CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Domestic Terror Attack and First Amendment Rights

Interview

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BLITZER: Joining us now is a key voice on national security, Senator Angus King. He's the independent senator from Maine. He serves on both the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.

Would you agree this was the first, I guess it's successful, they actually managed to start firing their assault rifles -- the first successful ISIS attack on U.S. soil, Senator?

SEN. ANGUS KING (I), MAINE: Well, I think that may be a slight overstatement because we don't have yet any data that connects them to this attack. But it's pretty darned close. I mean we know that ISIS and there are other supporters, Al-Shabab and others, were Tweeting about this conference in Texas and were urging people to take up arms. I don't know if they contacted this guy in Phoenix directly and said you should go.

But, you know, we're splitting hairs here. I think the reality is, this is what happened. ISIS was urging an attack. These guys responded. And this is a real danger.

Now there is a bit of success here, Wolf, and I -- I haven't heard this reported. The FBI and the Homeland Security Department contacted local law enforcement people in Texas in the area of this conference last Thursday and said that -- and told them that they thought there was a significant risk of some kind of attack.

So -- and then, of course, the local people bravely and ably took these guys out.

So, you know there is -- there is a success here in terms of counterterrorism. But the problem is, how much more of this are we going to face?

And this was an easy target to identify by our FBI and homeland security.

What about a random attack somewhere else in the country?

That's going to be much more difficult.

BLITZER: It certainly will be. Senator, we -- we know that ISIS is claiming responsibility. They're claiming credit, from their perspective, as far as this attack in Texas is concerned.

But do you have any more specific information on the ISIS involvement?

Because other U.S. officials are telling CNN the attack, in their words, was quote, "Certainly more than just inspiration."

KING: Yes, I think that's true. Inspiration would be a kind of a generalized term.

[17:10:00]

But clearly, they were sending out a kind of APB of here's this event taking place. The brothers in the U.S. should take care of it, like the brothers did in France. So that was the language they were using.

Again, we're sort of splitting hairs.

Does that mean they ordered the guy in Phoenix to go and do this or did he pick up on the social media and say I'm one of the brothers, I'm going to go and do it?

But the point is, they are definitely, definitely into the business of trying to inspire these kind of attacks and direct them. And it's just something that we're going to have to continue to deal with given the state of the world that we live in.

BLITZER: And they're now warning, also, of bigger attacks down the road.

Senator, stand by.

We have more to discuss.

We'll take a quick break.

Much more with Senator Angus King when we come back.

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BLITZER: We're back with Senator Angus King. He's the Maine independent who serves on both the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.

[17:00:39] Senator, in taking responsibility, ISIS warned, in their words, of "bigger and more bitter" terror attacks. Do you have any information on active plots that may be in the works right now?

KING: No information on active plots. But I don't think there's any doubt that they would very much like to have those kind of effects here in the country. And they're -- you know, the distinction we were talking about before, did they order this attack? And I think they did in a general kind of way but not in a specific way of contacting this fellow in Phoenix.

But they're going to continue to try to do this, and we've got to try to keep one step ahead of them with our -- with our intelligence assets, with our law enforcement assets.

But you know, we can't have a circle of police around every public space in America. There are not that many police, and that's not the country we want to live in.

So we've got to try to counteract this in all -- moving on all fronts. But a key -- a key element is intelligence. And interestingly, a key element is successful, careful monitoring of social media. These guys advertise what they're going to do on Twitter. So that's something -- this is a whole new world where we've got to have the FBI and our intelligence agencies monitoring social media.

BLITZER: We've got to do a lot. That's a tough job, though, because there's a lot of stuff going out there on social media. You don't know what's real, what's fake or what's serious, and what's a real -- real threat.

Some people are suggesting these two guys, they were pretty inept. They showed up with assault rifles, but one off-duty traffic cop with a handgun killed both of them before they could really do any damage. What does that say?

KING: Well, I think what it says is that we were lucky. We had -- we had some good -- we had good warning from the intelligence from the FBI, but we also had good policing on the local level. But what if they had been more competent; what if they'd been better armed; what if they'd been better prepared? This could have been a real tragedy, Wolf.

And I think this time we were fortunate in the way it turned out. But, you know, we're just going to have to do -- continue to do everything we can to deal with and prevent these kinds of things. But understand that living in a free country, there are going to be risks.

BLITZER: I know you believe in free speech, the First Amendment like all of us, but here's the question. Should this event depicting the Prophet Mohammed in cartoons, which is offensive to a lot of Muslims, should it have taken place in the first place?

KING: Look, if -- if you can't tolerate offensive speech, then the First Amendment doesn't mean anything. And, you know, there is never a justification for violence against somebody in this country who's expressing their opinion, no matter how obnoxious it is to me or to someone else.

Now what the problem is, though, we have to understand that our reference for the First Amendment doesn't extend across the globe and that there are people who -- there are laws against blasphemy and all these other things in other countries. So, you know, that's where it gets complicated. But absolutely, we have the right of free speech in this country, and

that goes for words that we don't like. So no justification for this, no matter how provocative this event was.

But I do think it's important, Wolf, that these were two, you know -- I don't know what their mental state was, but clearly, they weren't very well-balanced. But not to say OK, well all Muslims in America, we've got to watch and surreal and everything else.

To attribute their -- these actions to millions of law-abiding patriotic Americans, I think would be a tragic outcome from this event. We've really got to be careful about that.

BLITZER: That's absolutely true. Senator King, thanks very much for joining us.

KING: Thank you, Wolf. Good to be with you.

BLITZER: Angus King of Maine.

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