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President Obama Calls San Bernardino Shooting an Act of Terrorism; New Report Shines Light on Terror Group's Reach; Pakistani Forces Raid Home of Malik's Father; Farook's Father Speaks Out; Homeland Security Chief Talks Terrorism; London Tube Attack Connected to San Bernardino?; Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 07, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:02] PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: The president calling the California rampage an, quote, "act of terror," and saying the shooters embraced a perverted form of Islam." He also warns that engaging in a ground war would be exactly what the terrorist group wants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria. That's what groups like ISIL want. They know they can't defeat us on the battlefield. ISIL fighters were part of the insurgency that we faced in Iraq. But they also know that if we occupy foreign lands, they can maintain insurgencies for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: The president also urging Americans not to discriminate and calling on the Muslim community to do more to help root out extremism.

All this as a new CNN-ORC poll reveals a majority of Americans disapprove of the president's handling of terrorism. Look at this. It's important to point out, though, that these poll numbers were taken before the president's address.

So let's bring in CNN senior Washington correspondent Joe Johns for more on this. Good morning, Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Pamela. It really was a rather short address from the Oval Office, from the president of the United States, confirming that those attacks out in San Bernardino were, in fact, the acts of terrorists. He did not offer any new policy shifts to try to address the overall issue, which is really just fired up his critics, who say this administration isn't doing enough.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OBAMA: The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it.

JOHNS (voice-over): President Obama speaking passionately to millions in a rare Oval Office address late Sunday, strongly condemning ISIS and calling Wednesday's mass shooting in San Bernardino a terrorist attack.

OBAMA: It is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization. So this was an act of terrorism.

JOHNS: Obama doubling down on his four-point strategy to defeat the terrorist group.

OBAMA: The strategy that we are using now -- airstrikes, special forces and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country and won't require us sending a new generation of Americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil.

JOHNS: At home, Obama putting stronger screenings on people arriving in the U.S. without a visa and insisting on more gun control.

OBAMA: Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What would you do as president to prevent the mass shootings?

JOHNS: The policy GOP presidential hopefuls are calling insufficient to tackle the evolving threat. Donald Trump tweeting, "Is that all there is?" And re-tweeting, "He needs to stop all visas, not look at them."

Jeb Bush proposing his own more aggressive strategy and calling the fight against ISIS the war of our time.

OBAMA: It's a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse.

JOHNS: President Obama ending his 13-minute speech with an appeal to Muslims to root out extremist ideology while also calling on Americans to reject discrimination.

OBAMA: Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, co- workers, our sports heroes. And yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country.

JOHNS: Senator Marco Rubio pushing back.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Where is their widespread evidence that we have a problem in America with discrimination against Muslims, and the refusal to call this for what it is, a war on radical Islam? Not only did the president not make things better tonight, I fear he may have made things worse.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: Next week, the International Approach to Extremist Groups is going to get another look when the U.N. hosts a group of finance ministers from the Security Council countries to talk about cutting off the money to terrorist groups -- Pamela.

BROWN: Joe Johns, thank you very much. And when it comes to fighting ISIS, a majority of Americans say the

U.S. should send -- ground troops to Iraq or Syria. That's according to a new CNN-ORC poll taken before the president's terror address. And that same poll also reveals 68 percent of Americans do not think the military's response against ISIS has been tough enough.

All this as a new U.S. intelligence report shines light on the terror group's global reach. So let's bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Barbara, we just heard the president just a few weeks ago say that ISIS is contained, but it seems like this is a bit of a different assessment based on this report, right?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Pamela. It does seem like that. You know, the White House walking that original statement back a bit, indicating the president was really talking about Iraq and Syria. But set that aside for the moment. A new report from the U.S. intelligence community, in fact, underscores that ISIS is extending its reach significantly around the globe. It now has adherence, supporters, people it is inspiring in places as far away, we are told, as Bangladesh, Indonesia, across Africa. So ISIS' influence very much on the move.

[09:05:08] As for the president's speech about military strategy, that really is inside Iraq, inside Syria, and perhaps, very restricted to that. Don't look for new ground troops in some sort of traditional, large sense of the word. But the administration is getting ready to send a number of special forces into Iraq, into Syria. They believe if they can put them on the ground, they will be much closer to the threat. They will learn more intelligence. They will be able to even capture high-value, senior ISIS operatives.

But that is very interesting because for the first time in years, that will put the U.S. military back in the business of capturing, detaining and interrogating terrorist suspects -- Pamela.

BROWN: Barbara Starr, thank you so much for that report.

And this morning, in Pakistan, security forces raided a home once occupied by the father of the San Bernardino father, Tashfeen Malik. According to sources they broke padlocks off the unoccupied building and removed unidentified items from that home. This comes as we learn new details about Malik and her husband Syed Farook who both massacred 14 people last week.

CNN's Sophia Saifi is traveling across Pakistan and speaking with people who knew Malik. And CNN's Dan Simon is live in Southern California with the very latest on Farook.

Sophia, you have been in Pakistan. You have been talking to people who knew the family. Hopefully, we can bring you in to talk about that -- Sophia.

SOPHIA SAIFI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via phone): Hi, there. Yes, Pamela, what we know so far is I've spoken to, actually, visited the university where Tashfeen went to study pharmacy. We spoke to the spokesperson of the Bahauddin Zakariya University, and he told us that there was nothing extraordinary about this (INAUDIBLE). Tashfeen didn't stand out. He was shocked at the incident that had taken place in San Bernardino, and he condemned it, saying that it was something completely unthinkable, that an alum of that university could do.

We then went and spoke to one of her professors. We know that she went to this university between the years of 2007 and 2012. And her professor who actually taught her and, you know, was in contact with her every single day, from 2009 to 2011, he told us that she was a very good student. She was very quiet. She wasn't, again, the word ordinary comes in, she wasn't extraordinary. And she was just someone -- he had vague memories of her.

He said that she did cover her face, but that wasn't anything unusual. That a lot of the students at that university covered their face, they wear their burqa. And I've seen that myself. I went to the university. There was a whole array of students. Some covered their heads. Some are wearing the same modern clothing. And some, you know, completely cloaked from head to toe.

So I can kind of understand what he means by saying that she wouldn't stand out. She didn't really show anything, according to him, that portrayed an extremist or radical stance -- Pamela.

BROWN: Very interesting to get that perspective.

And Dan, you've actually been speaking to her husband's father, Syed Farook's father, and he said he never really got to see her face or really get to know her. What else can you talk about what he said and what his son may have been influenced by here?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, just to be clear, I did not speak to Syed Farook's father. He actually spoke to the Italian newspaper "Las Stampa." And what he said does provide some insight into his son. And, you know, what stood out is he said that his son, quote, "shared the ideology of al-Baghdadi," the leader of ISIS, to create an Islamic State, and that he was fixated on Israel and Israeli matters. He spoke to a group of reporters outside of his home and we have a little bit of that sound. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SYED FAROOK, FATHER OF SYED RIZWAN FAROOK: All Pakistanis coming from the major cities are liberal people.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Understood.

FAROOK: OK. And he was going towards conservation.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He was going towards what?

FAROOK: Conservation. You know, his views were conservative. Mine was liberal.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SIMON: Pamela, the bottom line as we move forward, you know, several days after the shooting, the key question for investigators is determining how, in fact, the husband and wife became radicalized. And was there a turning point that ultimately led to the shooting? You know, what was the -- was there a final motivating factor that made them want to target this particular facility at that particular time? Those are the central questions right now for investigators -- Pamela.

BROWN: And one of the working theories among investigators is whether she was radicalized before they even met.

[09:10:05] Dan, we've learned that the San Bernardino County employees, they're heading back to work for the first time since last week's massacre. Is that right?

SIMON: That's right. We know that workers are heading back today for the Health Department as a whole. The folks who actually worked in Syed Farook's division, they will not be returning to work today. They're going to return to work next week. And I'm told that they actually won't be returning to the offices where they previously worked. That's going to take some time. Obviously a lot of folks still dealing with some trauma and so they want to, you know, ease them back into the situation.

Pamela, let me just point out, as well, yesterday being Sunday, I attended a church service here in the community. As you can imagine, in times of tragedy, that people often turn to their faith to deal with such matters. Nowhere was that more evident than this Catholic mass that I attended. One of the victims who died during the attack actually attended there. And there's just so much raw emotion, people openly weeping in church. And so it's going to take a very long time for things to sort of quell down here -- Pamela.

BROWN: Yes. Understandably.

Dan Simon, Sophia Saifi, thank you very much.

And Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson is taking questions about the evolving face of terror in the wake of last week's massacre. He reiterated that there are no specific credible terror threats on the U.S. but noted that he's concerned about copycat and lone wolf attacks.

CNN's Justice reporter Evan Perez is in Washington with more -- Evan.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, Jeh Johnson at this event sponsored by Defense One just made a little news. He says that the -- his department, the Homeland Security Department, is going to announce a new national terror alert system, which will reflect this new phase of terrorism threat that we're facing now in this country, in light of Paris and in light of what happened in San Bernardino.

So this is a very interesting new movement, a development by the Obama administration. If you might recall there was a terror alert system that's coded from green to orange to red, that was announced after the 9/11 attacks. And after much criticism, it was phased out in 2011. So the fact that they're planning to announce a new version of this really tells you that they believe what has been happening, the strategy that has been employed, is not enough to reflect the threat level that they're seeing right now.

It's important to note that Johnson is facing a lot of questions simply because his department is the one that would have done some of the screening that allowed Tashfeen Malik in on a K1 visa, a fiancee visa last year. And so just over a year after she was allowed into this country, she carries out the deadliest terror -- domestic terrorist attack in this country since 9/11. A lot of questions that being asked of the Homeland Security Department. And if you heard from President Obama last night, he says that one of the things that they're doing is they're reviewing this fiancee visa process because it appears to have some gaps in it -- Pamela.

BROWN: Especially if she was indeed radicalized before she came to the U.S., which is one of the working theories.

Also, Evan, you know, I just reported that he said that there's no specific and credible threat. We heard the same, though, from him and President Obama and others, what, two weeks before this attack in San Bernardino? I mean, do those words mean anything anymore in this age of ISIS?

PEREZ: They really don't. And actually, that's one of the things that Jeh Johnson has actually disliked about that phrase. No known credible threat to this country. It's a thing that we hear before every holiday, before Christmas, before July 4th. And it's kind of a meaningless phrase. It means that we don't really know of a terrorist attack that's imminent. And if we did, we would go out and arrest these people. So it's kind of obvious, right? But it is the one that they always use.

And what this really shows is that people like these two killers in San Bernardino are not going to show up. I mean, that's the problem, as you know -- well know. The FBI director Jim Comey says, you know, the thing that scares him the most is the things that he doesn't know. And clearly, the San Bernardino killers are two people that they absolutely did not know much about at all.

And you know, I think it's clear now, increasingly clear, that the administration believes Tashfeen Malik slipped through gaps in the visa system. And I think it's fair to say that it's beyond more of a working theory, I think they believe, that she was radicalized or on her way to radicalization when she came into this country last year -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Evan Perez, that is frightening. Thank you so much for that report.

And still to come right here in the NEWSROOM, new developments in the knife attacks on the London Tube. Was a suspect inspired by the San Bernardino massacre?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[09:14:55] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Stunning new details out of London this hour. The suspect in this weekend's knife attack at the Tube appearing in court just moments ago. Well, we just learned of a connection to the San Bernardino rampage.

Frederik Pleitgen is in London with the very latest -- Frederik.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Pamela. Yes, there are some details that we're learning. And this was as the man was just in court earlier today. And these are the initial details of the prosecution's case. Now they gave us some details as to what exactly happened there on the London subway. And it appears as though the suspect attacked a man on the -- on the subway, a 56-year-old man. Kicked and punched him, brought him to the ground and started cutting his neck in what some people there described as a sawing motion. This left a 12-centimeter long or five- inch long wound on this man's neck. It required five hours of surgery.

Now at some point he let off -- he threatened some other people before the police then finally came and tasered him and managed to -- managed to subdue him. Now the interesting thing is that apparently they questioned him, they looked at his phone, and on his phone they found ISIS-related material as well as well as ISIS-related material, as well as ISIS flags. Material relating to the San Bernardino attacks, as well as the Paris attacks, also -- Pam.

[09:20:17] BROWN: Wow. That is big news.

Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much.

And to talk about this is CNN terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank.

Paul, what do you make of this? The fact that this London Tube attacker had images of other ISIS-inspired attacks on his phone, including San Bernardino.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, Pam, quite simply, this is a possible copycat attack, somebody who may be inspired by what he saw play out in San Bernardino last week or so, the Paris attacks.

And I think the significant concern now that in the United States, with those 900 terror investigations, many which relate to ISIS which we've been reporting about, some of those individuals, radicalized and pro-ISIS individuals, may also, in the United States, launch copycat attacks.

I think it's also interesting when you draw the comparison between the UK and the San Bernardino attacker, in the United States, these perpetrators have powerful weapons. In the UK, if this radical had had the same weapons, he could have killed 20, 30, 40, 50 people on the London Tube over the weekend. It was the point the president was making, much easier to get weapons in the United States and in fact over the last decade, more than 2,000 people on terror watch list, no- fly lists in the United States have bought guns, powerful weapons, according to the FBI's own data. There's a loophole there which is deeply problematic from a counterterrorism point of view, Pam.

BROWN: And that is why that is such a central discussion right now. We heard it in the president's speech, as you said. And talking about the attack in San Bernardino, we know investigators are combing through the history of this couple, learning whatever they can. Do you think they will be able to determine who radicalized who? And that is significant, I would think, especially because the wife, Tashfeen Malik, may have been radicalized before she came to the U.S.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, it does appear that the wife was radical to some degree before coming to the United States, that she had hard-lined conservative Wahhabi views, which many people in the West would regard as radical. So it is possible that she sort of played a Lady Macbeth role here, strengthening the spine of her husband so to speak in launching this attack.

But we're also hearing from the father who spoke to an Italian newspaper, the father of Farook, that he was also supportive of the ISIS caliphate and very anti-Israeli views, as well. So it's possible that they kind of radicalized each other, encouraged each other in this attack, Pam.

BROWN: And we look at this poll that's just out, Paul. Majority of Americans believe that ISIS terrorists are inside the U.S., according to this new polling taken before the rampage in San Bernardino. 81 percent of voters think that ISIS has terrorists currently inside our borders. That perception suddenly increasing since this time last year 10 percent higher since September of 2014.

But my question to you, Paul, does this thing should even matter, whether ISIS sent terrorists here and they were able to sneak into the United States, or whether there are people in the U.S. who are inspired by ISIS, like this couple seemingly was?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, the distinction does matter, Pam. And it matters when you compare the death toll in the Paris attacks, which was ISIS directed, to the death toll in California, which appears to be an ISIS-inspired. The Paris attackers, they were trained killers. They learned how to make bombs in Syria, how to fire Kalashnikovs in Syria, learned a certain amount of terrorist trade craft in Syria. So when they came back to France, they were able to kill around 130 people.

Whereas these attackers in California don't appear to have had that physical contact with a terrorist group. And their devices, their pipe bombs were more rudimentary, they didn't in fact work. Obviously anybody in the United States can go to a firing range and learn how to fire a gun. You don't have to go to Syria for that. So they were able to kill a certain amount of people with those weapons. But that's the reason that this does make a difference. But so far,

so far the evidence is that there are no ISIS operatives in the United States at the moment. We have not heard that yet from the FBI. People who have been tasked with carrying out attacks are back in the U.S. homeland. The worry is that could change. And as you reported and our colleagues have been reporting, several of the Paris attackers could have got into the United States because they weren't on the watch lists.

BROWN: Yes. Through that visa waiver program. At least one of them had a clean enough background to be able to slip in, if not more.

Paul Cruickshank, thank you so much.

And still to come --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Yes, don't shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Hands up.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Don't shoot.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Hands up.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Don't shoot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:25:05] BROWN: The Chicago Police Department now coming under scrutiny from the federal government as the city prepares to go public with the video of another fatal shooting by police.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Well, good Monday morning. I'm Pamela Brown in for Carol Costello. Thanks so much for being here with me.

The Justice Department holds a news conference at the top of the hour to announce an investigation into the patterns and practices of the Chicago Police Department. This comes on the heels of that disturbing dash cam video showing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald being shot 16 times by police. The video contradicts police reports of what happened that night.

Our Ryan Young has the very latest from Chicago.

So, Ryan, this mayor is set to hold a news conference later today. What can you tell us about that?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is one of the things we're all talking about here in Chicago. The fact that there's going to be a second video released. The idea that more scrutiny is going to be put on the police department. And a lot of people are wondering, what changes will happen to the next week. Of course the superintendent is gone.

(END)