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Unmasked ISIS Militant Beheads Accused Russian Spy; Opening Statements In Baltimore Cop Trial; Pentagon Admits Case Of Mistaken Identity Involving Guantanamo Detainee; Obama's Former Military Intelligence Chief Says White House Ignored Warnings About ISIS; Cruz and Rubio On The Rise In Polls; San Bernardino Police Responding To Reports Of Shooting Incident With Multiple Victims. Aired 2-2:30p EST

Aired December 02, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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


[14:00:00]

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour, you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin, breaking news now. This new extraordinarily savage execution video has just been released by ISIS and the implications for this killing could be bigger than anything we've seen thus far in the war.

The victim this time is a Russian, an apparent spy, or at least that is according to the unmasked, as you see him standing above the victim here. This unmasked ISIS jihadist who delivers a message in Russian directly to the people of Russia and specifically the president of Russia Vladimir Putin, promising to "kill your sons for each son you killed here" before beheading the kneeling man with a hunting knife.

Joining me now is CNN's Ian Lee, who is standing by for us in Istanbul, and obviously we can't show it. Ian, tell me what more you know about the video?

IAN LEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, it is a very gruesome video. It runs roughly eight minutes. The first majority of it, you have this man sitting in a chair talking about or confessing, rather, what his alleged crimes are against ISIS.

He says that he was recruited by Russian intelligence and then was blackmailed, according to him, saying that they were going to charge him on drug offenses unless he went and spied for them.

He was given a little bit of training and what he says was his admission was really twofold, one, to look for ISIS leaders inside of Iraq and Syria but also report back to Russia of any sort of operations that could be planned to take place inside Russia. This man was from Chechnya, and Chechnya is a region of Russia where

there have been militants who have gone and fought for ISIS.

And so this man was caught after a little while inside of their territory, and when you're watching this video the one thing that really strikes you is that executioner, as you mentioned, his face isn't covered. We've seen other executioners, Jihadi John most notably, his face was covered.

This man very much making a statement to the Russian people, threatening not only the president of Russia but also the people saying that they're going to kill their sons, destroy their homes, that they wanted to fight Russia for a long time.

A very direct threat also because they're saying that because of Russia's support for the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Brooke.

BALDWIN: Ian Lee in Istanbul. Thank you. We'll talk more about this with Ben Judah, author of "Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin."

So, Ben Judah, first to you, I mean, I think Ian hit on it, but, again, the fact that this executioner, unmasked, speaking in Russian, is he's taunting Russians and Vladimir Putin.

BEN JUDAH, JOURNALIST: Yes. I wouldn't overestimate or underestimate Russia's pain threshold.

Now, Russia's had a huge culture of violence and terrorism in the country since the (inaudible) union. In per capita rate, death from terrorism is equivalent to frontline states like Israel or Pakistan and not in any way comparable to the United States or Britain which have frankly very few deaths per capita to terrorism despite the current levels of fear about this.

But also I wouldn't overestimate Russia's military pain threshold. It's worth remembering what happened in Ukraine and at the moment that sort of fighting and economic sanctions really started to eat into Russia's military adventure there. Forces were in fact quickly pulled back.

BALDWIN: So, then, if you're saying don't underestimate but don't also overestimate that, cut through the middle then for me or explain this for me, then, how Putin would possibly respond?

JUDAH: Well, Russia is not a democracy. It doesn't have a media like we do. It doesn't have running news (ph) in any way comparable, so there's just not going to be hysteria in the Russian media because they control everything on it.

And so we're not going to have a situation in any way comparable to the situation around Jihadi John. So, you can just sort of forget about that.

Will Russia really be worried that a spy got decapitated? No. This happens all the time to Russian spies all around the world. They get caught and they lose their position standing in the Caucasus frequently to this day.

Will they be worried that there are lots of Chechens now inside ISIS territory or lots of other confluent Russian speakers (inaudible) Soviet Union?

[14:05:00]

We've hardly (ph) know they're there, and Russia actually actively encouraged jihadists from the Caucasus in Central Asia to make their way to the Islamic state or make it easy for them to leave so they wouldn't be in Russia's territory in the first place.

BALDWIN: So on that point, if Ian is staying that the victim is Chechen and then to your point about -- we have this executioner, and I haven't listened to the video. I don't know if he's speaking Russian, sounds like a native Russian speaker or no, but if he is, then what group or where would you suspect he would have come from?

JUDAH: It's hard to say. The Russian speaking world spoke about 300 million people strong, so he could have come from any numerous kind of Muslim church -- Muslim community or non-Muslim community or convert from that whole world or beyond. He could have learned Russian. So, we don't really know.

But the important thing is will Putin be worried about (inaudible)? I don't think Putin would even concentrate on this story for more than five or ten minutes. It's just part of the course of war.

And Russia is engaged in war and Russia doesn't have the current democracies, fears or inability to cope mentally with high casualties. Putin's fought several wars beginning in Chechnya at the turn of their century, you know, this is by now his fourth major war.

BALDWIN: What a different perspective that from the Russians. Ben Judah, author of "Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin," thank you so much as always, Ben.

Meantime, more breaking news now. It took only three days to seat this jury, and now opening statements are under way in the first trial in the case of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.

A jury of eight African-Americans, four white people seated this morning, eight of the jurors are women, four are men. Baltimore Police Officer William Porter is the first of the six officers to be tried in Gray's April 19th death.

Also in that courthouse here, you have Baltimore's State Attorney Marilyn Mosby. Gray died while in police custody from a spinal cord injury. According to prosecutors he was injured a week earlier while riding in a police transport van.

So let's go to Miguel Marquez, he's been following this from really the beginning for us in Baltimore. Miguel, we know that the prosecution -- they've already finished their opening statements. Tell me, what kind of case are they laying out here?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A very -- they spoke to the jury about 10 minutes after the jury was sat. The judge instructed them and then the prosecutor started in a very somber and serious hour, laying out their entire case of what they say happened in that van. Interestingly, they do not say that Mr. Gray was injured at the time of the arrest. They said that that now world-famous video of him being arrested and put in the van, it shows that he didn't move his neck up and down, his head up and down, it shows that he could stand and put weight on his feet.

He said at some point during the six stops that Mr. Gray made in that van, he says William Porter, Officer William Porter, was at five of those stops. At some point Mr. Gray became injured to the point that it threatened his life.

At the third stop, he says that William Porter opened that door after being called for assistance by Goodson, the van driver, that Officer Porter opened the door and the first thing Freddie Gray said was "help."

Porter then asked him, "What's wrong?" Gray responded, "I can't breathe." He then said, "Do you need a medic?" Gray said, "Yes." He then said, "Do you need to go to the hospital?" Then he said, "Yes."

This is the first time we're hearing this firsthand back-and-forth between Porter and Gray. All those words will now come back to haunt him in this case because the prosecution is saying, despite all of that, not only at that stop but at others, they never got Gray the help he needed.

As for how his neck got injured, they're saying the forth and fifth cervical, that it was crushed like you were diving in a pool and your head hit the bottom and it caused your spine to be crushed essentially.

And that Gray could speak because everything from his neck down was basically inoperable but he was still using his neck muscles basically to breathe, to move his lungs just enough so he could breathe shallowly.

Basically, though, Gray was slowly dying because he couldn't breathe. He was handcuffed. He was shackled. He was in a van. They say at one point he was laying up on the seat of the van, up on the right seat, barely moving, not able to speak.

He was -- and his breathing became more and more and more shallow until that final moment when they opened up the van he was unconscious, he was not breathing and they said basically he was dead at that point. And that's when they rushed him to the shock trauma center here.

They tried to revive him. He was in a coma for a week but did not survive it. They say all of it could have been avoided if Officer William Porter had just gotten medical help for Gray. Brooke?

BALDWIN: A lot new details coming out today in the opening statements. Well you'll hear obviously both sides. Miguel Marquez is on it for us there. Miguel will check back in with you. Thank you so much.

[14:10:00] Meantime today, Donald Trump has a new strategy for ISIS. He says take out militants' families, bomb the human shields. We'll discuss that.

Also just in to CNN, the Pentagon admitting a case of mistaken identity involving a detainee who's been held in Guantanamo Bay for 13 years.

And did the White House ignore warnings about ISIS because it didn't fit the reelection narrative? The stunning accusation from President Obama's former military intelligence chief. Keep it right here. You're watching CNN.

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BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. New poll numbers and new shockwaves in the race for the Republican nomination here. Leader Donald Trump is surging, look at that, now at 27 percent among likely Republican voters.

[14:15:00]

BALDWIN: But here's really the story. It's who is running second that has our attention. Marco Rubio has taken over that spot with his support now at 17 percent, Ben Carson who just last month was really in a statistical tie with Trump has faded to third and is now tied with Cruz at 16 percent. This is all from Quinnipiac University.

More voters also seem to be digging in with just two months to go before the primary season kicks off, 46 percent of Trump voters say their mind is made up, Trump is their man. Joining me now, CNN political correspondent M.J. Lee.

We know Trump has been leading. To me, that's not the headline. The headline is this fight for the number two spot. You have Rubio and you have Cruz.

M.J. LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, for the longest time the field was completely frozen with Trump at top, Ben Carson at the top but none of the other sort of establishment candidates really able to pull through.

And I think we're finally starting to see the beginnings of that, Rubio at 17 percent, obviously good news for him, Carson at 16 percent, that's a drop for him, Ted Cruz at 16 percent.

So I think the question for the Party going forward is, will any of these candidates -- and this is we're talking about the sort of 70 percent of people who do not want to support Trump or are not currently supporting Trump, will they coalesce around one of these other candidates?

BALDWIN: I think it's fascinating, number one. Number two, let's talk money, OK? Some other interesting numbers. This is from NBC News, Trump has spent $217,000 on T.V. ads.

All right, maybe some people think that's a lot. Not when you look at the rest of these numbers. Jeb Bush, $30 million. We're aware that Trump gets a lot of airtime but what does that say you about how campaigning when you look at all those numbers on the screen? How it's changed.

LEE: Looking at those numbers, if I'm Jeb Bush's adviser, I am very concerned. He has spent so much money, especially compared to the other candidates, and he is right now at 5 percent.

He has tried to do a reboot. He has a new slogan, "Jeb can fix it." One of these things seemed to be working and clearly this is a situation where dollars is not turning into votes or support.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, has spent $2 million of his own money, which is nothing. He has raised $4 million, at least in the last filings that we saw, from people who want to, you know, give small dollar donations.

So this isn't to say that he is self-funding his campaign, but compared to some of his other rivals he's not spending a lot of money but his support is sustained.

BALDWIN: It's like it's chump change ...

LEE: Yes.

BALDWIN: ... compared to all this other money that people are spending and yet he is on top. M.J., thank you.

Let's talk more about this here with CNN political commentator, Ryan Lizza who also writes for "The New Yorker" and Jay Caruso, forgive me, he's a contributor for redstate.com.

And Jay, you're the one I want to begin with because we all read your piece, and you know, here you have this column, "Five Reasons I Will Not Vote for Trump If He Is The GOP Nominee." Of your five, give me your favorite three points here.

JAY CARUSO, REDSTATE CONTRIBUTOR: The top three points would be number one, he is not really a conservative, and I said he's not even really much of a Republican if you look at his stances on issues like taxes, abortion, Medicare, Social Security, private property, and you know, he loves single payer. You know, he's been all over the map. So, there's not a lot of trust there with what he's going to do.

Second, his big push has been on immigration, and he's promising to build a wall, he's promising that Mexico is going to pay for it, and he's promising to deport 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants. But he has not come up with any kind of plan to show how he's going to do that.

And third, he's going to be a big drag on the GOP ticket. There are a lot of GOP senators who are going to be defending their seats in the 2016 election a lot more than Democrats and I just think that it's going to be a disaster. If he is the nominee, he will lose and the GOP will likely lose control of the senate as well. BALDWIN: That is a huge point, Jay, that has been echoed by other writers, the whole sort of trickle-down down ticket effect that said, and Ryan Lizza, I know you've talked about this before, but there's, you know, this notion of what can these, you know, in the upper echelon of the Republican Party, the folks with a lot of the money, what can they do to stop Trump? And from what I've read there's a real fear that if they try there could be this true backfire effect.

CARUSO: I think the biggest thing they fear is that if they go after him too hard, that he'll run as a third party candidate and ensure that Hillary Clinton, you know, the likely democratic nominee, is the winner in the general election. I think that's one thing that's keeping a lot of money and a lot of elites in the Republican Party on the sidelines.

And, you know, the main thing, though, has been they just assumed, like frankly a lot of people who look at politics, that he would implode because of all of the kind of nutty things he has said this year, the kind of things that in previous cycles and for traditional candidates would have, you know, they would have exited the race if they've said some of the things that Trump said.

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CARUSO: So, you know, look, it's still only early December. There are two more months. At this point, in 2012, Newt Gingrich was at the top of the national polls and he did not become the nominee.

But if you're going to stop Trump and the Republican Party, it's got to be done by Republicans, conservative voices because frankly, his supporters tune out the mainstream media, they tune out information from the establishment press, and it's got to come from Conservatives and Republicans and putting their money where their mouth is if they want to take Trump down.

BALDWIN: Well, the list is growing, as you both well know, of who Trump has offended, but this really -- let me just get to this. So, Jay, Trump was on "Fox and Friends" this morning.

He was talking about, you know, his strategy to "bomb the hell out of ISIS" and he was asked about what he would do with innocent Syrian civilians. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're using them as shields. But we're fighting a very politically correct war. But the other thing is, with the terrorists, you have to take out their families.

When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. But they say they don't care about their lives. You have to take out their families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Listen, a lot of insults don't shock a lot of us anymore. But, you know, killing civilian families? What? Jay?

CARUSO: Yes. Well, you know, that is just -- that's just something that is Trump is known for.

And because he hasn't suffered like Ryan said, because he hasn't suffered in consequences for anything outrageous that he's said so far, why stop? And that will, you know, that group of supporters that you talked about, that's just going to kind of solidify around them, you know.

They're very supportive of him. They're going to tune out what other people are saying, and that will just kind of -- that will just embolden them a little bit more. So as long as there are no consequences to what he's saying, he's just going to continue to say things like that.

BALDWIN: It's like the line keeps moving and moving and moving. Go ahead, Ryan.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR AND THE WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT FOR "THE NEW YORKER" MAGAZINE: Now, I was just going to say, look, there's a collective action problem here, right? If you were running against Trump, if you're Jeb Bush or Christie or Cruz or Rubio, you want to be talking about your own campaign.

You want to be talking about your own biography, introducing yourself to voters. And up until now, you've basically been arguing, you know, pulling Trump down from his 30 percent polling is someone else's problem, right?

Someone else will eventually come in with a super pack or a lot of money and do it. And at some point, you know, the leading candidates are going to have to realize that it's been six months and that hasn't happened, and you know, there's no sort of -- there's no one to rescue them. They're going to -- some of these candidates are well-funded. They're going to have to do it themselves.

BALDWIN: I just feel like we're going to blink and it's going to be November. Jay Caruso and Ryan Lizza, thanks to you, two, so much.

Coming up next here, this stunning revelation out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A case of mistaken identity involving a prisoner who has been held there for 13 years. Details just in to CNN, next.

Plus, Rahm Emanuel firing back over accusations of a cover-up involving the shooting death of an African-American teenager in Chicago. Hear what Rahm Emanuel says and what happened when a reporter challenged him.

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[14:25:00]

BALDWIN: Just in to CNN here. The Pentagon now believes a detainee, one of the 107 remaining at the Guantanamo Bay Prison, has been held there now for more than 13 years, but now saying could be the result of mistaken identity. Our justice correspondent Evan Perez joins me with more on this case. What do you know?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: It's quite surreal, Brooke. You know, this detainee's name is Mustafa al-Shamiri. He's 37 years old, and the Pentagon for all these years thought that he was part of a group that was perhaps involved in plotting the bombing of the "USS Cole" in 2000.

Well it turns out, according to new documents that they've now filed with the periodic review board, this is the board that basically looks at every case of Guantanamo detainees to determine whether or not they should be sent home, whether they should be released or whether they should be kept here.

They've now decided that it was a mistaken identity case simply because he was at one point staying at a home that was a safe house for some of the plotters of the "USS Cole" bombing. But they say it appears that all evidence indicates that he had nothing to do with it.

Now, it's not clear what happens to him now because it is -- the Pentagon still believes that he was a fighter who was -- who fought in Bosnia, he fought in Yemen and took weapons training with Al-Qaeda groups in Afghanistan, and he's one of about 48 or so Yemenis who cannot be sent home under current law.

So it might be easier said than done for him to go anywhere. Even though he might be there under mistaken identity, he's not going home yet anytime soon, Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right. Evan Perez, thank you so much. And now we turn to this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BALDWIN: Here we go. Again, breaking news in. CNN reports of an active shooter in San Bernardino, California. San Bernardino is just about 60 miles west of Los Angeles.

Listen, we don't know a lot, but here's what we do know. The San Bernardino Fire Department is responding to reports of multiple victims in a shooting incident.

Multiple victims in a shooting incident here at San Bernardino. You can see we drew the line there from east to west. You can see where San Bernardino falls on the map there in California.

I have Art Roderick on the phone with me, former U.S. Marshal and CNN law enforcement analyst.

[14:30:00]

BALDWIN: Art Roderick, here we are again. You know, we were just talking about an active shooting situation at a Planned Parenthood center in Colorado Springs, Colorado on Friday, and here we are in San Bernardino, California.