Donald Trump Holding Massive Rally in Arizona; Report: U.S. Drone Strike Kills ISIS Leader; Report: Australia Concerned About Two Pro-ISIS Pilots; Authorities Trying to Identify Dead Toddler
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We've got so much more straight ahead in the NEWSROOM. It all starts right now. Happening right now in the NEWSROOM, Donald Trump is making a bold prediction.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When it's all said and done, I will win, win, the Hispanic vote.</s>WHITFIELD: The presidential candidate will speak to thousands about immigration in a matter of hours. Plus a report that two commercial airline pilots posted pro-ISIS content on their Facebook pages. And later, Serena Williams taking the Wimbledon title for the sixth time. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hello and thanks again for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. All right, it's a big day for Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump. First, there is a stop at a libertarian conference in Las Vegas. Then he's off to Phoenix for a rally on immigration that is expected to draw thousands. Meanwhile, protests like this one in Los Angeles Friday continue over Trump's controversial remarks about people crossing the border from Mexico. But today on CNN, a Trump executive says those remarks are misunderstood.</s>MICHAEL COHEN, EXECUTIVE V.P. TRUMP ORGANIZATION: What Donald Trump said in his speech was not directed to Mexicans. That's a gross distortion by the press, by the liberal media, that wants to take Donald Trump out of this race. He did not say Mexicans, and he certainly did not say Latinos. He said Mexico. He was referring to the Mexican government. What he then did is on probably more than 10,000 speeches and meetings with both liberal media as well as print and television. He went ahead and explained exactly what he meant. That it's the Mexican government, not Mexicans. That wasn't enough.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I understand that.</s>COHEN: He put out statements. Let me just finish this. He put out statements that explained it, but they still don't want to hear it. And so Donald Trump is not backing down. He doesn't back down to anyone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Michael, Michael, I know and I want to get to that, too. I don't consider myself part of any liberal media. I just want to get to the facts. And the facts suggest that proportionately those who are here in this country illegally are committing less crime than native-born Americans. That's what the "Washington Post" was getting at when they called out Mr. Trump and they said this just isn't true.</s>COHEN: Well, tell that to the family of this young girl that was killed. The bottom line is, this is not an issue about one person, though in all fairness if you look to see the tragedy that took place in Charlotte, what a great result that that had for Charlotte and the American people. And let's hope that the same thing happens for this beautiful young girl that was killed in San Francisco. This is a time for immigration reform. And that's something Mr. Trump feels strongly about.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. So you heard Mr. Cohen say Trump's remarks were not directed at Mexicans. You be the judge. Here is that speech from last month.</s>TRUMP: When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Let's bring in CNN political reporter, MJ Lee. All right, so Donald Trump and his people are saying his comments are being misinterpreted so as he visits Vegas and then onto Phoenix, how much will this be about clarifying his comments or reiterating his comments?</s>MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: I think Donald Trump is expected to only reiterate his comments today, Fredricka. I don't think there is going to be a clarification or an attempt to take back anything that he has said so far, even amid all this controversy. When I spoke with Trump officials earlier today, they made it clear that the main message that he is going to be driving home is how do we stop illegal immigrants who come into the country from killing U.S. citizens? That was the exact words that campaign officials used when they were trying to describe what Mr. Trump's message would be in Arizona today. I think that to say that this has been just a controversy would be an understatement. I think that there are many immigrants in the country, particularly those of Latino background, who are very offended by the comments that he has made. And I think with the two events today, Mr. Trump will only be re-emphasizing the earlier remarks. In fact, yesterday when he spoke in Beverly Hills, he really doubled down on the message that he has been repeating over and over again. Let's take a listen.</s>TRUMP: We're housing people from all over the world that other countries don't want. They're sending criminals to us. And we're putting those criminals in jail. Oftentimes after they've killed somebody or hurt somebody.</s>LEE: So the word "criminals" I think is one that we're going to be hearing a lot from Donald Trump today -- Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: OK, while in Arizona, Phoenix in particular, he is expected to appear with the sheriff there, Joe Arpaio, who is famous in his own right for his own anti-immigration kind of sentiments. Will they be speaking kind of in concert? What is this relationship and how is it going to be displayed?</s>LEE: I think that you're right that especially for the people of Arizona, they know this man. They know Sheriff Arpaio as being someone who has taken very anti-immigration stances in the past. I think that it does sort of help reiterate Trump's comments about illegal immigration from the last couple of months. I think whether the two of them are going to be on stage together at the same time or whether they will end up being separate speeches I'm not sure, but the fact that are going to be at this event together will send that message.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. MJ Lee, thanks so much. And of course, remember for all the latest news on the race for 2016, go to cnnpolitics.com. New details about a deadly attack targeting ISIS in Afghanistan, former Taliban leader, Hafiz Saeed, also thought to be an ISIS leader in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike. The Afghanistan intelligence agency says Saeed was one of 30 other insurgents killed in the strike on their compound in Eastern Afghanistan. A spokesman says the leader, who was killed, is not the man with the same name who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. Egyptian authorities are now trying to find out who set off a car bomb outside the Italian Consulate in downtown Cairo this morning. The blast killed at least one person and injured nine others. It also caused significant damage to the consulate. Had the attack happened on a week day, the area would have been teaming with people. No one has yet claimed responsibility. Australian authorities are worried that two Indonesian airline pilots may have been radicalized by ISIS. That's according to an intelligence report obtained by the news web site "The Intercept." That report details the social media behavior of the two men. Authorities are concerned that they could post security threats because of their knowledge of aviation and security procedures. Both pilots have Facebook pages which post pro-is materials. The one of the men denies that he is a member of ISIS. Indonesia's national police chief tells CNN their investigation shows the two pilots are not directly involved with ISIS, but he also said they often post about ISIS on Facebook, and they are sympathizers. Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Ministry says it's asked the country's security agencies for more information about the pilots. The Australian federal police told CNN it doesn't comment on intelligence matters. All right, joining me right now from New York, a former Navy SEAL, Jonathan Gilliam, who is also a former FBI special agent. Jonathan, this all sounds very alarming especially since you're hearing acknowledgement being an ISIS sympathizer but not necessarily an ISIS member, what do you make of all this kind of information?</s>JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, first off, Fred, we have to look at the terminology that's being used, an ISIS member? What is that? I mean, you don't get a membership card to be an ISIS. You don't go to ISIS boot camp to be a fighter. You're a sympathizer. You're somebody who understands what the ideology, the fundamental Islamic ideology that ISIS follows and you subscribe to that.</s>WHITFIELD: Doesn't it sound rather alarming and you're a pilot and you've got a whole lot of peoples' lives in your hands?</s>GILLIAM: It doesn't get any more alarming than that. The only thing that they could add to that if they had some kind of license to carry explosives on their planes, I mean, that's, you know, -- it doesn't get any worse than that right there. Those two individuals should be pulled straight off those planes, never to fly again, and they should be highly investigated. I mean, they should dig into everything. All their contacts, who they're contacting because there are no way that these two individuals just are fans of ISIS. It goes way deeper.</s>WHITFIELD: So would it be the situation or the case that the Australian government or even Indonesian government feels like they don't have the authority to take them from their piloting duties because of this information or is there a more international or global I guess field or entity that could make that kind of decision?</s>GILLIAM: Well, when you work in certain areas, those areas come with certain types of responsibility and overwatch. And when you have proven to the world that this group has declared war on most western countries and on anything that's not Islamic, and then they've shown throughout history that they're not opposed to using planes, they should take this very seriously. These individuals are allowed to fly in these airplanes by the governments. I mean, they go and they get a job with the airline industry, but they have to be vetted and cleared to go and fly these planes. You can't just allow anybody who has any type of ideology to jump inside an airplane with 200 something people in it that basically it's a flying bomb.</s>WHITFIELD: OK, and then now we are just learning that ISIS is claiming responsibility for -- or I'm sorry. ISIS supporters, I'm being told, is claiming responsibility for that consulate attack there in Cairo, Egypt. So what is your response when you hear that? What duds that mean, ISIS supporters versus members of ISIS? I mean, this language or these semantics is getting very complicated, isn't it?</s>GILLIAM: It is because we're allowing it to be. I mean, look, Fred, we're talking now about an explosion and sympathizers, right? We were just talking about two airline pilots that were sympathizers. The fact is, people that subscribe to the fundamental Islamic ideology that ISIS, al Qaeda, all these different groups subscribe to, it's one ideology. There might be different divisions. One may want to do shootings. One may want to do explosions. One may want to crash planes into buildings. It's one ideology. We need to stop differentiating between all of them and we need to stop looking at trying to pick between a sympathizer, somebody who's a supporter and somebody who's an operator. They're all operators, whether they're directly or indirectly related. Look at Germany back during World War II. You had direct people involved in the fighting, you had indirect people that supported it and allowed to it happen. It's the same thing here.</s>WHITFIELD: Yes, and just for clarity, my CNN producer is telling me that's the language ISIS supporter. Just like you, I think we all wish we knew a little bit more about what that really means. Jonathan Gilliam, thanks so much. Appreciate it.</s>GILLIAM: You got it.</s>WHITFIELD: And we'll be right back.