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Ted Cruz Tops Latest Favorability Ratings; Insults, Jabs Cloud Battle for White House; U.S. Special Ops on the Ground in Northern Syria; Three Wounded in Jerusalem Attack; Today: Woman in Court for Mowing Down Pedestrians; Police Can't Find Intruder at JFK Airport; Iraqi Christians' Second Christmas as Refugees. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 23, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:01] CAMEROTA: Love them. Bring us more.

CUOMO: What do you think?

CAMEROTA: How much more?

CUOMO: Alisyn, with a Y? Tomorrow we'll do it.

CAMEROTA: Time now for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. Hey, Carol.

CUOMO: Carol with a Y.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: What?

CUOMO: Alisyn's name has Y in it.

COSTELLO: Gotcha. I missed that totally.

CUOMO: What?

CAMEROTA: Carol does not.

CUOMO: Carol with a Y. Everybody knows.

CAMEROTA: It does not.

COSTELLO: You guys have a happy holiday. I have to be going now.

CUOMO: The Russian spelling.

CAMEROTA: All right, Carol. You understand.

COSTELLO: NEWSROOM starts now.

CUOMO: No, it doesn't.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Trump's early Christmas gift. A bump in a brand new CNN poll. But Hillary Clinton says give him a lump of coal.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: His bigotry, his bluster, his bullying have become his campaign.

COSTELLO: Also, six American military families coping with a big loss this holiday after a deadly suicide bombing in Afghanistan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was always the person to have in my life. He was a good man, a man's man, a gentleman.

COSTELLO: What we're learning about our troops who died in a region growing ever more dangerous.

Plus, are last-minute Mall of America shoppers in for another protest like this? A judge bars three Black Lives Matter organizers from today's rally. But will they stay away?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are still going to be showing up.

COSTELLO: Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for being with me. A Christmas gift for Donald Trump. He is once again the clear Republican frontrunner at least in a new CNN-ORC poll that shows Trump with a 21-point lead. And it comes on the heels of a war of words between Trump and Hillary Clinton. Clinton accusing Trump of a pension for sexism after Trump used a graphic term to describe her loss in 2008.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I don't know that he has any boundaries at all. And his bigotry, his bluster, his bullying have become his campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Trump fought back by tweeting the word he used that rhymes with long. He says it's a word that's often used in the world of politics.

Joe Johns is in Washington with more. And well, the next Republican debate, what, it's set for January? Will this new poll, the CNN-ORC poll matter?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, it certainly will matter and I'll talk about the debate in just a minute. I did want to point out a couple other things, Carol, on the poll. Favorability ratings, now this is kind of important and we're always tracking this. So Ted Cruz is actually on top of the favorability ratings with 74 percent. He's seen a big increase in the last few months, Cruz, followed by Rubio, Trump in third place even though he leads overall. But Trump has seen a 20-percent jump in favorability since September which suggests Republican voters are getting more comfortable with him.

And this is interesting also on the issue of voters' optimism, the Republican voters' optimism about their chances in 2016 with Trump in the picture as opposed to without Trump. That number has jumped since August by 8 percentage points now up to 46 percent. Another sign that discomfort with Trump appears to be easing.

Now, as to your question about what this means for debates, the main thing to focus on is that based on the latest polling, it looks like there will be six candidates in the main event. Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Bush and Christie. And six candidates in the undercard debate, Rand Paul, John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and George Pataki.

So the people on the stages are beginning to whittle down especially after the departure of Lindsey Graham from the campaign -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Joe Johns reporting live from Washington.

This the season of mean. When words like loser and weak are bandied about. Crass is in, too. When was the last time you saw a "New York Times" op-ed start with this sentence? "Everybody," you can fill in the blank there. Columnist Frank Bruni on Donald Trump's jab at Hillary Clinton for her bathroom break during the latest debate. Or this headline in the "Washington Post" that examines if a word used by a candidate is a male appendage, or a political cartoon depicting Senator Ted Cruz as Santa Claus and his daughters who are 4 years old and 7 years old as monkeys.

We won't show you the cartoon because it's offensive. But the cartoon jabs at Cruz for using his kids in this political ad parody that ran during "Saturday Night Live" in Iowa. The cartoonist said his kids are, in her words, "fair game" after that ad. Cruz does not agree, he says he's sickened by the ad and his campaign sent out an e-mail with the cartoon to supporters seeking emergency donations after the controversy. His goal, to raise $1 million off the controversy.

[09:05:07] With me now, CNN political analyst and conservative Ben Ferguson and Peter Beinart, contributing editor for Atlantic Media and a CNN political commentator.

Welcome to both of you.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So, Ben, I'll start with you and that cartoon. Offensive? The cartoonist says no, Ted Cruz is raising a million bucks off it.

FERGUSON: Yes, well, the cartoonist is an idiot and even the newspaper pulled it for that reason. They should have never run it in the first place. You're talking about a 4 and 7-year-old and for somehow for them to justify this by claiming that, well, he used them in his own parody, he didn't mock his kids in his parody. He didn't make them look like monkeys in his cartoon if you want to put it that way. And they obviously enjoyed being in that "Saturday Night Live" type skit in one state where they ran this. And I think they knew better. But obviously this shows how biased and it's going to play right into what Ted Cruz about the media towards him. It was a really dumb juvenile mistake. They would have never run this

or done this with the first daughters. And they shouldn't have. And they knew it was wrong and for him to go out and say this is what we're up against if you want to support my campaign, this is the time to do it because this is what we're fighting against, I think it's a very smart move for him and they should have run this in the first place. Yet they did.

And the only reason why they pulled it is because there were so many people that were outraged. They didn't mind doing it beforehand and the newspaper should have known better yet they did it anyway.

COSTELLO: Yes. Both Republicans and Democrats spoke out against this ad because, you know.

FERGUSON: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Kids, you know, the kids are off-limits. 4 years old and 7 years old, although I will say, Peter, that the fact that Ted Cruz is raising money off a controversy that involves his children is kind of weird.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure, but -- yes, I think that's a little bit tacky, but the paper did make the mistake. They should not have done it. I don't necessarily buy the idea this wouldn't have been done by a Democrat, but the point is politicians trot out their kids. They do that because Americans want to see that they have a family and it doesn't mean that their kids should be in any way mocked or ridiculed.

So the "Post" made a mistake to do this. I think the "Post" were right to immediately pull it. And I think as a general rule politicians can trot out their kids, but journalists should not make fun of them.

COSTELLO: OK. So let's talk about the tone of the campaign overall. Democrats are saying this is the most crass nasty campaign ever, which may or may not be true, Ben. But the words being used during this campaign season are a lot more crass than the words being used in the last campaign season. So is this just what we should get used to?

FERGUSON: No, I don't think so. And I think the words that are being used, they're only really being used by one candidate and that is Donald Trump. And I'll be consistent the same way that I just criticized the "Washington Post" for what they did with Ted Cruz's children. He's the one that's going there. None of the other people in the field are going there. So if we want to criticize somebody, let's make it very clear it's one individual.

Donald Trump understands how to get under people's skin. And I think he realizes that there is pretty much nothing that he can say that necessarily is going to hurt him with his core base of supporters. So he keeps pushing that limit because it doesn't seem to be hurting him. The problem is from a political standpoint with his campaign and what they should be understanding is the more you go there, the more you max out your ceiling of your supporters. And I think that's where he's got a problem right now is, can you add people to your current numbers? Can people get over this if you win the nomination going into the general election?

That's why people a lot of people I think are backing Ted Cruz now and you see his rise in these new poll numbers that we have up this morning is because people are seeing that, yes, Donald Trump is connecting. Yes, people think he can fix the economy. Yes, they believe he can go after ISIS. But there is a lot of people that just think he's flat-out too crass to be the commander-in-chief and the president.

COSTELLO: Yes. But, Peter, you heard what Joe Johns says. The poll also shows that many Republicans are becoming more comfortable with the Trump candidacy.

BEINART: Yes. But I think Ben is right. The problem for Donald Trump is what happens when it becomes a two or three person race. I do think there is this ceiling. So, you know, 30 percent or 40 percent is really great in an eight or nine person field, but eventually can Trump get 50 percent? I think the best case for Trump would be that it remains a three-way race throughout. Maybe him and Cruz and Rubio or Christie.

But the more the field whittles, I think the more you will see an anti-Trump vote basically going to whoever is still left standing.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Peter Beinart, Ben Ferguson, thanks to both of you.

New this morning, the U.S. stepping up its efforts in the fight against ISIS. CNN has learned a small contingent of special forces is now back on the ground in northern Syria guiding local fighters as they battle the terror group.

Barbara Starr is following that story from the Pentagon.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. As we look at the map there of the areas ISIS controlled, as expected and as announced by the Pentagon policy that was articulated several weeks ago now indeed a number of Special Operations Forces back in northern Syria.

[09:10:11] They were always expected to go back in. There have been some initial reconnaissance work by them. They left now back in that area helping advise local fighters in northern Syria how to counter ISIS. Pentagon very sensitive about it all, not announcing it, not talking about their locations or the numbers of troops. But again, it was something that they had publicly said they were going to do as part of this overall effort to step up U.S. action against ISIS.

So we are seeing some efforts being stepped up again in Syria even as you and I have been talking, that battle across the border in Ramadi, Iraq continues as Iraqi forces try and get that city back from ISIS -- Carol. COSTELLO: All right. Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon.

Thanks.

Violence hits Jerusalem again. Israeli police say three people have been wounded at the Jaffa Gate in the Old City. Two were stabbed, another was shot. It's the latest in a wave of attacks that has left both Israelis and Palestinians dead.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is in Jerusalem with more. Good morning.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. All of this started just a couple of hours ago outside the Jaffa Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. That's a very significant part of the story because the Jaffa Gate leads into the Christian quarter. So especially at this time of the year, it is a very busy place. Police say two Palestinian attackers came up to that area, right outside the Jaffa Gate, stabbed two people, three were injured. That's because Israeli police say one of those was injured with gun fire, perhaps by Israeli security forces shooting at the attackers.

Police say one of the attackers were shot and killed at the scene. The other was taken to a hospital where he later died. Of the three injured, two were seriously injured, one moderately injured. Police blocked off the entire area. There were moments of panic as we've seen on the video there right after this happening. Again, a very busy area this time of year and we've seen because of the attacks, because of ongoing clashes, violence and tension, a decrease in tourism here. And that perhaps the story of the holiday season here, what's going on and what has been going on for three months here -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Oren Liebermann reporting live from Jerusalem this morning. Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the woman charged with murder for mowing down pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip heading to court today. We're live there next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:49] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The woman who plowed through pedestrians on the Las Vegas strip appears in court today. Lakeisha Holloway is accused of killing one and seriously injuring five others over the weekend. Her motive remain as mystery, but we do know she recently changed her legal name to Paris Paradise Morton.

CNN's Stephanie Elam live in Las Vegas with more.

Good morning.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

She is facing three felony charges, and those charges include murder with a deadly weapon. They also include child abuse, neglect or endangerment, because when this incident happened on Sunday evening as she plowed her car, police say repeatedly into the crowded sidewalk on the Las Vegas Strip, she did so with her 3-year-old daughter in the back seat. So that's why she's getting those charges.

And the last charge is about leaving the scene of the accident, especially when people are hurt. That's what that last charge about. She's expected to be in court here at 8:00 a.m. local time.

It will be her first appearance. We expect to see her. We also believe some of her family members may be in attendance, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Stephanie Elam, reporting live from Las Vegas.

Checking some other top stories for you at 16 minutes past, rescue teams pulled two people alive from a huge pile of rubble and debris in China. They are the first survivors found after a mountain of construction waste collapsed on Sunday crushing homes. One of men found later died in the hospital. As many as 73 people are still missing.

If you're in Nevada or California, you might have seen this overnight, a bright streak of light illuminating the sky. According to the U.S. Strategic Command, it was some kind of Russian space debris that was re-entering the atmosphere. So sorry, it was not a UFO.

There are threats of tornadoes across the South and Southeast this morning, as many as 50 million people are expected to be in the path of the storms as holiday travelers hit the road. Cities including Memphis, Nashville and Louisville are at risk. Areas as far north as Chicago could see flooding and severe weather.

And we're now learning more about the six Americans killed by a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan on Monday. Staff Sergeant Peter Taub is remembered by his father as funny and a good family man. He leaves behind a 3-year-old daughter and a pregnant wife.

Staff Sergeant Louis Bonacasa was on his fourth tour of duty. His brother says he lost his hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was always a blessing. He was cut from a different cloth. He was a good man, a man's man, a gentleman. He loved his family, loved his country. He died doing what he wanted do. He was a real soldier. A real hero.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And Air Force Major Adrianna Vorderbruggen was a pioneer in the protest against "don't ask, don't tell". She was one of the first openly gay service members to marry after the policy ended in 2011.

Also, New York police veteran and National Guardsman Joseph Lemm, he died at the bombing, too. Today, flags at the New York state government buildings will fly at half-staff in his honor.

Also, Service Member Chester McBride of Georgia and Staff Sergeant Michael Cinco of Texas also killed in that attack. Still to come on THE NEWSROOM: celebrating Christmas as an act of

defiance if you're under ISIS control. So, thousands of Christians will spend December 25 in shipping containers at a refugee camp. I'll talk to Sister Ban about that -- what life is like there, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:36] COSTELLO: Just as you're taking off for the holidays, we're learning about a breach at one of the nation's busiest airports. It happened ten days ago actually. Police at New York's JFK International are trying to figure out how an intruder got on to the tarmac and then slipped away.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DISPATCH: Be advised. We're getting several calls on this in the location of 32, 33 of terminal eight. What we have is a male.

OFFICER: Roger that. Gate 32, terminal eight.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The breach briefly shut down operations as police did a security sweep.

Rene Marsh is in Washington with more.

Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. I mean, you said it off the top, this happened more than a week ago and investigators still are not sure who or where this man is. He was able to get away before police even got on the scene. Investigators are now going through surveillance video frame by frame.

We do know there are no clear shots of the man's face, but CNN is told that the video shows him from behind as he scaled a fence at JFK. Now, it was a cargo airline worker who spotted and questioned the intruder who did not have the required ID. That is when the trespasser warned, quote, "You better not say expletive."

The congressman who is representing that district which includes JFK says he's not only concerned, but he's angry. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D), NEW YORK: Look, in this day and age when you talk about security, you have to dot I's and cross T's. And for someone to be on the airport property jumping a fence or however they got on without proper credentials, but what is more disconcerting to me is that the person was able to get away. We were not able to retain the individual.

So, we don't know whether or not they were there casing the airport, whether they were testing security, what the purpose was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: Well, this no doubt demonstrates a hole in airport security post-9/11. We should point out that perimeter security, that is the responsibility of the airport, in this case, New York/Ne Jersey Port Authority -- Carol.

COSTELLO: You know, a lot of people are planning to fly and they're nervous about that, especially in light of what you've just reported. So tell me about security at airports across the country.

MARSH: We know a lot of money has been invested, not only in the security check points inside of the airport, but investments have been made with security cameras and fencing around airports, as well, to prevent situations like what we saw it there at JFK.

[09:25:15] We know JFK has fencing that has sensors, but that fencing with the sensors doesn't go around 100 percent of the airport. So there are gaps. And so, things like this can happen. And we've seen this happen at other airports, other major airports across the country. It happens more often than people may realize.

But, Carol, you know, when you see a situation like this, it's almost a wake-up call for airports that perhaps areas where there aren't cameras or there aren't sensors in the fencing, they have to make sure that the manned areas, security, keeping an eye out for potential people looking to breach perimeter security. It could happen again. That is just the bottom line. They know that it is impossible to make sure that every single inch is secure. And that is just the plain truth, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Rene Marsh, reporting live from Washington.

Christians are hitting the road, getting ready to celebrate Christmas. Maybe they will go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, or worship as they please on Friday, Christmas Day.

That's the beautiful thing about the United States of America. You can go to church or the synagogue or mosque and pray as you wish.

But for Christians living in parts of the Middle East, targeted by militants, celebrating Jesus' birth is an act of courage. Simply being Christian can mean death, and at this holiest of times, they need your help.

I talked with Sister Ban Saaed. She's one of the thousands of displaced Iraqi Christians. She is, in a word, amazing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (voice-over): What is happening to Christians in Pope Francis' words is genocide.

Thousands displaced by ISIS, their lives forever changed. You can see in this child's face in a refugee camp under Kurdish control, see it in a play put on by refugee Christian actors who share a community's grief on stage. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no Palm Sunday feast in Baghdad today!

COSTELLO: I talked with Sister Ban over the Internet.

(on camera): Can you still hear me?

(voice-over): A Dominican caring for Christian children at this refugee camp. The connection was tenuous, but we managed.

(on camera): Sister, how do you explain ISIS to the children?

SISTER BAN SAEED, DOMINICAN SISTERS OF ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA: They understand that ISIS is very, very dangerous, so they say they would say we would like to be as a so soldier to find ISIS and we can't go back to our home.

COSTELLO: So, even the smallest children want to fight ISIS as soldiers?

SAEED: Yes, I'm talking about the four to five years children.

COSTELLO (voice-over): Millions of people of various religions have fled, among them hundreds of thousands of Christians from Syria and Iraq.

Sister Donna Markham is president of Catholic Charities USA.

SISTER DONNA MARKHAM, PRESIDENT & CEO, CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA: In August of 2014, August 6th to be precise, ISIS came in and all of the Christians were essentially evicted from their homes. So, their convents, their schools, their hospitals, everything, their mother house, everything was lost. So she left with the clothes on their backs and ran from their lives.

COSTELLO: They ran from their happy lives, from middle class homes, the nuns ran from their convent to this -- a refugee camp. They now live in shipping containers, electricity goes in and out. Food is scarce, but they have no choice.

(on camera): So did ISIS use the usual tactic, you know, either convert --

MARKHAM: Convert, pay a tax, yes.

COSTELLO: So, what did the nuns tell them?

MARKHAM: They left with the Christian community, because the sisters would certainly never convert and they didn't have money to be paying taxes. So they fled with the Christians. And their desire, which is really courageous from my vantage point, is that they will not abandon their people.

COSTELLO: Do you want to leave the country or do you want to go back home?

SAEED: Of course, we would like to go back home because every single day, our first half hour with the children, we start with a prayer. So we ask the children what would you like to share with God in your prayer. And first of all, they say they would like to go back home.

COSTELLO: People in the United States want to know how they can help. How can they help the Christians in Syria, in Iraq and other places?

SAEED: First, we are asking for your prayer, because your prayer supports us.