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Who Paris Terror Suspects Were; Protests in Chicago over Teen Shooting Video; Poll Gauges Political Party Interest in Minorities; Imam Helping to Stop Radicalization of Children. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired November 27, 2015 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:32:47] BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The sister of one of the shooters of the Bataclan Theater in Paris is speaking to CNN now. Sammy Amanmore's (ph) sister says she can't believe her brother was involved in this. She spoke to Hala Gorani in a CNN exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE

HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: In your last contact with him, was it just an ordinary conversation?

UNIDENTIFIED SISTER OF TERRORIST SAMMY AMANMORE (ph): Yes.

GORANI: Was there no sign that anything like this could happen?

UNIDENTIFIED SISTER OF TERRORIST SAMMY AMANMORE (ph): No, no sign. Truly normal conversation. I asked him how he was and he told me, listen, I am very well, and I have a lot of things to deal with, and I will call you very soon. Send kisses to everyone and to my cat.

GORANI: How do you reconcile your brother, who says, you know, I will call you soon, the little boy that you grew up with, with the man who coldly murdered dozens of helpless people in a concert hall?

UNIDENTIFIED SISTER OF TERRORIST SAMMY AMANMORE (ph): To me, there is no link. It is almost like it is not him. There's no chance. I know it is real, but --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Let's look more closely at who the terror suspects were in the attack.

I want to bring in Mubin Shaikh, a former jihadi and a former counterterrorism operative; and also our CNN national security analyst, Peter Bergen.

And so, Mubin, you heard that clip that. She is believing that her brother is incapable of that attack. Isn't that common that it is easy for the attacker or the potential attackers to kind of hide their motives from the family?

MUBIN SHAIKH, FORMER JIHADI THAT TURNED COUNTERTERRORISM OPERATIVE: Yeah, it depends upon what kind of attacker you are looking at. If I could give you a look at organized and disorganized. An organized attacker, no sign, and mission-focused and will not distract themselves with these kinds of things. And a disorganized person generally will show the signs of the radicalization that the parents and the teachers are looking for, narrow interpretations of the Islam, and declaring people as apostates, and verbally that something needs to be done and I need to do something about it. But in many case, if you look at the cases of murders and rapes and other crimes, neighbors will say, he is such a nice guy.

[13:35:13] KEILAR: Yeah, they have no idea.

And, Peter, to you.

Are it is not surprising thing that the sister would not know?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: No, the FBI has looked over several the terror plots, and it is most surprising that the people who knew about them was the peers, and the peers were the least likely the to go to the authorities, and family members may know something, but they are less likely to go to the authorities the, but it is often strangers who will see something and say something, but they tend to know the least amount of the plot. So it is the hierarchy that the FBI is finding in the states.

KEILAR: Now that we are two weeks out of the attack in Paris, Peter, and you have, I think that we have some time to absorb what this means on a bigger level. Is this the profile of what comes to Western nations, the profile of terror in Europe, or is this even new?

BERGEN: The thing that we are finding out about attackers is that they were not in prison and came from grime ghettoized areas of Paris or Brussels, and this is not the way that terrorists in the states come from. Terrorism suspects in the United States tend to have ordinary incomes and education. And in Europe, particular in France, it is the underclass that are developing the views and then acting on them. In the "Charlie Hebdo" attack, it was the same profile.

KEILAR: And, Mubin, let's talk about that a little bit because when you look at this profile in Europe, one of the elements seems to be that, you know, we learned after the other arrest in Belgium, in this neighborhood, you see six people from the same neighborhood, and then you realize a formula here.

SHAIKH: Yes, clusters of individuals. Like most of the research related to domestic terrorism is showing that people are radicalized by their peers. Mark Sageman is a prolific author on this, and he calls it the Bunch of Guys theory. And in Canada, the same in Calgary with a store-front mosque and guys were hanging out there and they all ended up joining ISIS, and then some of them ended up on ISIS video. And people though, there is a great problem. No, it is a cluster of peers from networks that you will see the violent extremists emerge.

KEILAR: We see the faces of the terrorists involved in the attacks. And beyond these faces that we see here, how much help would they have needed to pull this off? Mubin, and how much, I guess, assistance or just folks who are sympathizing for them or covering for them?

SHAIKH: Yeah, I mean, it is quite rare to have a stand alone cell do an operation and there be no network outside of that. It is possible, and it is very much that ISIS can train to do that six or seven guy, and you are getting the material and employing to do the attack, and generally speaking, it is always more than the people who picked up the weapons, and got the false identification, and of course, a larger network connected to the attackers themselves, and then the sympathizer community, you can't start counting that, because it is huge.

KEILAR: That is the numbers, Peter. And what are you assessing that as?

BERGEN: Well, it could be a couple of dozen people, and don't forget that the female who was killed in the police raid who was, you know, obviously knew what they were up to, and other people out there than other than the people that you showed on the screen.

KEILAR: Peter Bergen, thank you so much.

Mubin Shaikh, we appreciate your being with us.

Let's talk now about something for months now that we have been talking about. We have heard the presidential candidates talking about the polls, and who is ahead or behind, but the parties might want to take a look at the latest CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation poll. This is part of our "Race and Reality" series, and we will have that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:38:57] KEILAR: Welcome back. I want to show you the live pictures coming to us from the streets of Chicago. There are hundreds of protesters who are there downtown on the city's magnificent mile. They are outraged over really this shooting from last year of a black teenager by a white policeman, and they are very upset with how the city has handled the case.

Our Ryan Young is out there with the protesters.

What are they hoping to accomplish -- Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they want to shut down Michigan Avenue, which they have done. 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was killed, and they said, look, we want to close down this Black Friday. We thought they were going to march up and down, and then leave, but now, watch, they are standing up and down the Michigan Avenue, and that is Victoria's Secret there. And they are blocking the stores, not allowing anybody to go inside. You can see the Tiffany store on this side. They have the arms linked together and making sure that nobody goes inside.

And now, we can walk here, because there's no traffic. All of the traffic had been shutdown, because the protesters have taken over. And if you are looking at this direction, that is the Nieman Marcus, and they are also blocking the front of that as well. So the people who are trying to shop, they cannot get into the stores. And the fact that at some point, you have to knock on the windows to allow customers out. This is all happening as we speak. But it is very peaceful. They are locking arms, and making sure that nobody can get in. At the same time, we are seeing no confrontation with the protesters and the shoppers. It has gotten really cold within the last hour or so, but the people out here are locking arms, and shutting traffic down and making sure Black Friday doesn't go as normal. As you can hear some of the protesters here behind me.

[13:45:47] KEILAR: Ryan, tell us about, do you see police on scene? How are the law enforcement handling all of this?

YOUNG: Well, great question. I want to show you something. This is how this is going on this side. They are making sure that the road is blocked, but outside of that, they are not getting in the way of any of the protesters or anybody else. They are making sure they are able to link their arms, but nobody is actually pushing them or trying to move them out of the way. And if you are looking at this direction, they are standing in front of the store, and that is it. The police officers are allowing this to happen, but no confrontations and no arrests so far.

KEILAR: And Ryan Young for us in Chicago. That is ongoing, and when will be following the live pictures and back to Ryan if more develops.

Recently CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation partnered to survey Americans on race and ethnicity. And this is a poll that explores how things have changed in the last 20 years and what race means now. We're looking at how the political parties compare on the issue. On the issue of racial minorities, only 30 percent feel the Republican Party has become more representative, and 54 percent feel they are less representative. The numbers are better for the Democratic Party. 51 percent surveyed think that the Democrats are more representative of their interests. And 34 percent think that the Democrats have become less representative.

To talk about this we have CNN political commentators, Tara Setmayer and Maria Cardona.

And I want to start with you, Tara.

But this is more diverse than the Democratic candidates and something that sticks out when you are looking at the debates. But at the same time, you will see the Democrats faring much better than the Republicans. What do you attribute it to?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it is not a surprise. Historically since around the 1950s or '60s the Democrats have fared better with the minority candidates, and particularly blacks, and they vote 90 percent Democratic, but what is interesting that have been a number of surveys including this one, the aspen and "The Atlantic "survey as well over the summer that showed that African-Americans are actually more positive about the American dream and about the future than Republicans are for the first time ever. It also seems that the rate of voter participation has gone up 13 percent for plaque, and down 3 percent for whites. So there is an opportunity here for the Republican Party to do better as far as messaging and getting out there and explaining to why the black community, and the conservative Republican message is beneficial to them. Republicans have misstepped in this attempt, because by saying things line, well, the government, and you can't get the government out of your lives and pull yourself up by your boot straps, and, OK, yeah, that is great, but the me messages needs to be why conservativism is more Beneficial for folks in their lives and how it applies, and they have to do a better job with that and there is a chance for that in this election in the post Obama election.

KEILAR: What do you think, Maria?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I agree there is an opportunity for Republican, because there is nowhere to go for them but up. They have done such a dismal job with trying to appeal to African-Americans or Latinos, and, you know, Tara is right in that after can Americans as well as Latinos and I have seen it in survey after survey, they are much more optimistic about the future of themselves and the families in this country, and one of the questions in the poll was do you feel like you have a better chance than your children to reach the American dream, and blacks and Hispanics overwhelming majority said yes, and whereas the whites and the minorities said yes. So the point is that the Republican party's lack of that kind of messaging, because what they are doing is to talk the country they are talking about how this country is no longer a place where the American dream can be achieved. I think that really hurts them with minorities. In addition to, of course, we can't have this conversation without talking about Donald Trump's hate speech and the deplorable things that he has said towards many minorities in this country.

[13:50:17] KEILAR: And I do want to talk about that. I'll give Tara the final word on that.

But I also want to ask you about some of the challenges the Democrats are having. We've seen Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, they've both struggled at times to really connect with the Black Lives Matter movement. Why is that something that they struggle with, and it almost seems like there's a sense of fear from some of these candidates about whether they're saying the right thing, that they're not quite fluent?

CARDONA: Well, I think that what these candidates are focused on are policy proposals. And that is where both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are heads and shoulders above any of the Republican candidates except for maybe John Kasich, which is why he is nowhere in the polls right now because they talk optimistically to minorities, African- Americans and Hispanics. There's also a big difference --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: They've also been protested at events. I mean, specifically Bernie Sanders. You've seen that with Martin O'Malley.

CARDONA: Sure, and -- (CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: They're struggling to connect.

CARDONA: But what happens, compare that to how Donald Trump is dealing with the Black Lives Matter movement, and there's no comparison at all. The other thing that minorities actually believe that government has a very positive role to play in leveling the playing field for many of us who were never born with a silver spoon in our mouths. And that is something that Republicans have absolutely not talked to at all. And in fact, they have catered to the other side in focusing on special interests and the wealthy, and that's where their proposals are the focused on.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Maria, I'm sorry to cut you off. I really want to give Tara the final word here.

She talked about Trump being a problem for Republicans, Tara. I think a lot of folks look at that and say he is a bit of a liability. I hear Republicans saying that. How do Republicans combat that?

SETMAYER: Yeah, I think that's part of the concern with a Donald Trump potential nomination for us. I mean, he's a loose cannon. He says whatever the heck he feels like it without consequence, and that's not helpful. But there are Republicans out there who do have a positive message including Marco Rubio, including Ted Cruz. Those folks -- Trump has created, their policy proposals are actually ones that can benefit not only African-Americans but the middle class, lower income. It's not always about the wealthy, but the Republicans have a messaging problem, and they've got to do a better job of it. It's about engagement. And this election, I think we're going to see more of that. Just look how diverse our field is. Very different than the Democrats.

KEILAR: Tara, Maria, thank you so much to both of you.

CARDONA: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: And we are going to be right back after a quick break.

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[13:56:58] KEILAR: As France and other countries hunt for suspects in the Paris terror attacks, a cleric in Belgium, where some of the suspects are from, is trying to keep young children from being radicalized.

CNN's Nima Elbagir explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "Some people," he's saying, do bad things and think they're doing good. And when those people arrive before their God, they will say "Allah, I did this for you." SULAYMAN VAN AEL, IMAM: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

ELBAGIR: Imam Sulayman Van Ael is teaching his usual after-school class. Today, he's asking the children whether what happened in Paris was an Islamic act.

VAN AEL: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

ELBAGIR: This little boy refers to a verse from the Koran. He says, "If you murder one person, it's as if you killed all humanity."

VAN AEL: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

ELBAGIR: Imam Van Ael runs a Muslim values after-school program for Muslim children in Antwerp. Since the attacks in Paris and the prominent role Belgian jihadis were discovered to have played, these programs have taken on a new urgency.

VAN AEL: Most of the children, they are exposed through many means like especially through social media, like there is no child that doesn't have Internet at home.

ELBAGIR: Van Ael converted to Islam 20 years ago. Belgium has emerged as ground zero. Providing per capita the highest number of jihadi fighters joining the ranks of ISIS. Children as young as 9 and 10 are being exposed to jihadist thoughts and the ISIS world view.

(on camera): Children that you are working with, they will have older brothers who have gone to Syria.

VAN AEL: Yes. Mm-hmm.

ELBAGIR: How do you combat that? How do you -- how do you stop a child following in their older brother's footsteps?

VAN AEL: OK. I think that what we try to do, in general, is to make a difference between this is your brother as a brother, and these are the deeds of your brother.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): Van Ael set up these after-school classes to provide an alternative, he says, to the radical messages the children are being exposed to. Next month he's moving to a new facility where he can accommodate 300 students, but it's come at a price.

(on camera): You have been threatened repeatedly by ISIS.

VAN AEL: In the beginning, I stopped teaching because it was -- it got to me, you know. It's not something that is easy. But at the end, you know, if your goal is good, then it's worth going for it. And whatever happens, happens, you know. So it's too important. It's not just about my life.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): The classes will continue in spite of the risks. The need here is greater than ever.

VAN AEL: And we'll keep on going. (CROSSTALK)

ELBAGIR: Nima Elbagir, CNN, Antwerp.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[14:00:00] KEILAR: And I'll meet you right back here at 5:00 eastern on "The Situation Room."

The news continues right now.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Brianna, thank you so much.