CNN "Wolf" - Transcript: Secret Service

Interview

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Jim Sciutto, reporting from Washington. Wolf Blitzer is off today.

One glaring error after another, a shocking report on the Secret Service response to a White House fence jumper is fueling calls for major urgent changes within the agency. Homeland Security Department found that it was a series of failures, both human and technical, that permitted intruder, Omar Gonzalez, to run past agents and burst into the first family's residence in September. Among the findings, an officer in charge of releasing dogs on intruders reacted 11 seconds late because he was in a van taking a personal call without his ear piece in. Another officer posted outside the White House doors heard what he said was unintelligible traffic over the radio. And the review says the officer did not shoot Gonzalez because he didn't see that the intruder was armed and figured the White House doors were not locked and he'd be corner. They weren't locked and, in fact, that intruder had a knife on him.

Joining me now from Capitol Hill, Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, of Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Congressman, looking at this report, in addition to the details I just went through there, incredible stuff, and even going back, they mishandled the investigation of Gonzalez, someone who had been known to them because of past behavior, and even silly things, like one of the agents thought that Gonzalez could not get through the bushes so he didn't chase him in the bushes and, as it turns out, he went through the bushes. As you were reading this, you had to be alarmed.

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL, (R-TX), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, this highlights a series of security lapses, failures. Mr. Gonzalez was on the radar screen as a person of interest against the White House. He had been arrested previously. He had a map of the White House, a sawed-off shotgun. He had a series of mental issues. And, yet, when he was seen outside the fence, the outside perimeter security noticed him and watched him but didn't radio to the security inside the fence about him and who he is. And then he jumps the fence. Remember, this fence was built in the 1960s, by the way. It's not really up to date. He jumps the fence and then the man in charge of the canines, as you pointed out, was on a personal phone call, did not have his earpiece in, didn't have his radio operator equipment available. The jumper runs right past him. He gets into the White House, the door is unlocked, another breach and then into the East Wing of the White House. And this is actually a road map to assassinate the president. I think this is unacceptable. I applaud the secretary and his investigation and his findings but we have a lot more work to do to fix this agency to make it the premier agency that we all used to know.

I've introduced a bill to provide an independent review of not only this incident and the White House but the entire agency and all the problems that we've seen, whether it be the prostitution, drunkenness in Amsterdam, where the agent could not find his room and was found drunk and passed out in the hallway.

SCIUTTO: What strikes me is I've always looked at the White House and imagined this is this sort of impregnable bubble. If you just stuck your toe across that fend, alarms would go off and secret weapons would be fired or something like that, but there is something important there because you pierce that sense of impregnability. How do you correct that quickly?

MCCAUL: This is the first time someone has jumped that fence. Usually, they are apprehended immediately. And in this case, he was not. We need to look at -- again, this fence was built in the 1960s. We need to update that fence. They asked for millions of dollars, every Congressman, you appropriate to them and, yet, we have a 1960s defense. The technology is inadequate. But, yeah, we also had human error and not interoperability with communications before. And a lot of, again, human failure which is how he got inside. This warrants a new leadership at Secret Service, which I know the secretary is -- we talked about this just yesterday -- is dedicated to doing. But, again, I think a top-to-bottom review of the agency is important to restore morale in the agency but, most of all, their mission is to protect the president of the United States and they are failing, which is not acceptable to Congress but also to the American people.

SCIUTTO: I want to turn to another threat, and this coming from overseas. You wrote an op-ed in "Time" magazine on ISIS's recruiting of the Westerners and in Europe and the U.S. In that op-ed, you said that, "Extremists have already managed to exploit Europe's security gaps and transform it into a jihadi super highway. The in-bound lane to Syria is clearly busy but the out-bound lane we should be especially worried about."

This outbound lane is, of course, the idea of what do these foreign fighters do when they return home to Europe and potentially to the U.S. There's been a lot of talk about countries in Europe taking steps, including Turkey. But you talk about how some of the steps have been inefficient. Why is that? Is it a matter of ability or is it a question of their commitment to really fight this?

MCCAUL: I think, first and foremost, we need to identify who these foreign fighters are and take them out in Syria and Iraq. But the problem is there's easy access through Turkey. It is a super highway for jihadists. I think getting the Turkish government to cooperate better with us when we identify these fighters, for them to be apprehended or stopped from travel and stop from getting on airplanes. From Turkey they go into Western Europe where -- it's a waiver visa country. They don't need a visa to fly from there to the United States. I think that's -- the intelligence community, Homeland Security officials are most concerned about them going through Turkey and into Western Europe and then getting on an airplane into the United States.

Your previous guest, Adam Schiff, talked about the Khorasan group, which we know now is attempting to make bombs to get through airports undetected. We had 24 airports who tightened screening. However, one of these guys gets through and blows up an airplane over, say, New York City and you can imagine the damage. We need to keep these jihadists outside of the United States. And the best way to do that is to have more restrictions on their watch list so these jihadists can't get on the airplanes, as I believe they are vulnerable to getting on them today.

SCIUTTO: The concern is that is America's first line of defense, and you need to stop them from getting here.

Thanks very much, Congressman Michael McCaul.

MCCAUL: Thank you, Jim.

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