Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Ted Cruz Hit Trump and Carson on Their Judgment; U.S. Intercepted Talks of Geneva Attack; Huge Blast, Gunshots Heard in Kabul; Dive Teams Searching Lake in San Bernardino; Former Cop Found Guilty on 18 Counts; Explosion, Gunshots Near Embassies in Kabul; Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 11, 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: Cruz's private comments to fundraisers questioning the judgment of Trump and Ben Carson now going public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I like and respect both Donald and Ben, but I think in both instances, and particularly you look at Paris, you look at San Bernardino. It's given a seriousness to this race that people are looking for who is prepared to be a commander-in-chief. Now that's a question of strength. But it's also a question of judgment. And I think that is a question that is a challenging question for both of them.

So my approach, much to the frustration of the media, has been to bear hug both of them and smother them with love. Because I think -- look, people run as who they are. I believe that gravity will bring both of those campaigns down. And I think the lion's share of their supporters come to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So Trump wasting no time in responding tweeting, "Ted Cruz should not make statements behind closed doors to his bosses. He should bring them out into the open. More fun that way." And this, "Look like Ted Cruz is getting ready to attack. I am leading by so much he must. I hope so. He will fall like the others. Will easy."

Joining me now, CNN's Athena Jones.

Athena, good morning. What's so interesting about this, too, is that Ted Cruz has publicly not attack Trump and now we have this private recording from this fundraiser.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Pamela. That's right. I mean, I guess not a lot of things end up being private when it comes to politics. But you can see there clearly Cruz making the argument that those supporters from Trump and Carson are going to come to him when that support for them fades. And Trump of course we know he doesn't seem to sleep a lot and he's also a big consumer of the news media. So he has been watching it seems like this morning and wanting to weigh into this. The real question is, you know, we only have our debate just four days

away. Will Ted Cruz start attacking Donald Trump in public? Donald Trump is right. All other people who have tried to come after him haven't fared well after doing so, Pamela.

BROWN: Right. And now we know Ted Cruz is number two in the polls in Iowa and there's definitely going to be a battle there.

Athena Jones, thank you so much.

And now I want to bring in Jason Johnson, political science professor at Hiram College and Sirius XM contributor.

Jason, thank you so much for coming on.

JASON JOHNSON, CONTRIBUTOR, SIRIUS XM POTUS CHANNEL: Good to be here.

BROWN: Just a few days ago Ted Cruz said he, quote, "won't get engaged in personal insults and attacks," and that he was, in his words, "grateful Trump was running," but in private clearly a very different tone. Why the secrecy?

JOHNSON: I don't think it's secrecy. I think it's just good strategy. Look. you have to remember, these guys all want to win. I mean, they act nice in public but they eventually want to win. And Ted Cruz sees the numbers and has seen the numbers for months and months and months, that say he is the leading second choice getter amongst Trump voters, amongst Carson supporters and even amongst Rubio supporters.

So basically Ted Cruz's attitude all along has been, I'm going to be nice to everybody because when these guys drop out of the race all their voters are going to come to me.

BROWN: A good strategy, I mean, you know, he won't say that in public but he says it at this private fundraiser. He must have known this could get out to the public, right?

JOHNSON: Well, you know, you could ask the same question to Mitt Romney. I think everybody sort of mistakenly thinks, Pamela, sometimes that look, if these people paid to meet with me, that they're not going to betray me and record me and take that information out. So it was kind of a mistake on Cruz's part to perhaps not have better security but nothing he said was offensive.

I don't think this is a riff. I think even Donald Trump, if you see his responses, he's more chiding Ted Cruz. He's like, come on, come at me, come at me, say it to my face. No one sees this as a problem because everyone here recognizes that the race is getting tight.

BROWN: Right. And Cruz, meanwhile, seems to be making a play for Trump's voters. Do you think -- did it just backfire with the release of this video? What are your thoughts on that? With this audio, I should say.

JOHNSON: I don't think it's backfired. I mean, look, Trump basically said if you come for me, you know, from the wire, you know, if you come for the king you best not miss. Trump has said you can say whatever you want behind closed doors. Just don't say it to me publicly. I don't think Ted Cruz is that dumb. We're this close to Iowa right now. I think a lot of Trump supporters will still look at Ted Cruz as a viable option if Trump drops out of the race. And I think this has caused a rift between the candidates, but we'll see on the debate next Tuesday.

BROWN: And what Cruz said behind closed doors is pretty mild still if you compare it to what other candidates have been saying.

JOHNSON: Right.

BROWN: Including Hillary Clinton on the other side of the aisle. She had this to say to Seth Meyers last night. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have to say, Seth. I no longer think he's funny.

SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": Yes. I will say I started --

(APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: Yes. I -- you know, I think for weeks, you know, you and everybody else were just bringing folks to hysterical laughter and all of that. But now he has gone way over the line. And what he's saying now is not only shameful and wrong. It's dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:05:05] BROWN: And a "New York Times" headline saying that, to Democrats, Trump is no longer a laughing matter. That they're struggling with how to respond given his obvious appeal to voters. So where do Clinton, Sanders and O'Malley go from here?

JOHNSON: Well, Clinton continues to go up. O'Malley continues to be nowhere. And Sanders is more focused on making sure he can actually win a primary. So I don't think the Democrats running for president, the lower tier, are concerned yet. But Hillary Clinton realizes that if she ends up facing Donald Trump, and I had a conversation yesterday with a good colleague of mine in the RNC. The RNC realizes now it is very possible Donald Trump could be their nominee. Hillary realizes she's got to have more energy, she's got to be more direct and she's really going to have to take it to Trump at some point.

But I think right now she's just sort of setting the stage. I never thought that Trump was funny but I do think that it's about time that some candidate sort of come out and clearly say, hey look, some of this rhetoric is not really becoming necessarily of someone who's going to become president of the United States.

BROWN: And now we're learning from the "Washington Post" of this idea of a contested convention is becoming more a possibility, more discussion about that among the Republicans, right?

JOHNSON: Yes. But, Pamela, and I think that would be a huge mistake. Look, democracy works best when people actually get the candidate that they want. I don't think it's reasonable for the Republican Party to turn their backs. First off, most of the things that Donald Trump is saying, lots of Republicans agree with him in the polls, they think it's OK to keep Muslims out of the country. They think it's reasonable to put monitoring surveillance on mosques.

So what is the problem with having a candidate that represents the core of your own constituency? I think it's disingenuous for the Republicans to try and find a way to kick Trump out of this race. Either let somebody beat him or let him win fair and square. But I think it'll be a mistake if they try to keep him from getting this nomination.

BROWN: And we're just looking at this latest poll by CBS News, basically saying that a majority of Americans oppose that idea but when you look at the Republican Party it's a different story. More than 50 percent support that.

All right. Jason Johnson, thank you very much.

JOHNSON: Thanks, Pamela.

BROWN: And Geneva, Switzerland is on high alert this morning due to a, quote, "precise threat." U.S. officials are saying that they're the ones who intercepted that terrorist communication triggering the alert. And it's not just Geneva. Extremists were looking at targeting a major U.S. city, too.

Nic Robertson is in Switzerland with the very latest -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, good morning, Pam. Well, the very latest here is that part of the airport here in Geneva is on lockdown. The police are examining a suspicious item of luggage. They're not clear what it is. But that just shows you how high the security is here.

We're outside the U.N. This is the biggest U.N. world headquarters outside of New York. The guards here now have larger automatic weapons than they would normally be carrying. The reason being, there have been three pieces of intelligence connected to ISIS that have come into the Swiss authorities. One of those a significant one coming from U.S. intelligence officials which says, quite simply, that they've heard chatter coming from four ISIS members inside Syria about an attack in Geneva. The whereabouts of those four are now unknown. At least a couple of them speak French, which means they can operate pretty effectively here.

There is also a concern because a van belonging to an associate of one of the Paris terror attackers from last month, that was driven into Switzerland. The van the police have now found that but they don't know where this associate of the -- of those Paris attackers is. Right now that's a concern. Also we now know the identity of the third attacker in Paris. At the

Bataclan nightclub where the band was playing. His identity has now led the Swiss police to be concerned because the man who recruited him, who's now in jail in France, a Swiss associate of his was with ISIS in Syria. His whereabouts now unknown.

So when you put all those three things together, that's the heightened sense of alert and the reality is you now have this lockdown at the airport because people are really concerned about anything that could be a terror threat right now, Pam.

BROWN: Understandably they're on edge. Nic Robertson, thank you.

And we have breaking news out of Afghanistan. We are following -- right now police at the scene of a big explosion and gunfire in the central part of Kabul.

Sune Rasmussen is on the phone in Kabul. What can you tell us, Sune?

SUNE ENGEL RASMUSSEN, REPORTER, THE GUARDIAN: Yes. I'm at the scene in Sherpoor, a neighborhood in Kabul that's home to a lot of officials and (INAUDIBLE). We don't know much about -- what the attack was. It was a big explosion about 30 minutes ago followed by sporadic gunfire which we hear from time to time. But mostly the neighborhood is quiet.

We're hearing that it might be -- the target might be a guest house belonging to a foreign embassy. And there is some chatter on police radio suggesting that it might be a Chinese guest house. But I have to emphasize this is all unconfirmed at the moment and local officials are not saying anything so far.

[09:10:06] BROWN: Do we know anything about injuries? Deaths?

RASMUSSEN: No news on any casualties yet, no. The explosion apparently was a car bomb. But that is all we know for now. And no word on casualties or hostages or anything like that.

BROWN: And I know that you're still trying to get information. It was a little hard to understand you. Do we have a better understanding on what the target may have been?

RASMUSSEN: No. We don't know what the target is. We're hearing here from police at the scene that it's probably a guest house belonging to a foreign embassy. So we don't know much about what country that embassy is. And local officials are not saying anything to the media at the moment. So it is a little bit sparse on details, I'm afraid.

BROWN: OK. Understandably, and we will be checking back in with you soon, as you get more details from officials there.

Sune Rasmussen, thank you very much.

And still to come right here in the NEWSROOM, are key clues from the San Bernardino massacre hidden in these waters? Up next, divers resumed their search at a lake this morning. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:26] PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: New developments in the San Bernardino shooting. Dive teams searching a lake that officials believe the shooters may have visited prior to the attack. One of the items the two divers are likely looking for is a missing hard drive from the couple's computer

All of this as the FBI looks into Syed Rizwan Farook's ties to a group of jihadists who were arrested in California in 2012.

CNN's Ana Cabrera is live in San Bernardino with the very latest.

So, Ana, what were we learning about this Farook, that Farook that has been believed to have been connected to?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We understand that Farook was possibly in the same social circle as this terror leader who was recruiting people back in 2012. At that time, the FBI broke up that terror group in 2012. That was the same time that we know Enrique Marquez, the friend and neighbor of Farook, has said and told investigators apparently that he and Farook were planning their own attack here on U.S. soil.

So, investigators are looking more closely about their ties. We do know that that terror group was planning an attack in Afghanistan. Of course, that's when al Qaeda and the Taliban were much more prominent in terms of the terror conversation, and they were planning to attack U.S. military bases and fight with forcers against the U.S. military overseas.

Now, I want to tell you about the location where I'm at. I'm here in front of this lake where we anticipate the investigators will be returning here within the next couple of hours. It's just 6:00 here on the West Coast.

And so, the sun should be rising in the next hour or so. Investigators spent several hours at this park combing the lake yesterday. We understand they are searching for evidence that might be connected to the San Bernardino shootings. This park and this lake is just two miles north or so of where that shooting occurred.

And investigators say they are following a couple of leads that say that the shooters were in this area on the day of the attack. They have already scoured the park we're told. And so, they will go through lake. They said it could take days. They've also warned residents they may be canvassing neighborhoods in the days to come as they work through this investigation.

They won't say what specific evidence they are looking for at this time, Pam, but they do say, we know that it has to do with the investigation and we, of course, have learned that this is still an ongoing issue with that missing hard drive, as they're trying to put together the time line of radicalization and put together the couple's digital footprint.

BROWN: Right. That hard drive a key piece of evidence that officials have been looking for.

We're also hearing, Ana, that funerals are now taking place. Is that right?

CABRERA: Yes. We do know the coroner turned over the bodies of those 14 victims back to their family members this week on Wednesday. And the first funeral happened yesterday. There is another one scheduled today. We're hearing about memorials and vigils around town.

It is still a community very much in the grieving and healing process here, Pam. And we do know investigators have also met with victim's family members, as well as survivors of this attack this week to update them on the investigation at the site of the Inland Regional Center where this attack occurred -- Pam.

BROWN: And not forget about those victims.

Ana Cabrera, thank you so much.

And we're hearing for the first time from the mother of Enrique Marquez. He is the former neighbor of Syed Rizwan Farook who Ana just talked about and he apparently bought weapons used by the terrorists, according to sources. Marquez's mother now saying that her son is a good person and that she had no knowledge of her son's involvement in what happened in what he told investigators in 2012. He claims, though, that he knew nothing about the San Bernardino plot.

And right now, we know that investigators are still talking to him and trying to get more information.

Joining us now to discuss is Michael Weiss. He is the co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror", as well as a CNN contributor.

So, Michael, Marquez's mom says she knew nothing about her son having anything to do with terrorism. And we've seen it separately with Farook's family. They lived -- he and his wife lived in a house with his mother.

How were they able to hide those plots from those closest to them?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I mean, I take it with a little bit of pinch of salt that the families didn't know anything untoward was going on.

I mean, Farook's father had come out and said yes my son was becoming a jihadi. He was tending toward a conservative strain of Islamism. I was a more liberal-orientated man, myself.

I mean, we hear this all the time, Pam.

[09:20:00] I mean, you know, these attacks happen, and then it's what a nice sweet boy. He was very quiet and studious and shy. We had no idea. Well, actually you probably did have an idea. Self radicalization or

even immersing yourself in a milieu that is tending towards that direction is a process that takes years, months and years. It doesn't happen overnight.

I'm sure, you know -- I heard in various press conferences that Farook and his wife, they stopped attending mosque. So, therefore, they had sort of given up their religion. No maybe, the mosque was deemed too moderate for them and they just decided that their interpretation of Islam could only be found through YouTube videos, or social media, or whatever the propaganda being put out by al Qaeda and ISIS contains.

So, I am always very weary when I hear these things from the family members. To give one example, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the guy who tried to blow up the airliner in the skies, you know, of Detroit several Christmases ago. His father was a minister in the Nigerian government and had actually dropped a dime on the son, while the son was enrolled at university college in London. He was president of the Islamic Society there, was hosting memorials for 9/11 that included images of the Twin Towers on fire, celebratory memorials, that is to say.

And the father knew quite well what his son was up and what his son was thinking and he did the right thing. He informed. So, you know, this is -- ultimately, it does come down to the community and the family to be more vigilant.

And it is the cliche of the era. If you see something, say something. But I think there is a lot of, you know, self fear or, you know, restraint on the part of family members because they know that their children, if they get caught, that's the end. They'll never see them again.

BROWN: And, you know, we've heard from the FBI, from the attorney general, kind of making that point, that look, we need the help of those closest to these people, because they don't have the resources to cover everyone. So, a lot still to learn, though, in this case.

Michael Weiss, thank you so much.

WEISS: Sure.

BROWN: And still to come right here in NEWSROOM, prosecutors say he used his badge to rape women. Now, the verdict is in on this Oklahoma cop. We've got the very latest. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:26:20] BROWN: An ex-police officer who preyed on women in Oklahoma City broke down in tears when he was found guilty of rape and sexual battery.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Count five for procuring lewd exhibition, the defendant is guilty of procuring lewd exhibition and punishment is set at five years. Count six, defendant is not guilty of the crime of stalking. Count seven, defendant is not guilty of the crime of sexual battery.

(END VDEO CLIP)

BROWN: See right there increasingly lost his composure as the list of charges continued. In total, the jury convicted him on 18 counts of targeting more than a dozen poor black victims with criminal backgrounds. One young woman, only 17 at the time, was raped on her mother's front porch.

CNN's Alina Machado joins me now with more.

What a disturbing story here, Alina.

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is, Pamela. The jury in this case deliberated for more than 40 hours before convicting the former Oklahoma City police officer of some of the most serious charges he was facing.

Daniel Holtzclaw was accused of picking his victims based on their criminal histories and forcing them to engage in a series of sex acts. Holtzclaw was visibly nervous last night after learning that the jury had reached the verdict. And then as the judge read some of the guilty verdicts, Holtzclaw started sobbing, his head was down, and he was rocking in his chair.

Now, as you mentioned, he was convicted of 18 of the 36 charges, including first degree rape and sexual battery. The victims, 13 black women, all testified against him during the trial and some of the victims are expected to speak later today in a news conference on the steps of the courthouse. We plan to bring that live to you when it happens -- Pamela.

BROWN: And those victims, you know, said they were worried their stories wouldn't be heard. That justice wouldn't be served in case. I'm just curious, what was the defense's argument here?

MACHADO: Well, you know, the victims and their concerns about justice are definitely something that is still at the forefront of the defense. At this point, we really haven't heard from them after the trial. But the jury recommended a total of 263 years in prison so Holtzclaw could spend the rest of his life in prison or he could serve a lot less time if the judge decides to run some of these sentences concurrently.

Here is what one of the victims' mother had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LATONYA JAMES, VICTIM'S MOTHER: I'm sure they are going to try to run it together so he won't seeing in nothing but 30 years. And that's not fair to us. It's not fair to my daughter. It's not fair to any of the victims or the people of our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MACHADO: We'll learn exactly how many years Holtzclaw will serve for his convictions when he's formally sentenced next month -- Pamela.

BROWN: Alina Machado, thank you very much.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROWN: And we have breaking news out of Afghanistan. Police at the scene right now of a big explosion and gunfire in the central part of Kabul. First reports indicate the blast may be a car explosion.

A CNN producer in Kabul describes the explosion as very loud. This is an area of the city where many foreign embassies are located and many expats live and work.

Sune Rasmussen is a journalist with "The Guardian" in Kabul. He joins us on the phone.

So, what did we learn, Sune?

SUNE RASMUSSEN, THE GUARDIAN (via telephone): Well, details are still pretty limited. I'm at the scene a couple of blocks away from where the explosion happened. There are units of soldiers moving in now, slowly in the darkness to try to clear the building that rumors say at least, or reports say has been taken by some gunmen who are holed up.