ANNOUNCER: This is the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
GWEN IFILL: Hello, I'm Gwen Ifill.
Welcome to our Webcast Extra, where we pick up online where we left off on the air.
I'm joined by Jeff Zeleny of CNN, Laura Meckler of The Wall Street Journal, Pete
Williams of NBC News, and Pierre Thomas of ABC News.
It turns out our government is very worried about the potential for terrorism that lurks
within.
In Garland, Texas this week, the two men shot dead by police after trying to stage an
attack at an anti-Muslim event appear to have attempted to establish ties to ISIS.
And at the Justice Department this week, the FBI outlined the ways ISIS is using social
media to do its recruiting, using tactics straight out of Madison Avenue.
Pete and Pierre have been all over this story.
Pierre, why don't you start by telling us about some of the tactics which the Justice
Department - the FBI has been telling us about?
PIERRE THOMAS: We've actually been doing a deep dive, looking at precisely how ISIS has
been using social media.
They have developed a system and a strategy where they're pushing out images, videos and
communications on a daily basis.
We interviewed an official who said 90,000 times a day they're posting something.
And -
GWEN IFILL: Ninety thousand times a day?
PIERRE THOMAS: A day.
And it's a variety of things, and let me give you three examples.
One, there's video.
Picture high-definition video, beautifully shot of beautiful children running toward a
bunch of fighters, and the fighters have ice cream and cotton candy.
And they hand out the ice cream and cotton candy, and then the video ends with the ISIS
fighter looking at the camera and smiling.
And then a sign comes up, Mujatweets.
Another video.
They have commandeered - a video similar to "Grand Theft Auto" in which they say, you
play the game, but you can come live the game, basically, with them.
Another video to soften their image.
They have a very handsome ISIS fighter who goes to a hospital and he's visiting his
wounded comrades.
So they're operating on all different levels, enticing people to pay attention to them.
And the concern is somebody who's getting those images will identify with ISIS and maybe
not go to join them in Iraq or Syria, but actually play out and do something here in the
U.S.
GWEN IFILL: Well, which brings us to Garland, Texas.
I don't know, does it bring us to Garland, Texas?
PETE WILLIAMS: Yes, very much so.
GWEN IFILL: Where we see two individuals who decided - and telegraphed - that they were
going to attack this anti-Muslim event, which was showing Prophet Muhammad cartoons, and
seemed to have at least - at the very least been inspired by ISIS.
PETE WILLIAMS: Well, clearly one of them was, and that's Elton Simpson.
He was obviously, now we know, in touch with several people who were either ISIS members
or ISIS sympathizers who - one of whom had said, hey, what about this event in Texas,
somebody ought to do something about that.
And as Pierre said, they're not just saying, you know, hooray for our side; they're
saying, you know - just today the ISIS in - somebody sent out a tweet saying, hey,
there's this Jewish person in Australia and he's doing things that we don't like,
somebody ought to go kill him.
And so that is exactly what they're doing.
They're not merely sending a propaganda message about how great they are.
They're appealing to people and saying, you know, look, if you can't get over here, kill
somebody right where you live.
That's the big danger.
GWEN IFILL: And threats against U.S.
military bases we see today.
PIERRE THOMAS: Right.
Essentially, they're leveraging Western values and marketing to get someone to do
something.
It's like, we'll throw it out there and maybe someone will do something.
The FBI director talked about a distinction between ISIS and al-Qaida.
He said ISIS would never think of sending one to do an attack without vetting them.
PETE WILLIAMS: Yeah.
PIERRE THOMAS: ISIS doesn't care.
They just want you to do it.
PETE WILLIAMS: And the other - excuse me - and the other difference, and what makes it
so hard for the government, is, in the olden days of about a year and a half ago -
(chuckles) - the way you got a propaganda message was to put up a website, and then the
FBI could sort of lurk around the edges and see who was coming.
Now it's being pushed out to - he said there were probably hundreds of people in the
U.S.
who are consuming these messages, perhaps thousands.
LAURA MECKLER: Wow.
GWEN IFILL: OK, let's move to something more lighthearted, like politics.
(Laughter.)
LAURA MECKLER: Seriously.
GWEN IFILL: We got through a lot of people who are in this crowded race now, Jeff,
during the main broadcast, but there are a lot of people who are keeping a much closer
eye on.
They're not the longshots.
They're the Marco Rubios and the Jeb Bushes and the Chris Christies.
JEFF ZELENY: Right.
And Chris Christie suddenly reappeared this week back on the campaign trail.
We haven't seen a lot of him.
He was in New Hampshire for a couple days.
He is not out of this yet.
He has a few problems, a few challenges -
GWEN IFILL: A few problems.
JEFF ZELENY: - at home back in New Jersey.
I mean, fiscal problems for one, but also the Bridgegate -
PIERRE THOMAS: A few bridges to cross?
(Laughter.)
JEFF ZELENY: Exactly.
A situation that's still going on.
But he is still eyeing probably a June time frame of jumping in.
His advisers are insisting he's still running.
We'll see.
I mean, I think it's a little early to rule him out entirely, but his moment may have
passed a bit.
But Marco Rubio I would say, if you're judging all the rollouts so far, I think he's had
the best one and has had the biggest rise.
He is in poll after poll after poll - which we have to take with a grain of salt at this
point - but one consistency: he is viewed more positively, more favorably as second
choice or as, you know - Republicans don't dislike him, I guess, as much as some of the
others.
LAURA MECKLER: An acceptable choice, sort of.
JEFF ZELENY: Acceptable choice, right.
Thank you.
Thank you for translating that.
LAURA MECKLER: He is like an acceptable choice to a larger number of people.
GWEN IFILL: People don't know him very well yet, though.
JEFF ZELENY: Because Jeb Bush, though -
GWEN IFILL: This is what happens.
JEFF ZELENY: It's a possibility, but Jeb Bush, though, he has high negatives and high
numbers.
But Jeb Bush, I think, is still out there.
He is raising so much money, and doing something that we never seen before.
He's filling up the coffers of his super PAC, and then he's going to jump in and run for
president later.
And this is the - you know, it's an unusual dynamic.
But the super PACs in 2016, in this cycle, are going to be much different and much more
robust than ever before.
So -
GWEN IFILL: I wouldn't pooh-pooh the polls completely, except that they do - they do
measure at this stage how well do you know somebody.
And that's why, if your name is Bush, they know you pretty well.
They've formed an opinion, no matter who you are.
If your name is Rubio, it's like, what's the story?
So maybe that may be a little bit of what we're seeing.
JEFF ZELENY: And the story is what people are latching onto.
He goes around and he tells the story of his upbringing, and people like inspirational
stories.
People - you know, and so he is - he's getting attention because of his persona and who
he is, so he's not running away from his family -
GWEN IFILL: Laura, I want to ask you about Hillary because we - speaking of well-known,
speaking of very - resonating in polls one way or the other, she is also raising money
hand over fist now as well.
LAURA MECKLER: Yeah.
I mean, we don't know if -
GWEN IFILL: Well, we don't know if it's hand over fist.
LAURA MECKLER: Probably has a way - has a way to go to catch up with Jeb.
But yes, she is out there.
I mean, in fact, we're only seeing a very little bit of her sort of in public.
You know, once a week she'll do a day's worth of events.
In Nevada this last week we saw her once, I mean, for less than an hour, I would say, in
public.
But she did do a lot of fundraising on the West Coast.
So she is fundraising for her own campaign.
And that is, by today's standards, you know, relatively small dollars.
We're talking $2,700 per person.
That might not seem like small dollars to everybody who - out there, but that is small
in a -
GWEN IFILL: In a billion-dollar campaign it is.
LAURA MECKLER: - in a billion-dollar campaign, exactly.
It is - she also this week started having her first meetings to support her own super
PAC.
Now, she - there are some lines that she won't be able to cross.
She can't, you know, coordinate with her super PAC, and she cannot directly ask for
large sums of money.
But she can have conversations with people about what they're up to and what she - hoping
that - essentially getting to know her and therefore hoping that they will support the -
support Priorities USA.
It is pretty amazing when you contrast that with what's happening with Jeb.
He is not a candidate as far as the law is concerned today, so he can go and ask for
anything he wants and coordinate all he wants.
So I'm not really sure, as a practical matter, there's all that much difference of what
he's doing and what Hillary's doing, but she cannot - at least she can't make the ask.
But she is - she is out there having the meetings.
GWEN IFILL: I have to say the rules are so confusing to me still: who can meet, who
can't meet, where they're supposed to -
LAURA MECKLER: Well, I think the bottom line is people can pretty much do whatever they
want these days.
I mean, there are some technical lines, but they are - I mean, I even heard this week -
you would know this better than I would - that there's some talk of Jeb having his super
PAC run his TV ads, his main TV ads.
JEFF ZELENY: Yeah, that's exactly what they're - what they're doing, they're
outsourcing them.
And the whole problem it goes to -
LAURA MECKLER: Which is - how do they do that without anyone coordinating?
JEFF ZELENY: If anyone at home is interested in commissions, the Federal Election
Commission, which polices all this, has basically thrown its hands up and said we -
PETE WILLIAMS: We give up?
JEFF ZELENY: We give up, we are hopelessly deadlocked.
So that - as John McCain always says, all this money is going to create a scandal
problem.
He might be right about this.
GWEN IFILL: Yeah, well, they're hoping that the problem doesn't get caught up until
after the election is over.
JEFF ZELENY: Right, of course.
GWEN IFILL: Thank you all very much, and thank you all for watching online.
While you're here, check out my take this week on what's right and wrong about being
politically correct.
And we'll see you next time on the Washington Week Webcast Extra.
