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Police Kill Terror Suspect in Denmark; ISIS Terrorists Gain Ground in Libya; NBC under Scrutiny; Spotlight on Jon Stewart; Strong Winds, Bitter Cold in Boston

Aired February 15, 2015 - 19:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow joining you from New York, 7:00 Eastern.

And the threat of terrorism not over -- that is the according to Denmark's prime minister. Despite shooting and killing a suspected gunman police are still trying to work out the motive for those two terror attacks yesterday in Copenhagen. Also trying to figure out whether or not he had accomplices.

Just a few hours ago, police arrested two people at an Internet cafe located near the apartment of the gunman. They have not commented though on what role, if any, those two individuals played in the deadly shootings.

What we do know is that this normally peaceful capital is in shock. These bullet holes -- a horrifying sign of what happened inside the cafe where Denmark's day of terror began. A crowd had gathered here for a speech about freedom, freedom of expression with an artist who is on al Qaeda's hit list when the gunman opened fire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but why do we still say but when we --

(SOUNDS OF GUNFIRE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: One person was killed in that attack, three officers wounded. It seems, though, the deadly rampage had just begun because ten hours later that same gunman, it is believed, made his way to a nearby Jewish synagogue approaching two officers who were there on security detail, spraying them with bullets. Thankfully, their lives were spared, but a bystander was killed.

Let's go straight to Nic Robertson. He joins me now live from Copenhagen. Nic, I know it is early going, but I'm wondering if the authorities there are saying anything about whether or not they believe this was at all inspired by, you know, jihadi movement, by radicalization because there is so much similarity in these two shootings to what we saw happen in Paris? NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The

police are seeing that connection. They're saying that there is a possibility that this 22-year-old Danish-born man could have been inspired by those attacks of the "Charlie Hebdo" cartoon magazine in Paris and the kosher deli -- kosher supermarket in Paris. That could have been part of the inspiration for this attack. They also say that he may have been inspired by what he has read online or has received in other ways in terms of jihadist propaganda from groups like ISIS. So the police absolutely are keeping their options open on that although the picture that they're painting of this young man is a troubled young man, who has been in trouble with the law for violence, for gang membership, and also for illegally owning weapons.

So this is a man who on the one hand has a sort of a track record with gangs in the past, but now the police fear may have become radicalized and, of course, does he have accomplices? Are they here in Denmark? Are they in Copenhagen? That is a big question for authorities here tonight -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Do we know, Nic, why they're not releasing the name of the alleged gunman?

ROBERTSON: Certainly, there is a lot of local media that believe that they have the name of this man, believe that the man that they think it is, that they're naming was involved in a violent incident in 2013, stabbing somebody and ending up in jail, recently released from jail. So there's a lot of conjecture in the local media and it is not clear why the police aren't publicly corroborating that.

However, we are hearing from various sources that behind the scenes the police are giving a nod to some local journalist that the track that they're on is correct. Why they're not saying it publicly, possibly because of the nature of the ongoing investigation, possibly because they don't want to tip-off people who may be close to him that they'll be coming looking for them.

I mean what is normal for the police to do in a situation like this would be to round up all his possessions. What has he been reading? What has he been reading online? What books does he have? What pamphlets does he have? Who has he been associating with? What has he got on his computer? What, you know, articles does he have stored on his computer and who has been calling on his phone? Who has he been e-mailing with? Who has he been instant messaging with?

All these things the police are going to be looking at. That's going to build a better profile so perhaps by not naming him publicly the police are trying to slow down the progression of information and that circle of people who knew him, who might fear go to ground, if you will, knowing that the police are going to come after them -- perhaps that's the reason. But again, they're not making it public, so really it's conjecture on our part trying to figure that out at the moment -- Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. Nic Robertson, thank you very much. We appreciate the reporting on this throughout. And joining me now to discuss more, former FBI assistant director and

CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes. Tom -- thank you for being here. We know from our Pamela Brown reporting from her sources in law enforcement that the FBI is helping, right? So I'm wondering your perspective being former FBI, what can the FBI do in this to aid the Danish authorities?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, first of all, Poppy, the FBI has a longstanding, close relationship with the Danish national police and their intelligence service PET, the FBI office in Copenhagen was opened in 1999 and they've been involved in some sensitive investigations in the past involving this very thing, threats on the Danish newspaper and cartoonists going back to 2005. The plots that existed to attack them, working with the Swedish police on the plots to murder Lars Vilks in his home --

HARLOW: Right.

FUENTES: -- and both of those plots were from America.

David Headley from Chicago later was arrested by the FBI. He helped coordinate the Mumbai attack in November of 2008 and prior to going to Mumbai he was working on the attack planned for al Qaeda to attack the newspaper and its employees in Copenhagen. He had traveled there. He had surveilled and gone into their lobby and drew sketches of it, the layout and found out as much information as he could.

When he returned to Chicago he was communicating with his handlers who said put that plan on hold. We want to do Mumbai first, and then before he could, and they could execute the plan in Copenhagen the FBI arrested him. And that case closely worked with the Danish authorities and the Swedish authorities later when Jihad Jane from Pennsylvania was putting together a crew to go to Stockholm and murder Vilks at his home in the middle of the night and cut his throat so they could get the bounty put out by al Qaeda on him.

So these plots go back a long way.

HARLOW: Right.

FUENTES: The cooperation just through FBI, the authority, the police there and the intelligence service, Interpol, Europol, and all of these agencies throughout Europe and throughout the world have been working closely together to try to share information and try to prevent future attacks and they've been successful up until yesterday in preventing many attacks.

HARLOW: And important to note here our Pamela Brown also learning from her source in law enforcement that the FBI and intelligence communities are still analyzing the data to see if there are any connections, but the officials telling us here at CNN as far as they can see there is no U.S. threat in connection to the terror attack taking place. Those two separate terror attacks in Copenhagen yesterday.

Tom Fuentes, thank you very much for joining me with that perspective. I appreciate it.

FUENTES: Thank you.

HARLOW: Now this, first Syria and then Iraq, but ISIS is showing many signs that it will not be satisfied at stopping there. We're going to talk about Libya and whether Libya is the next nation where ISIS will find a foothold. A horrific new video shows how Libya is already being terrorized by ISIS.

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HARLOW: Brian Williams is not NBC's only problem right now. The network has faced stormy departures on its hallmark morning show and its legendary "Meet the Press" show. Our senior media correspondent Brian Stelter has more.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The chairman and CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts joining us.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: What a difference four years makes.

BRIAN ROBERTS, CEO, COMCAST: Best quarter we ever had.

STELTER: Listen to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts when he first acquired NBC Universal.

ROBERTS: I'll tell you my view on news. It's the crown jewel of Comcast.

STELTER: It appears that crown jewel and the other gems in the safe may need a polish or more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good evening --

STELTER: The news division once famous for Huntley and Brinkley, for Katie and Bryant, for Tim and for Tom. For a long time it was the envy of the TV news business, a place others wanted to work, a place that was number one in every ratings race that mattered. But now NBC has been struggling with a host of problems -- ones that even pre- dated this Brian Williams scandal.

ANN CURRY, FORMER NBC NEWS ANCHOR: And for all of you who saw me as a groundbreaker, I'm sorry I could aren't carry the ball over the finish line, but man, I did try.

STELTER: The "Today" show, the news division's big effort moneymaker and ratings king lost its crown to "Good Morning America" a couple of years ago.

CURRY: I'm sorry I turned into a sob sister this morning. Please forgive me.

STELTER: A downfall that began with the messy 2012 ouster of Ann Curry and an on-air breakup scene that was almost as painful for viewers as it was for her and Matt Lauer.

Two and a half years later the bosses just recently finished the deal for Curry to leave the network.

NBC News president, Deborah Turness and her boss, Pat Fili-Kurshel came to fix "Today" and guide NBC into the future. But some insiders are now losing confidence in their capabilities.

Last fall David Gregory of "Meet the Press" was left to meet the door after a year of waiting in what can only be described as employment purgatory, forced to announce the news of his own departure via Twitter after it had already been leaked to various news outlets.

More recently, NBC has been trying to rehab Dr. Nancy Snyderman who violated an ebola quarantine after returning from West Africa torching her credibility.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good people can make mistakes.

STELTER: And staffers have been reeling from a series of factual mistakes like the report that Bowe Bergdahl will be charged with desertion. It still hasn't happened.

And then there are the management mistakes. A few months ago Turness who sought a new captain at the helm of the "Today" show, former ESPN executive Jamie Horowitz brought on to right the ship as general manager. But just ten weeks later, this, Turness wrote in a memo to her staff that she and Horowitz have come to the conclusion that this is not the right fit. What?

Yes, he was dismissed -- a head-spinning change that triggered new doubts about executive competence. And news president, Turness is not the only one with the weight of the peacock on her shoulders.

Fili-Krushel also oversees two other troubled assets -- CNBC and MSNBC. They have both seen viewers turn away in droves.

2014 was CNBC's least watched year since the glory days of the 90s when they were the dominant financial network. And just the last week, MSNBC had its lowest full-day rating in close to a decade.

Parent company Comcast stands to lose millions of ad revenue, meanwhile its $45 billion merger with Time-Warner Cable is still pending and Comcast hates distractions.

Brian Stelter, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Brian, thank you for that. Earlier this week you certainly know it by now, Jon Stewart announced he's leaving "The Daily Show", tonight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern -- 7:30 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN see how Jon Stewart became known as the voice of a generation.

Here is a preview.

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JON STEWART, TALK SHOW HOST: There's the New Jersey skyline people talk so much about. Look at that.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: This is where it all started for Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz.

STEWART: My dad used to work when we first moved here.

BALDWIN: CNN spent a day with the comedian in his hometown before he became a household name.

STEWART: That's all the memories for a little while.

BALDWIN: He grew up in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, a well-to-do neighborhood near Princeton.

STEWART: My mother doesn't know we don't live at home anymore. We stuffed the pillows, stuck them in our beds, so she just thinks my brother and I are really tired.

BALDWIN: Mom was a teacher and dad a physicist, but Jon's role model was a comedian.

STEWART: When you're, you know, a neurotic Jewish kid and you read a book by Woody Allen, you go, "God, I thought I was messed up. Look at this guy. Oh my God, this is hilarious. He actually said what I was thinking out loud."

BALDWIN: Jon struggled with anti-Semitism in his hometown.

LIZA ROJACK, AUTHOR: Lawrenceville and Princeton are not known as hotbeds of Jewish culture and life.

BALDWIN: Lisa Rojack is the author of "Angry Optimist".

ROJACK: He was short and he was Jewish in a community where that made for easy targets. Humor was a coping mechanism for him.

STEWART: That was my way of not having my ass kicked every day.

BALDWIN: Jon's world crumbled when at nine years old his parents divorced and his father left home.

STEWART: The me decade and all of that sort of thing were just starting to happen with that kind of mid-life crisis, got to be me, going to get a medallion and a sports car and get the hell out of dodge. It was harrowing in the sense of it's your own personal world but certainly no more harrowing than a lot of people had to go through.

BALDWIN: Jon focused on what he was good at -- cracking people up.

STEWART: You guys could have changed the tiles.

BALDWIN: He was voted best sense of humor at Lawrenceville High. STEWART: This is where you were allowed to smoke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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HARLOW: So the blizzard warning for eastern Massachusetts has been canceled. This is as the storm moves offshore. What's left behind is pretty brutal -- powerful winds, bitter temperatures and some of the coldest temperatures this season.

Tonight further south, another big area of concern is the storm that is about to hit Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas. Tom Sater joins me now from the severe weather center. Will Ripley is on the road driving to Boston dealing with those tough conditions.

Tom, let me begin with you. Are we going to finally see some relief here with this cancellation, at least, of the blizzard warning?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: At least with the snowfall. It's still going to blow around a little bit. But Poppy the coldest air of the season is moving in. The record low temperature in Central Park is one degree; it goes back to 1888. That's in jeopardy of falling.

But it's the wind chills, minus 20 to minus 35 degrees -- coldest of the season from Burlington to Boston down into the Blue Ridge. And now if you look at the last four weeks, the last four storms historically, Boston should only have 28 inches so far and half way through February we're at 95.7. We're a half inch away from the second snowiest season, one foot away from the snowiest season. And we've got another storm.

Here it is, warnings -- Missouri, Oklahoma, significant icing across parts of Arkansas and Tennessee. Those warnings will continue to move into the Carolinas and then possibly up the Eastern Coast. A half inch of ice, significant -- extremely dangerous, it's going to probably close down Interstate 40 in spots.

But on top of this is the snow right on that edge. Nashville, I think you're looking at a good six to eight; St. Louis, maybe 5 to 6; across the state of Kentucky we're looking at least 12 -- possibly maybe more, 15 or 16 in eastern Kentucky across southern areas of West Virginia. So as the storm moves, significant icing again your heaviest snow is going to be just north of that ice line as we watch the system progress, rain to the south. Atlanta, we've got an advisory, but winter warnings up to the north along the border so they're going to be safe with this. Washington, D.C., Del Marva -- the system as you get in toward 6:00 a.m. could be significant.

And Poppy, if this storm system moves to the north and has its eyes on Boston it's going to be the fifth storm in five weeks. And whatever you do, don't tell this guy. He's had it. He's cracking up. He's ready to snap just like everyone, a half inch away from the second snowiest season on record.

HARLOW: He almost looks like he has those snazzy CNN weather jackets on like our Will Ripley does. Stand by, because I want to ask him about this emergency declaration coming from north Georgia in just a moment.

But let's go to Will Ripley who is literally in the car on the road headed towards Boston from New Hampshire. How are the roads right now?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, I have to say, Poppy, the road conditions have been pretty good and in large part because of what you see right in front of us. Snowplows like this. We have just seen a whole steady stream of these snowplows out on the roads both on I-95 north and southbound and also on the side streets, as well. They have the plow down.

There are the sparks on the pavement which means that they're really not pushing a whole lot of snow. We know the blizzard has long since passed, but they're out here because they want to make sure that there's not any snow blowing on to the roads.

And they're also monitoring for, of course, that dangerous black ice that we've been talking about, the black ice that can take drivers by surprise especially as they get over confident and start thinking that because there's no longer white stuff, snow on the road that they can go fast again only to hit a patch and find themselves in a dangerous spot, Poppy.

So obviously, the visibility is still a concern. There were times when the wind was really whipping things up and when you have the snow banks that are higher than some of the vehicles and you can have white-out conditions if you have a fast enough wind gust so drivers need to be careful of that.

Of course, we know there was that pile-up on I-95 south outside of Boston earlier today. Thankfully, only minor injuries in that.

Tomorrow is Presidents' Day, schools and government offices are closed, but still people will be heading back to work and they need to be careful, Poppy.

HARLOW: Right. All right. Will -- stand by.

Back to you -- Tom.

I'm just seeing that Governor Deal in the state of Georgia has issued this state of emergency. What are we expecting there where you are?

SATER: Well, I think they're playing it safe because if you recall the two inches that Atlanta received last year pretty much shut down the entire perimeter in the city for a couple of days. Children had to be rescued from school buses.

So edging on the side of caution and just on safety, ice should stay well to the north. A day ago, Poppy -- two days ago, it looked like maybe Atlanta could see a couple of inches and maybe some significant icing, but it's been trending warm. So that's very good news from Atlanta -- it looks like it will warm up enough that it will be rain. And there may be an inch in some of the northern counties in Georgia, but metro Atlanta should miss this one. I wouldn't be surprised to have some slick spots, but it's all going to change the rain throughout the afternoon. So erring on the side of caution.

HARLOW: Well, that' always a good thing to do especially after we saw happened happen there last year.

Will, to you, just give us a sense -- we may have the pictures that we can show people of what you and I were talking about earlier. Just the weight of the snow -- what that has done to some of the buildings especially where you were before in New Hampshire.

RIPLEY: Yes, absolutely. There were two different roof collapses in New Hampshire. We were on the scene of a roof collapse at a strip mall and what we saw even though these buildings had brick facades. They were buildings that had stood for a number of years, according to the local fire captain who said he'd never seen anything like it, because we're talking about three consecutive weeks of heavy snowfall approaching a record season and certainly a record month for the Boston area -- these roofs buckled and they caved in.

Thirty people were displaced at an apartment complex. There are several businesses that won't be opening up tomorrow or for quite some time. And there's the concern, Poppy, that as people are going back to work tomorrow into these office buildings especially small businesses that might not have had their roofs cleared over the weekend could be a dangerous situation if people are inside and the roof caves in again.

HARLOW: All right gentlemen. Thank you both for keeping us posted. Stay safe there on the road, Will, with your crew. We appreciate it.

Thank you all for joining me this evening. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. Stay with us for breaking news any time.

Coming up next, "CNN SPOTLIGHT JON STEWART" begins after a quick break.

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