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President Obama Addresses ISIS Threat at 8P ET, CNN Live; Justice Dept. to Investigate Chicago Police; Interview with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Report: Shooter's Father Says Son Supported ISIS. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired December 06, 2015 - 18:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:01:20] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Six o'clock Eastern this Sunday evening.

We begin with breaking news just in to us here at CNN. The Justice Department is getting ready to announce an investigation into the Chicago Police Department. A source familiar with the situation tells our Evan Perez that the department will begin a pattern and practice investigation, expanding on an already going civil rights investigation.

The department has been under scrutiny since releasing a video showing an officer shooting and killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, shooting 16 times. That officer now charged with first-degree murder, awaiting trial. More on that later this hour.

Meantime, two hours from now, President Obama will try to reassure the nation that he has a plan to destroy ISIS and keep the American people safe in the wake of the attacks in San Bernardino, California, and in Paris. He will speak from the Oval Office. That is a rare backdrop. He's only used it twice before during his entire presidency.

Both times back in 2010, when he spoke about the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq and about the BP oil spill.

CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta joining us with a previous of the president it's address.

Jim, I know you've been working your sources. You've been able to learn a little bit about we might hear from the president tonight.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy. And this is really an effort to show the president as commander in chief, reassuring Americans about the fears that they're experiencing right now, in the heart of the holiday season.

And I did talk to a senior administration official earlier today who said that the president will use this Oval Office address tonight. As you said, Poppy, it's a rare form for this president to pledge to use any tool possible to keep American safe and destroy ISIS. This official added that the president sees tonight's speech as an opportunity to speak directly to the American people. Obviously, all those people watching football games this afternoon and this evening, that's a huge, huge television audience. And the president wants talk about a moment, this official said, that is understandably upsetting for nearly every American.

After Paris and California, the address is about giving the president time in front of a big audience to convey what he regards, according to this official, as his unmistakable commitment to the American people to keep them safe, and the president will go in tonight of how this threat of ISIS has evolved, and also the threat that is posed by self-radicalized jihadists here in the United States, how this threat has evolved over time, and what the president's strategy entails for dealing with all of this in the days and weeks ahead.

The president will talk about the steps he's taken since the Paris attacks as well. And the president wants to demonstrate how it's critical for all Americans to come together, uphold American values, in the words of this senior administration official, as the U.S. confronts these extremists who are attempting to terrorize the entire world. Poppy, there's been a lot of debate and discussion about Syrian refugees, there'd been a lot of comments made in the political theater, you know, with the election coming up, about Muslim Americans and their place in American society. And I can tell you from talking about people inside this White House, the president is very determined to send the message across the country that Muslim-Americans are just as American as the rest of us and that they should not be feared -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Jim Acosta, thank you very much.

Jim will be with us throughout the evening as we lead up to the president's address -- history-making address, certainly at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

Joining me now to talk more about what Jim just discussed, Dr. Qanta Ahmed, author of "In the Land of Invisible Women". Also with me Harris Zafar, national spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Thank you both for being here. It's such an important conversation to have.

Harris, let me begin with you. As a Muslim living in America, we just heard Jim say the president is very concerned about sort of this increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric, what do you want to hear from the president tonight?

[18:00:05] HARRIS ZAFAR, NATL. SPOKESPERSON, AHMADIYYA MUSLIM COMMUNITY: Well, as Muslims who believe in the messiah, we in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community believe that the safety and security of this nation is paramount. So, what we want to hear is a thoughtful and mature approach to finally identifying that short term and long term solution that we were hoping for to finally get rid of groups like ISIS, to eliminate the threat. Short term is to eliminate the imminent threat, to work with secular leaders in the Muslim world to muster up a force that ISIS can face that will destroy its infrastructure, halt its growth, and return the land, the conquered land back to the countries to which they belong.

But if it's only the short term physical approach, it's doomed to failure. Which is why under the guidance of our Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, his holiness has told us that the long- term solution is to partner with Muslim organizations in order to present a true superior version of Islam that undermines the culture and the ideology that feeds the recruitment of groups like ISIS.

So, that's why we in the Ahmadiyya Muslim community are trying to push that forward by defining true Islam and with the campaign we're launching next month. And we hope that type of voice of defining true Islam can reign supreme because that's a war of ideas we need to win.

HARLOW: Let's take a listen to what Donald Trump had to say on CBS's "Face the Nation" this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If they thought there was something wrong with that group and they saw what was happening, and they didn't want to called police because they didn't want to be profiling, I think that's pretty bad. People are dead. A lot of people are dead right now.

So, everybody wants to be politically correct. And that's part of the problem that we have with our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Qanta, do you think that he has a point, that people are being too politically correct, and therefore some potentially not speaking up about risk or threats?

DR. QANTA AHMED, AUTHOR, "IN THE LAND OF INVISIBLE WOMEN": It's very difficult to say, because it's Mr. Trump that is saying that. There's certainly been a struggle in the national conversation for the last year to identify Islamism, which is radical Islam, and distinguish it from Islam.

My concern is the GOP presidential campaign particularly has so stoked anti-Muslim rhetoric, and the mainstream Republican candidates have not been able to pull back that conversation, that our president, the leader of the free world, is going to have a very difficult time tonight.

We want him to reassure all Americans, those of us that make our home here and becoming American on Friday, we are Americans as much as we are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or anything else. There's not a competition. So, he needs to reassure us while admitting we are engaged in a battle with radical Islam, Islamism. And that battlefield also includes our domestic territory.

I testified to Congress three years ago in favor of surveillance for Muslim domestic radicalization, and I still stand by these arguments. But my concern is that the president has been disengaged in this conversation such that his remarks could potentially be obsolete, even though I welcome his efforts tonight. And his efforts tonight indicate just how critical this is. We're at more of a turning point now in the United States than I think we were immediately post-9/11.

HARLOW: Harris, I'd like you -- I'd like you both to listen to this, because in the wake of what we saw in San Bernardino, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. told students this.

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JERRY FALWELL, JR., LIBERTY UNIVERSITY: I've always thought if more people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walk in and kill us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Harris, your response?

ZAFAR: No, actually, I tweeted about this earlier today. It's very sloppy, very dangerous language, especially for someone who is espousing to be a leader.

And like Dr. Ahmed has said, this is the type of rhetoric we're hearing also from some of the people vying for the presidency. And so, this is where nowadays it's different. We've heard the lunatics out there who have always espoused hatred for a specific group, whether they're Japanese, African-American, Jews, Muslims, but now we're seeing things like this, thought leaders who are influential in their circles, who are being very divisive in nature and saying to castigate an entire group of people simply because of the actions of the lunatics.

So, I call Jerry out for a public dialogue on this, because he's wrong.

HARLOW: Harris, let me ask you this as a follow up. I saw you on Bill O'Reilly, and he asked you an interesting question. He said, you know, we need to see a Million Muslim March, right, to have you and other leaders out there to make this more clear. What do you think of that idea?

ZAFAR: Yes, actually, I spoke with Bill even off-camera. And, yes, the underlying point is the point this thought amongst some of this country that there hasn't been a visible show of unity among Muslims who are trying to pave the way forward for what is the real reaction of Islam. So, whether that's a physical demonstration or it's something that's in a digital platform, we agree that we need to have a joint effort, which is what we're hoping this true Islam campaign that we'll be launching next month would do just that, to call Muslim leaders together and non-Muslim leaders, to define the principles by which we can define true Islam versus extremists.

[18:10:04] HARLOW: And, Qanta, let me read you this. This came from Hillary Clinton earlier today, talking about why she won't use the term "Radical Islam." She says, quote, "It helps to create a clash of civilizations, but it's actually a recruiting tool for ISIS and other radical jihadists." Do you agree? AHMED: I disagree. It's actually Muslim scholars themselves for over

a century who's identified that there is a deviant from this political ideology called Islamism. Islamism in English, Islamism in Arabic, which preaches not just violent Islamism as we've seen in San Bernardino and Paris, but also the ideological underpinnings ideologically that led up to that. It does not create a clash of civilizations.

I don't regard Islamism as a civilization. It is a political totalitarian ideology. To go back to the university president, shame on him. He is shaming the founder of this -- of our nation, the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, who studied the Koran, and imagine the structure of our democracy as if to protect the then imaginary Muslim.

So, we are so far departed, I'm worried about Islamist assault here in the United States, on our American soil, but I'm worried about we and what we could do to destroy and dismantle the fabric of our own democracy. And that's what we look at in rhetoric, whether it's the president in Lynchburg or whether it's a presidential candidate. The stakes are very high.

HARLOW: Doctor, thank you very much. Harris, thank you very much, an important conversation. Thank you.

After the break, much more about the Justice Department getting ready to announce an investigation into the Chicago Police Department. More on that. Stay with us.

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HARLOW: Breaking news just into CNN, the Justice Department is getting ready to announce an investigation into the Chicago Police Department, after a video showing an officer-involved shooting sparked protests throughout the city. Let's take a look at the video that we're talking about here.

[18:15:00] A source familiar with the situation tells CNN the department will announce a pattern and practice investigation. And that will ask the already ongoing civil rights investigation, the department under intense scrutiny since releasing this video showing the officer shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times, killing him. That officer now charged with first degree murder. The city superintendent, police superintendent has been fired.

Joining me now on the phone, CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin.

Sunny, talk to me about, what is a pattern and practice investigation? How common is it? How rare is it?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST (via telephone): Certainly, it is not common, but it is something that has happened in other police departments across our country. The investigation is run by the civil rights division. And the goal is really to reform any practices and patterns of, let's say, excessive force or biased policing or any sort of unconstitutional practices. And so in Chicago, this is a department that does have a history of

police shootings. It does have a history of many, many complaints from the citizens of Chicago. It certainly has a history of officers not being found accountable for police shootings.

(AUDIO GAP)

So, there is no question that the Justice Department will look at this history. It is a very thorough investigation, Poppy. It's an investigation that no police department in the country would want to happen to it.

And part of the investigation is that investigators from the FBI will hear from the community. That is a critical, critical part of the investigation. They will also interview many police officers.

And I will tell you that it takes years, especially considering the size of the Chicago Police Department, we know how large the police department is, and the culmination of that sort of investigation is a public report. So, we will all hear about the findings of the Justice Department. And to be clear, these aren't recommendations, if there is a pattern and practice of discrimination or excessive force that is found. The Justice Department claims -- they call them recommendations, but they are not, because if the recommendations aren't taken up by the police department, then the Justice Department files a lawsuit.

And so, to be clear, this is a monumental thing that is happening now in terms of the Chicago Police Department.

HARLOW: All right. You heard it there from Sunny Hostin, our legal analyst, a monumental announcement coming, the Justice Department will launch a pattern and practice investigation into the Chicago Police Department.

Straight ahead, I just sat down with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. She was her, right around 9/11, as was I, New York. Her perspective as a New York senator, what she needs to hear from the president tonight on terror. That's next.

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HARLOW: All eyes will be on President Obama tonight as he addresses the country from the Oval Office. His focus: terrorism.

I just sat down with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. She represents the state of New York, a place that knows the threat of terror all too well. She also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Here is her take on what she is calling an era of terrorism.

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HARLOW: Senator, thank you for being here, appreciate it.

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D), NEW YORK: Thank you. HARLOW: Tonight, the president will address the nation. He will

focus on terrorism, the threat of is. What do the American people need to hear from the president tonight?

GILLIBRAND: Well, all of us will be looking for his vision on how he plans to address this long term challenge. The president has been right to engage in multilateral negotiations with our allies and other leaders in the Middle East, to create a broad based approach. This is not a problem that's going to be involved in a day, a week, a month, or a year. It's going to take a very long time, it's a generational struggle.

And so, President Obama I think will lay out his plan and vision for how he plans to address it. We're New Yorkers here in New York. Since 9/11, there's been over a dozen terror attempts to this city. And we have extraordinary first responders from NYPD to our CIA and FBI who work everyday to keep us safe.

But this is an era of terrorism. And so, we have to be vigilant. You know, what I tell my constituents, one of the last terror attempts, it was a t-shirt salesman who saw something and said something. So, we can feel safe in our communities because we can be vigilant and we can protect ourselves.

HARLOW: When you say this is an era of terrorism, those are very strong words. And as you know, the president has come under some fierce criticism from opponents who say his language does not match the threat. Do you agree?

GILLIBRAND: I think it is an era of terrorism, because I see it every day. And I know from NYPD and FBI how many terror attempts there are in our great city here in New York.

HARLOW: Do you want to hear more from the president on that, even stronger words? I mean, he told CBS this week ISIS does not pose an existential threat to the United States. Should the language be different?

GILLIBRAND: I think the president is very focused on what he needs to do with the Middle East crisis right now. Syria is a very difficult problem, one that I think that he needs to engage Congress more on. In fact, I think he needs of authorization of use of force in Syria if he intends to put troops on the ground.

I have not supported some of his past strategies of arming opposition, arming the rebels, because I was highly concerned those weapons would get in the hands of ISIS. So, the president is having this conversation tonight, and I think it's a very important conversation he's having. He needs to engage Congress. He needs to engage the American people and telling them what he has done, because there's a lot going on throughout the Middle East, and here in America, to keep America safer. I think the more he shares some of his approach.

You know, obviously without undermining the nature of these operations and undermining the nature of these tragedies, I think the more he talks to the American people about what he's doing, what he intends to do, he can allay his concerns, because people are worried.

I don't agree with governors who are confusing the issue of terrorism with refugees.

[18:25:00] I think it's wrong for governors to be afraid of refugees. I don't they need to fear them. We welcome children and families into our communities across New York over decades to wonderful effect, to having families come here, raise their families, start businesses, be our entrepreneurs.

And so, we should stand strong as Americans in believing not only are we a nation of immigrants, but the Statue of Liberty stands for something. She stands for, "We take all your sick, your tired, the people who need our help", and we should stand by those values. And so, we should be welcoming refugees. We should have a very broad- based approach to making sure we can find homes for families.

But we can also be vigilant and protect our communities from terrorism. And the president I think tonight will lay out some of his vision and strategy to do that.

HARLOW: We are New Yorkers. I was -- I moved to New York just a few days before 9/11. I was in California this week, following the attack in San Bernardino. Talk to me about New York specifically and what specifically has been stepped up in the wake of Paris and the California attack.

GILLIBRAND: Well, I was at Ground Zero today, standing with first responders from 9/11. Obviously, that was the gravest terror attack ever on American soil. And men and women are still dying from diseases they had because of all the toxins that were released from when the towers collapsed.

So, we need to stand by our first responders. And one of the things I'm actually working on this week is to make sure that we stand by our first responders and pass a permanent 9/11 healthcare bill. And that's an important statement, because if you look at what happened in California, those first responders were on the scene.

HARLOW: Four minutes, four minutes response time.

GILLIBRAND: They didn't ask, is it safe? They didn't ask, it OK for us to go? They did that their jobs. That's what our first responders did after 9/11.

So, one of the things Congress can do this week is pass a permanent health care bill for these first responders, to tell all first responders -- no matter who attacks us, we are there for you because you answer the call of duty, you put yourself in harm's way for the good of all of us.

And so, I think that vote this week is very important for our nation, for our national character and for the morality of this country.

HARLOW: Is New York City, New York state, as much as you can speak coming from -- as a representative of all of us living here, doing anything differently on the security front in the wake of San Bernardino?

GILLIBRAND: I'm sure they are. I have not been briefed on all the changes. I have been briefed in Washington on some of those national changes for travel. They're very important.

I know Jeh Johnson from Homeland Security is taking any increased threats very seriously. He's changing protocols. He's creating far more accountability so that he knows. He's responding to any increased threat anywhere it happens in the country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: My thanks to Senator Gillibrand for that.

We also have new developments from the investigations into the San Bernardino massacre, that is when a violent husband and wife stormed into that holiday office event, gunning down 14 people. Until now we've heard that Syed Farook's wife may have -- may have radicalized him.

But now there is much more information that he was also a follower of ISIS's ideology. Law enforcement sources telling CNN that Farook was in touch with people being investigated by the FBI for international terrorism, reaching out to them by phone and social media. Now, his father is now speaking out.

CNN's Kyung Lah joining me from San Bernardino.

What have you learned, Kyung?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the father is telling reporters that he was a good kid, a quiet kid when he was growing up, but as an adult, increasingly more conservative and religious and in the end, sharing an ideology with ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: Sir, do you have a minute to speak with us for a minute?

(voice-over): Syed Farook, father of gunman Syed Rizwan Farook, driving away from his home this morning. He's been speaking to reporters on and off, earlier saying he and his son were divided on ideology.

SYED FAROOK, FATHER: All Pakistanis are coming from the major cities are liberal people. OK. He was going towards conservation.

REPORTER: He was going towards what?

FAROOK: Conservation. His views were conservative. My views were liberal.

LAH: Farook explains more of the divide in an extensive interview with an Italian newspaper "La Stampa". He says his son was shy, too conservative, and his father became angry when he once saw his son had bought a gun. The elder Farook saying about his son's beliefs, "He said he shared

the ideology of al Baghdadi to create an Islamic State, and he was fixated on Israel."

A Pakistan based relative of Farook's who had met him in the U.S. tells CNN the gunman started following a stricter interpretation of Islam three to four years ago, and the whole family was worried about the shift in his character. The relatives saying that change began before he met and married wife and fellow killer Tashfeen Malik.