House, at least so far, they're not asking for authorization, if you will. They keep saying we welcome a debate and we welcome a vote, but that's not calling for one. And also some of your Democratic colleagues who voted against the Syria vote, including Peter Welch, he said this he believes that everyone has been duped, that duped to think that they are actually going to get a war debate in the lame duck. He says this is an illusion. This was the vote.
[Rogers:] Well, I mean, I hope that's not the case. I think we I think Congress needs to act on this. I do think that we should give the president the authority to track down ISIL, whatever its name, whatever its new name is, wherever it is, because of the sheer threat of it. And I think that, A, says gives comfort to the American people, but it also gives pause to our enemy. And I think bucks up our allies. I think this is an important thing to do, and I think legally it's an important thing to do. And I hope Congress doesn't abdicate its responsibility to weigh in on this very, very important issue. If we believe it's a threat to the United States, I do. If we believe it's a threat to Western Europe, our allies you saw what happened in Australia with the plot to decapitate. This is as serious as it gets. We need to be serious about it. We need to have that debate. We need to give the president the authority. He may not use it all, but we should give him the authority to do what he needs to do to beat this group. I think it's so important that we do that.
[Bolduan:] Mr. Chairman, if you were a betting man, what do you think the chances are that that debate and that vote is actually going to happen in the lame duck? There is surely, definitely many ways to figure a way out of having that vote.
[Rogers:] Yes, there's a reason I'm not a betting man, Kate, aAnd that's because I would lose my back side, as my dad used to say. I worry you know, I think it's probably 5050 at this point. And I think we're going to have a lot of members are pushing for it. I think we're going to have to continue to push for it after the election and see where it goes. I think the longer the president the president gets in his way on these policies sometimes. You know, the day when we're getting ready to vote on the plan, he goes out and lays out the things he wouldn't do. I think that we all I think that hurts the president's chance of people thinking it's going to be successful. That's why I think you'll see a better a little better than 50 percent chance that you'll get a vote on this in the lame duck.
[Bolduan:] I think the lingering important question following these votes is this it's official, the White House has the go-ahead and the green light to arm and train the Syrian rebels to take on ISIS. But there are real doubts amongst Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and beyond about the moderate opposition how much we know about them, how well the administration can vet them, and how much they can be trusted. You know more from your position as a chairman of the House Intelligence Committee than many, than most everyone. What is your level of confidence in the Syrian rebels?
[Rogers:] First of all, this notion of moderate rebels, we should probably tamp that back a little bit. There's many of the folks are still Islamists. They're opposition, they're maybe pro-Western or at least not anti-Western. I wouldn't use the term moderate necessarily. But think about the cauldron that's in Syria today. You have al Sham, you have al Nusra, which is an al Qaeda affiliate, Hezbollah, which is the Iranian version of a state-sponsored terrorist organizations running around in Syria. It is a mess. So one day these rebels will get up and fight the Assad regime. The next day, they're getting up, they're literally fighting ISIL fighters and al Nusra fighters in different battles. So from that group of that individual those group of individuals and, you know, we have some sense now, better than we did six months ago, about which individuals we think would have a very good chance of being trained to be in a status better than the enemy and allow them to go in and fight against ISIL. I think that this can work, but it can't work by itself. It has to be in a conjunction with other parts of the plan.
[Bolduan:] I'm also getting new reporting I want to get your take on coming from our justice correspondent, Pamela Brown, about the other groups, about the al Qaeda cell in Syria, Khorasan. I may not even be saying it correct and that shows just how little we know about this group. What do you know about this group and the threat that they are very seriously still looking at aviation as a way to target the West?
[Rogers:] Well, we've talked about before the forward-deployed al Qaeda elements. This certainly would fit that criteria. So what we knew and we still know is that al Nusra is that al Qaeda affiliate, and we know that they are very, very interested in conducting an what they would call an external attack. So outside of their operating region in Syria, meaning the West. We know that there's been relationships between al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, where that technology, if you will, is being developed to try to get bombs on aircrafts. And these folks certain al Qaeda operatives, sprinkled around,if you will. And so I think the threat is very, very serious; it's the most immediate threat that we face.
[Bolduan:] Even more than
[Isis. Rogers:] when we look at more immediate. It doesn't mean less, it just means more immediate. I believe that it's a more immediate threat. So this one is something they absolutely want to do. And, remember, they are very eager to get, in their terms, points on the board, if you will, on a terrorist attack to show the world they're still the leading jihadist organization. And that's what's so concerning about it. And then you see these relationships that happen, you know, it's something that we need to worry about. And oh, by the way, we need to worry about ISIL as well.
[Bolduan:] Mr. Chairman, just an example of how big your job is. And I know that you're retiring, but how big your job still is until that day comes. Congressman Mike Rogers, it was great to see you. Thank you.
[Rogers:] Thanks. Until that second hand sweeps across the 12, I think I'll be worried about it.
[Bolduan:] I think so. I think you're right, and probably beyond. Thank you, sir. A court decision in Kansas could be a game-changer in a big Senate race and decide which party takes control of the chamber. John King is going to explain, "INSIDE POLITICS". And the allegations against Cardinals running back Jonathan Dwyer now coming to light. Police say that he broke his wife's nose with a headbutt. How can the NFL get control of the domestic violence issue? We're going to ask the women, the woman whose story inspired the film "The Blind Side", to get her take.