Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

UK Parliament to Vote on Expanding Airstrikes; Donald Trump Doubles Down on 9/11 Celebration Claims; Ted Cruz in Third Place in Latest Polls; Jury to be Seated in Officer's Trial; ISIS Recruiting in the U.S.; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 2, 2015 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[10:00:25] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, new poll, Donald Trump hammering the competition and still hammering his 9/11 celebration claims.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There were a lot of happy people over in New Jersey.

COSTELLO: His campaign claims there's proof.

TRUMP: And things are all of a sudden materializing.

COSTELLO: So what's he talking about?

Also, protesters claiming a cover-up in Chicago over the shooting death of Laquan McDonald. The top cop is out.

SPIKE LEE, DIRECTOR, "CHI-RAQ": They are calling for Rahm's neck, too. His head.

COSTELLO: Could the mayor be next?

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, CHICAGO: I think I'm doing my job and I try to do it every day.

COSTELLO: Plus, a dire warning about ISIS.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our luck is going to run out and they're going to be able to achieve something along the lines of what we saw in Paris.

COSTELLO: Right now, Secretary of State John Kerry urging NATO allies to step up the fight. As our allies put it up to a vote.

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We begin with new developments in the war on ISIS. Officials say four men have been arrested in Britain for involvement in acts of terror. Searches now under way in several homes connected with that investigation. In the meantime in London, a major debate is taking place in the House of Parliament. British lawmakers are deciding whether to expand airstrikes against the Islamic State. All of this as Germany gets set to vote on deploying reconnaissance aircraft to help countries pinpoint ISIS targets.

Secretary of State John Kerry has applauded the actions of both countries, and specifically commended the leadership of Prime Minister David Cameron who spoke before his parliament this morning.

CNN's Max Foster live in London with more on that. Hi, Max.

MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: Carol, quite strong language coming from David Cameron today. Effectively, what he's saying is you cannot contract out Britain's security. Currently a coalition led by the United States is taking on ISIS in Syria, and Britain should be involved in that as well because Britain is vulnerable to attacks from ISIS. They're probably planning them right now, they're radicalizing British children right now.

Just take a listen to some of the language today, Carol, as he spoke to parliamentarians, trying to convince them to back him in the vote for strikes against ISIS in Syria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I know there are some who suggest that military action could, in some way, undermine our counter extremism strategy by radicalizing British Muslims. So let me take this head on. British Muslims are appalled by Daesh. These women- raping, Muslim-murdering, Medieval monsters, they are hijacking the peaceful religion of Islam for their warped ends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Ten-hour debate, Carol, ahead of this vote tonight. And a few people skeptical about what he has to say, what sort of plans has he got for after the attack? And will it work without ground troops? He argues there's enough rebel forces on the ground that they can work with which are effectively a ground force for the coalition. But lots to convince all those parliamentarians.

The vote's probably going to get through. It has to be said, it's just by what sort of margin, but we'll obviously bring the vote as it comes in.

COSTELLO: All right. Max Foster reporting live from London this morning, thank you.

New polls are out this morning, and new shockwaves are rippling through the Republican presidential race. This one coming from Quinnipiac University. Donald Trump is building on his lead a little, picking up a few points from last month. Marco Rubio is gaining and now sitting in second place. And Ben Carson is fading. He slides into a third place tie with Senator Ted Cruz. Now if Donald trump is worried about this, he's certainly not showing

it. He's already looking ahead to the general election and the leading Democrat, Hillary Clinton. Here's what he said at a New Hampshire rally last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Very importantly, I'm killing -- we are just destroying Hillary. We're beating Hillary. Badly. We're beating her badly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But he's not doing that in this most recent poll. The Quinnipiac poll shows if the election were held today, Hillary Clinton has the lead.

Let's check in with CNN Politics reporter MJ Lee.

MJ, tell us more about this poll and the important points in it. Good morning.

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, Democrats would be thrilled if Donald Trump ended up being the Republican frontrunner. While he has been in the lead in the party for a while now, he actually does not do well against Hillary Clinton, at least not right now. The numbers that you just showed, he would be actually behind her by at least six percentage points, 47-41.

[10:05:10] And some of the other candidates, Carson and Cruz, do not do well against Clinton either, 46-43 percent for Clinton versus Carson and then 47 percent to 42 percent for Clinton versus Cruz. The one Republican that Democrats do fear going up against Hillary Clinton in the general election would be Marco Rubio. The more so-called mainstream candidate within the Republican field.

If Clinton were to go against Marco Rubio come November, it would be 45 percent to 44 percent. So really neck and neck right now. So I think the question for the Republican Party right now going forward is, can another Republican candidate other than Donald Trump, like Marco Rubio, gain some ground in the coming months and try to give the Democratic nominee, which we believe will be Hillary Clinton, for the time being, you know, can someone give him a run for -- give her, actually, a run for her money come November?

COSTELLO: All right, MJ Lee reporting for us this morning, thank you.

Many political observers, though, say Ted Cruz is actually the man to watch. He is the stealth candidate and a smart one. It wasn't long ago these clips started showing up online. That's Cruz's kids and his wife. They're fighting to say grace before dinner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dear Jesus, thank you for the food. Thank you for the day. Thank you for my family. Thank you for my friends. Thank you for my puppy, amen. SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Amen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Cruz also has a good ground game going on in Iowa, appealing to evangelicals. Rick Tyler is with the Cruz campaign. And Rick joins me live now.

Welcome, Rick.

RICK TYLER, NATIONAL SPOKESMAN, CRUZ FOR PRESIDENT: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. We have to talk about Donald Trump first. He's at 27 percent in this latest poll. He's been hovering at that level in many polls over the past many months. He can't seem to break that 30 percent mark. Why do you think that is?

TYLER: Well, he's reached some sort of limit. I don't want to predict on what Donald Trump is going to expand or not, but the fact is he hasn't been able to expand. We've been steadily growing and I'm very encouraged by the poll numbers. They're just a poll, it's a national poll, but it represents a trend. We've been steadily building a campaign, as you mentioned. We're more organized in the early states than all of our competitors.

And that's what's going to count because on election night, in each of the caucus states and early primary states, you've got to actually get people to go to the polls. We're organized to do that, and we're excited about it.

COSTELLO: Just one more question about Donald Trump. His claims that thousands and thousands of Muslims were cheering after 9/11 and his failure to prove that, do you think that's hurting him?

TYLER: Well, according to the poll, it hasn't been hurting him. But look, I'll leave it to Donald Trump and his campaign to provide the evidence they claim they have it so I'm sure everybody would like to see it. And so we'll see it or we won't see it. But I can't predict on how people are going to react to, you know, whatever Donald Trump says or doesn't say.

COSTELLO: I actually can't help but notice that Senator Cruz is not actually after Mr. Trump, but it appears to be he's after Marco Rubio. The senator recently calling Senator Rubio a neocon. He linked him -- he likened him, actually, to Hillary Clinton. Why Rubio and not Trump?

TYLER: Well, Marco Rubio has attacked Senator Cruz on his national security record. But what Marco Rubio is trying -- attempt to do is distance himself from the gang of eight bill, none of which of the provisions he's actually walked away from. With the gang of eight bill would do is to give legal status to millions of people who are here illegally including citizenship. It also had a provision that would allow the president, President Obama, to declare who's eligible for asylum and refugee status. So instead of the refugees we're all arguing over now, whether they

should or shouldn't come, on the gang of eight which he supported, all of these more people, more refugees, would be let in. And as we know, there's no real vetting being done on these refugees because there's no database to compare them to. And so that is a big weakness in Marco Rubio's record. And what he's trying to do is shore up his record and have people not notice his leadership on gang of eight.

And so what does he do? He tries to attack someone else and their leadership. But this poll, the Quinnipiac poll showed that people trust Senator Cruz to be commander-in-chief. They showed that he had very strong leadership on foreign policy. So I think they trust Senator Cruz to keep the country safe.

COSTELLO: Well, something worrisome for Ted Cruz in this poll, though, if he goes up against Hillary Clinton, he loses.

TYLER: Well, let me just comment on that. That's a national poll, and that's not how we elect candidates. And of course campaigns are dynamic. We elect them state by state. So we're effectively tied for first place in Iowa. We hope to win Iowa. We're in the top four in all the early states. But beyond that, we're organized in the March 1 states, and we have over 140,000 volunteers who have signed up.

[10:10:06] We have 1,000 team leaders -- actually, 1300 team leaders around the country. So we'll get beyond -- once we get beyond the early states which Senator Cruz will do very, very well in, we're prepared to go to March 1. And I'm not -- I'm not sure all the other candidates are prepared to do that.

COSTELLO: All right. Rick Tyler, thanks for being with me. I appreciate it.

TYLER: Thanks, Carol. You bet.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Chicago's top officer fired. Now the mayor is facing growing calls to step down himself.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Outrage in Chicago. The mayor forcing the police superintendent out. And now protesters say Rahm Emanuel should be next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Show us your hands. Show us your hands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:15:05] COSTELLO: Protesters claiming a cover-up, accusing Mayor Rahm Emanuel of protecting police during his run for re-election. The police superintendent, McCarthy's dismissal, following angry protests over the police killing of a black teenager shot 16 times last year. Ryan Young is in Chicago with more on this. Good morning.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Look, there's a process here in Chicago to fire police officer. In fact, the superintendent didn't have the power to fire that officer. He could only take away his police powers. That officer on desk duty, Jason Van Dyke, for some 13 months.

While no one got a chance to see this video, now that the video has been released, the follow-on has been, of course, the mayor did fire his superintendent. And now people are saying, look, maybe it has to go all the way to the top. That Anita Alvarez and Rahm Emanuel will have to go as well. That also will be a conversation because Anita Alvarez is running for re-election. That election taking place in March.

There's another conversation about the cover-up here. What did people know? Think about the videotape where 86 minutes are in question. Whether or not that's missing. People want to know exactly where that video is and whether or not anyone ever deleted it. In fact, Anita Alvarez talked about that just last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANITA ALVAREZ, COOK COUNTY STATE PROSECUTOR: At this point we don't know whether or not, you know, there could be any other evidence obtained from them. But it doesn't appear that they've been tampered with. And did not reveal, you know, any of that kind of evidence. However, the investigation will always continue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: She tells us there was a forensic audit of that system, and it didn't show that anyone deleted the video. So we're not sure what happened. Was there a malfunction? We've actually asked Burger King whether or not what was going on with that system. We went to that Burger King. It doesn't seem like the video camera was actually pointed toward the video scene. So that's something else that we'll have to figure out in the days coming.

But there are a lot of people calling for changes. The mayor is actually talking right now at another news conference. So as we get more information we'll, of course, pass it along to you -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll check back. Ryan Young reporting live from Chicago.

For the first time, we're hearing from the police officer charged in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland. In a statement, Timothy Loman, the officer, says Rice was pulling his gun out of his waistband and posed a threat that was, quote, "real and active." The officer also says he yelled, "show me your hands," numerous times, but he says Rice ignored the commands.

Rice, it turned out, was holding a pellet gun when he was shot by police last year. The boy's family is calling for a special prosecutor to take over the case.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, they're young, harder to profile and much harder to catch. What a new study is saying about ISIS recruits in the United States. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:21:54] COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 21 minutes past.

Al Qaeda fighters have retaken two cities in southern Yemen that it lost control of four years ago. It launched a surprise attack on Zinjibr and Jaar. And then announced their takeover over loud speakers after dawn prayers. And now new armored vehicles and weapons supplied by the Saudi-led Gulf coalition are in the hands of militants.

Move on. Those words coming from Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton who's asking protesters to end their occupation outside of a Minneapolis police station. Demonstrators have been camped out in front of the precinct since the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark by a police officer. Protesters say they will not leave until their demands are met, which include the release of any video of the shooting and a promise the case will not go before a grand jury.

At any moment now, we could get word a jury has been seated in the trial of William Porter, one of the six police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Porter arrived at the courthouse a short time ago. The jury selection process has been under way for about an hour today. Over the last two days, the jurors have been whittled down from a group of 150. Out of the 150 people questioned, all say they know about Gray's death. And all but one say they're aware of the city's financial settlement with Gray's family.

So with these details in mind, is an impartial jury realistic? CNN's Jean Casarez is following that in Baltimore. Good morning.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. We can tell you that court is in session now. Let me tell you the latest of what is happening. The judge is on the bench. Immediately there was a sidebar, but then all of the potential jurors, and we don't know exactly how many at this point, were brought back, but the judge asked them if any jurors had anything to tell him since last night when they left the courtroom.

Well, four jurors stood up that they have something to talk about. So now they are taking juror by juror up to the sidebar to have consultation with the attorneys and the judge. We don't know what they have to say. We don't know if it's pretrial publicity. We don't know if it's something personal. But that is happening right now.

So the final jury selection has yet to begin. But when attorneys went into the courtroom today, we can tell you that they had big poster boards with them. And it appeared as though the defense had a poster board of the route that the police van took. So that, obviously, can be that demonstrative aid for opening statements. It also can be used as witnesses take the stand to actually diagram things as through their testimony.

But William Porter, the defendant, walked into court today. And we do have video of that to show everybody. The prosecution walked in. Because today is the day where you really have the two sides. And for the first time, if there are opening statements today, which we believe there will be, we will be able to hear what both sides have to say. But first, that jury has to be selected.

We were told final jury selection this morning, and those potential jurors are here. So we will tell you as soon as we know who those jurors are as far as male, female.

[10:25:03] And remember, they've been told they're going to be anonymous. So they know this is high profile. They're all aware of this trial. They all are aware except one of that civil settlement. But coming back, they must have all said that they could be fair and impartial jurors -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jean Casarez reporting life from Baltimore, thank you.

Just a day after Defense Secretary Ash Carter declared, quote, "We are at war with ISIS," and announced plans to send more special ops forces to fight the group in Iraq and Syria, comes a new study that details who in America is radicalized by ISIS.

The study conducted by George Washington University found that as of the fall of this year, 250 Americans have traveled to Syria or Iraq. There are 900 active investigations, 56 Americans have been arrested. That's a record for terrorism arrests for any year since 9/11.

With me now, one of the authors of that study, Lorenzo Vidino, he's the director of the George Washington University Program on Extremism.

Good morning.

LORENZO VIDINO, DIRECTOR, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY PROGRAM ON EXTREMISM: Good morning. Good morning to you.

COSTELLO: Lorenzo, one of the more disturbing aspects of your study, there's no one profile for those who turn to ISIS here in the United States. We know the average age is 26 and most are male, but other than that the people are very different.

VIDINO: Absolutely. It's a staggering diversity. We have men and women. We have completely diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. We have college students. We have petty criminals. We have teenagers. True, the average age is 26, but those numbers are somewhat skewed by the fact that there are couple of individuals into their 40s. If you take them out, the average age goes down significantly.

We have a lot of 17, 18, 19-year-olds. They are geographically dispersed. The radicalization trajectory is very different. We have people radicalized over a few weeks, and others are radicalized over years. A very complex picture.

COSTELLO: So how difficult does that make it for authorities?

VIDINO: That's exactly the point. I think law enforcement is struggling, first of all, because of the size of the problem. It's not as big as in some European countries, but the level of the mobilization, the number of people who sympathize with ISIS ideology is much bigger of any mobilization it would seem, for example, for al Qaeda in the past. So what we have is we have hundreds of people, probably a bit north of 1,000 people, that sympathize with the ideology.

They are mostly active on social media. And for the most part, they just exercise their First Amendment-protected freedom of speech, telling who's going to make the leap into militants, into violence. That's really the difficult part. That's where the FBI is struggling.

COSTELLO: Wow. So your study also found that 40 percent of those arrested converted to Islam. Phil Mudd, one of our terror analysts, told me that converts are the most dangerous because they're the most emotionally engaged. Do you agree?

VIDINO: I think that's something to it. Absolutely Phil knows his dynamics very well. We have people among the converts who converted and then became ISIS sympathizers overnight. They don't really convert to Islam. They convert to ISIS Islam. And a lot of them have somewhat of a troubled personal history, problems with, in some cases, mental illness, with criminal behaviors. They are -- some of them, at least, unstable personalities.

COSTELLO: Another thing your study found, 51 percent opted to travel abroad to, I guess, fight with ISIS. Is that because it's easier to recruit an American to go fight overseas? Because Americans aren't likely to attack their neighbors, per se?

VIDINO: Well, we have seen a few cases, though, of ISIS sympathizers who have carried out attacks or tried to carry out attacks in the states. I think the reason why the majority want to travel is because they are attracted by the self-proclaimed sort of caliphate in Syria and Iraq. So they are attracted by this utopian new society, by this -- the sirens of an ISIS message.

We have seen a shift, and this is what the FBI was saying a couple of weeks ago. We have seen a shift, less Americans are traveling now to Syria and Iraq. And the message that is coming from ISIS to Westerners including Americans is to stay home, stay home, stay in your country. Don't come here. Now whether that means to carry out attacks, it's something we'll have to see over the next few months. But it is somewhat shifting.

COSTELLO: OK. So you know I always like to put things into perspective. So what should we take away from your study?

VIDINO: Well, the diversity of the profiles is one thing. I think we come up with some policy recommendations. And one of the big ones is that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem. Law enforcement tactics are crucial, and the FBI is doing a great job, but because of the numbers, because of the diversity, we need to also supplement traditional law enforcement tactics with prevention. With the involvement of civil society, of communities, of families.

And this is what the FBI itself is saying. We need alternative tools because prosecution will not always work.

COSTELLO: Lorenzo Vidino, director of the George Washington University Program on Extremism, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

VIDINO: Thank you. My pleasure.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

This year's Black Friday was record breaking in terms of gun sales. The FBI said Americans bought more firearms on a shopping holiday than any other day in history.