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Huge Manhunt Underway For Tel Aviv Gunman; Two Killed And Eight Injured; Train Stations Reopen After Terror Alert; Specific Threat Of ISIS Suicide Attack In Munich; Driver Tries To Run Over Police At French Mosque; New York Man Allegedly Plotted New Year's Rampage; Specific Threat Of ISIS Suicide Bomb Attack; Suspect Spoke With ISIS Operative Overseas; 60 ISIS-Related Arrests In U.S. In 2015; Majority Of Suspects Not Plotting U.S. Attacks; Suicide Attack Targets French Restaurant In Kabul; Flames And Smoke Trap Photographer On 48th Floor; Top Carson Staffers Quite In Major Shakeup; Carson Campaign Regroups. 2016 Presidential Candidates. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired January 01, 2016 - 13:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Police are now searching the city. They are looking for the suspected shooter. And there's also some surveillance video from inside of the cafe -- inside of a cafe as this shooting happened. The shooter is outside the window there on the right side of the screen. And I should say CNN doesn't know how this video was shot or obtained but as many as seven others were injured in this attack.

And our Ian Lee is following this story for us from Jerusalem. A lot of unanswered questions here, Ian. What can you tell us about this attack and also the search for the gunman?

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the real two, big questions this hour that police are trying to answer is where is this gunman? Who is this gunman? And also, was this a criminal incident or was this a terrorist attack? And we just heard on Israel channel two, the minister of public security coming out and saying they still don't know who it was or what the motivation behind it.

But as we see in those videos, the gunman first in a shop in its market what appears to be buying something. And then, he returns the item. He puts his bag on some shopping carts. That's when he pulls out the gun and starts spraying the cafe as well as the sidewalk. Two people were killed in that, eight were injured, four in serious condition.

Right now, a massive manhunt underway. The spokesman for the Israeli police said it is flooded with police officers looking for the suspect in Tel Aviv. They're saying, though, that residents should go about their normal life, just be a bit more cautious when going between places and being on the streets. But right now, that suspect, that gunman still very much at large -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Ian Lee, thank you so much for that update. We do appreciate it.

We're staying overseas now. Tensions may be lessening in Munich, Germany today after a credible threat led to the closure of a couple of key railway stations there just before midnight. Those stations are back open now, but officials are still very much on alert.

Our Frederik Pleitgen is live in London. Fred, where did the information come from that led to these closures? And what were officials looking for specifically?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, the information apparently came from U.S. officials and then also French intelligence.

And one of the reasons why the Germans authorities then acted so quickly is because they got this information separately from two different allied intelligence agencies and the information matched exactly. The places that allegedly were supposed to get hit were exactly the same, two railway stations in Munich. The amount of people was exactly the same, five to seven attackers wanting to conduct suicide attacks.

And the timing was exactly the same in the information as well, midnight on New Year's Eve. And that's why the Germans said, listen, at that point in time, we realized that there could be an imminent threat to the New Year's celebrations there in the town of Munich. And they decided to act very quickly.

Also, because when they got the information, it was already almost 8:00 p.m. in Germany. And they said, if we take the time to try and see whether or not this information is true or false, we might be putting the population in danger. And that's why they closed all of these places down.

There was a press conference earlier today by the German authorities where they said that the people involved are believed to be of Iraqi and Syrian decent. They say they even have names that some of this information contained of possible people. They are trying to verify whether or not those are real people or whether or not those might be phony names.

But as you said, at this point in time, it seems as though the threat level has passed at least, but certainly the Germans still very much on guard -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Tell us about this story coming out of France, an incident at a mosque there. What do you -- what do you know about this?

PLEITGEN: You know, it generally plays into the situation here in Europe right now where a lot of this continent is just very much on alert for possible terror attacks. You've had, of course, in Brussels where the New Year's celebrations were canceled. You have the incident in Munich.

And now, you had one today in France where in the small town in the Alps called Vallons (ph). There was a group of soldiers guarding a mosque, because right now the French authorities have put extra efforts into guarding religious places, Jewish, Christian as well as Muslim as well. A man tried to run into that crowd of soldiers. And after he tried to run into them, then ran into them a second time and that's when they opened fire, apparently wounding him quite severely in the leg and in the arm.

He's been taken into custody. It's unclear what his motivations are, at this point in time. The French authorities have come out and said they believe this is an isolated incident, but they've not been able to question him yet -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. We'll keep following that. Fred Pleitgen in London. Thank you so much. Several cities had muted New Year's celebrations, Brussels, Belgium; Paris; Rochester, New York as well. Rochester canceled their celebrations so that police could be more mobile. After authorities arrested this man here who they say was planning a New Year's Eve attack.

Our Boris Sanchez is in New York for us. We learned a little bit about this man yesterday, Emanuel Lutchman. He has a criminal history. He allegedly had a desire to join ISIS. What more do we know about him now?

[13:05:06] BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, he does have an extensive criminal history. He's 25 years old and he's served about five years in Attica for a robbery conviction. It was during that sentence that officials say he converted to Islam. And then, upon his release, that's when he was radicalized online.

Now, his plan was to use a pressure cooker bomb, to plant it inside a restaurant on New Year's Eve. And then, also to take hostages. He actually went to a Wal-Mart along with an undercover informant to buy tools for that attack, including black ski masks, zip ties, knives and a machete, among other items. Now, the target of the attack, again, a bar and restaurant in Rochester, New York. Neighbors there say this attempt to instill fear in them did not work.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK CHIARENZA: Well, like everybody, I was nervous, owning some establishments downtown. You know, it's a little scary. But then, I sat back and thought, you know, we have very good security staff. There's great police presence on the East Avenue. And, you know, they're really just trying to put the fear into us and we're not going to let that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Those officials acting just in time. Lutchman was actually apprehended after he recorded a video of himself taking responsibility for the attack. It, obviously, didn't take place with the help of an undercover informant. Officials were able to arrest him before he could carry it out -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Boris Sanchez, thank you for those new details. We do appreciate it.

The -- I want to talk more, now, about some of the terror-related headlines. Here with me now, we have CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Kimberly Dozier. We have CNN Military Analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton. He is also a former Air Force intelligence officer and deputy director for training at the NSA.

Colonel, is it more likely for a new plot to be carried out in Europe or here in the United States?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Brianna, I think that's the big question for authorities right now. I would say it's far more likely in Europe just because of the preponderance of the Muslim population there. The -- and the fact that there far more Islamic state sympathizers in Europe than you would find in the United States.

But having said that, Rochester clearly shows that it's possible for something to happen in the United States as well.

KEILAR: I want to talk, Kim, to you about this arrest in Rochester, the threat of ISIS in America. When you look at this, what does it tell you about how the ISIS strategy may be changing?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, the suspect is the kind of classic individual they have been going after online with their, some, quarter million tweets and other social media interactions almost every day. They look for people who are disenfranchised, who don't have a way to get ahead. And then, they work on them and bring them over. The experts in countering violent extremism say there's both a push and pull to bringing someone into the fold.

The push is maybe they feel that the world's been unjust, that their government has not paid attention to them, that maybe there were abuses by their government. The pull is come be part of a team. Come be something important. This is generally something that this individual wouldn't have access to in his daily life. And it becomes a siren song that the U.S. and the west really hasn't figured out how to combat yet.

KEILAR: No, it's a very good point. Colonel, there is this new study out by George Washington University, and it looks at the numbers of ISIS arrests. Look at this. This year, 60 ISIS-related arrests in the United States. That compares to just 15 recorded in this study for 2014.

And of all those in this study, the average age here is 26 years old, 86 percent are men, 40 percent of those arrested are converts. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says the suspect in Rochester likely converted in prison. When you look at those numbers, how troubling is this, this 400 percent increase in arrests from 2014 to 2015?

LEIGHTON: Well, it's usually troubling, Brianna. And the reason it's this way, I believe, is you're seeing the fervor of the converted. These people who, you know, are converted in prison or through other means. They basically are, as Kimberly mentioned, the people that don't make it in society.

And ISIS is using the same kind of recruiting techniques that you could describe to the U.S. military. We try to convince people that they can become part of something that is greater than themselves and do some good. In this case, the kind of good that they are talking about is really evil. And that's really what's so troubling about all of this.

KEILAR: Something that also stands out, I know that when we look at that and it says 86 percent are men, but that means that 14 percent are women. Right, Kim? What does that tell you? That's quite a few women.

DOZIER: Well, it shows that ISIS has really created a space for women in its campaign and convince them that they can have a role, not just as ISIS slaves which is what the west and the U.S. has tried to put out as a counter message. But as part of the process not at the front lines, but bringing young men, supporting them on the battlefield.

[13:10:10] So, what it shows you is you really need to come up -- the State Department and others have not yet come up with a counter message that says, beyond just a lecture, oh, you don't want to be a part of this. And so, the struggle is how do they find authentic voices across the Muslim world and help support them without, in a sense, sullying them by association. How do you invisibly sort of exaggerate the voices of the people who have the message you want out there?

KEILAR: Colonel, something that struck me about this Rochester arrest is this guy goes through the Wal-Mart checkout and he gets a number of alarming things that I would think would raise the eyebrows of anyone looking, zip ties, rubber gloves, ammonia, machete, all kind -- a ski mask. I mean, what is your -- I mean, that, to me, seems almost like a missed opportunity for someone to say, these are some -- these are an odd assortment of things to be purchasing together.

LEIGHTON: Oh, absolutely. And you know what it really shows, Brianna, is that we are all on the front lines of this effort against ISIS. What we're dealing with here is a situation where those kinds of indicators can happen in daily -- in daily life. So, if you're a cashier at Wal-Mart, you need to pay attention to that kind of stuff.

By the same token, if you're a neighbor of somebody like the San Bernardino people, you need to know what's going on enough so that you can really actually say, hey, there's something going on here. It's the old, see something, say something idea. But it's very important, in this day and age because if you don't say something about this, the result could be very, very tragic.

KEILAR: Yes, we've been hearing that more and more here in recent days, see something, say something.

Kimberly Dozier, Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you, guys, so much. I really appreciate you being with us. Happy New Year to you as well.

LEIGHTON: Happy New Year.

KEILAR: And the Taliban is now claiming responsibility for a deadly suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. This happened at a French restaurant in the capitol city. It's a restaurant that reportedly is popular among ex-patriots. And at least one person was killed in the blast, another 11 were injured here. Police say that they have one suspect in custody in connection with this attack.

Coming up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were at the 48th floor, Address Hotel, happening right now. I need help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It's a harrowing tale of survival. A photographer found himself trapped nearly 50 floors up as that high-rise hotel in Dubai burned around him. He had a miraculous escape. We'll tell you about that just ahead.

But first, a shakeup in Ben Carson's campaign as several top staffers quit. His new manager chairman will join me live right after this.

[13:12:55]

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[13:16:18] KEILAR: To presidential politics now and the major shake-up in Dr. Ben Carson's campaign. Several top staffers have resigned. In a New Year's Eve interview on Fox News, Carson explained why the changes were necessary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, you know, we - we did a deep dive and recognized that there was some areas of deficiency. Having said that, we must recognize that the team that we had, you know, took a very unlikely scenario, a complete outsider, and put him into a competitive position when nobody thought that that was even remotely possible. So kudos where kudos are needed.

But, in fact, you know, we're moving into a different phase now and we needed something different. And we brought that into place. I think people are going to see a very major difference. We have operators now. And this is something that I discovered working in the corporate world for decades. You know, you could have people with very good ideas, but you have to have operators in order to effectuate those ideas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Carson's new campaign chairman is retired Major General Robert Dees and he's joining us now live from Austin, Texas.

General, thanks so much for being with us.

And one of the things that we heard Dr. Carson say in that interview is that there had been these areas of deficiency. What - what is he talking about? What areas?

ROBERT DEES, BEN CARSON'S CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN: Well, Brianna, happy 2016 to you.

KEILAR: To you as well.

DEES: It's certainly going to be a pivotal year in American history.

The - primarily the need for agility in developing and deploying our policies and, secondly, the need for an integrated messaging strategy. We need to be and will be far more responsive as we interact with the media and as we interact on key topics around the country related to the campaign.

KEILAR: We also - I know that sources are telling our Sara Murray that Dr. Carson is now looking for a livelier tone as he heads towards this final stretch before the Iowa caucuses. That really one of the - the sort of things that the campaign is going to be doing is face-to-face contact with Iowa voters and really just at that grass roots level trying to convince them that he's the guy for the job. Can you tell us more about that?

DEES: Well, of course, Brianna. We have a great team. And in this team you've got a lot of energy. There's been maybe a false narrative that the campaign is in chaos or the campaign is losing momentum. It's just the opposite. We're gaining energy. And this change has helped us to gain that energy.

So we've got a lot of that on the ground in Iowa under Ryan Roads (ph). We talk about the things that maybe we need to prove. We're doing a lot of things right. The reality is, in fundraising, in social media, in our field operations, we are in very good shape and we're just moving forward.

Ed Brookover (ph) is our new campaign manager. He was a quarterback in college football and now he's a great quarterback. His whole life has prepared him for this position. And he will be a wonderful orchestrator of this effort as well.

KEILAR: We're - so we're talking about a shift in some major positions here. You're now the chairman, which is different than what we saw before, the campaign manager Barry Bennett (ph) resigned. You had the deputy campaign manager Lisa Cohen (ph) step down. Communications director Doug Watts (ph) resigned as well. So you're saying that people, when they look at this, and they think that this is a shake- up, that this is chaos, you think they're misreading this?

DEES: Oh, of course. We - we have had five departures. We have not had any major impacts to the campaign. And, in fact, we are, I think, going to be much more agile. We've had a policy engine that was idling. We're going to take the governor of off of that and allow people of America to really see what Ben Carson believes about certain things.

[13:20:09] We've had a communication strategy that was passive instead of active. We're going to change that immediately. We're, in fact, standing up an entire policy directorate and bringing in some new players that are expert in their fields, world class experts, and we're excited about that. As I said, it's really a time of energy, a time of looking forward to the new year, and really a time of pressing hard into Iowa and beyond.

KEILAR: We've seen Dr. Carson fall in the poll. He was doing pretty well before. Now he's at 10 percent in the latest CNN/ORC poll, tied with Marco Rubio, a distant third place. What's behind - what is - when he looks at that, what does he attribute this slide to?

DEES: I don't think Dr. Carson is trying to attribute to a slide. I think we are dealing with reality and we're excited that we have a lot of pent up potential. The American people don't really know Dr. Carson. You know, there's a narrative that says he would not be qualified as commander in chief. Nothing could be further than the truth.

I spent 30 years in uniform. He's got the right reflexes, the right stuff to be our commander in chief. I mean who else among the candidates has had more 2:00 a.m. calls? Who else has made complex decisions in life/death scenarios? Who do we want to have their fingers on the nuclear codes of our country? Who do we want to help unite our inner cities? Who can inspire the young African-American boy in the inner city Detroit?

I personally am convinced it's Dr. Ben Carson. He's the person at this time in our nation's history who can heal, inspire, revive this exceptional nation.

KEILAR: He has struggled somewhat on foreign policy and he, himself, has said that one of the issues for him in the wake of these terrorist attacks is that perhaps people doubt his creds when it comes to this area of policy. You were his foreign policy adviser before taking over as chairman. How is he going to confront that issue, those questions that voters have about him?

DEES: Well, the first way to confront it is just simply for him to show people what he knows, and for people to listen. Dr. Carson knows a lot of foreign policy. I'm amazed every time I talk to him at the breadth and depth of his knowledge, not just about foreign policy, but every policy area. For a man to stand at five feet from the president of the United States and talk with common sense solutions and declare truth shows tremendous moral courage and it shows tremendous knowledge. He - people were saying, that sounds like Solomon talking with that wisdom about all the problems that our nation faces. That - so he's not a newcomer to any of this. He's been talking this and living this. That's been his whole life experience and his whole life story. So I'm excited. I don't think it's a - a deficiency at all. I think we just need to get that word out.

KEILAR: You're talking - you're talking about the prayer breakfast, right?

DEES: Yes, that was the prayer breakfast where he - he stood there and - that's right.

KEILAR: OK. The prayer breakfast where he kind of burst on to scene after taking on President Obama.

All right, thank you so much, retired Major General Robert Dees, the new chairman of the Ben Carson campaign. Thank you for your time and a happy New Year to you.

DEES: And to you too, Briana. Thank you.

KEILAR: This shake-up in the Carson campaign comes just a little more than four weeks before the Iowa caucuses. This is all about to get very underway here so soon. And joining us with a look ahead at the road in 2016 is CNN political reporter Sara Murray.

I'm excited it's 2016, Sara, I don't know about you. I'm like, let's get this show on the road, you know, but -

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: I know. It feels like it's been a long walk-up.

KEILAR: It has been. OK, so what's the impact here of the Carson campaign shake-up that is - I mean this is so close to the first contest into the first votes of this race?

MURRAY: Yes, I think the reality is, they have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time and you heard there their new campaign chairman says that they're going to overhaul their communications strategy, they're going to add in policy experts. That's all well and good. They're the kind of changes that you would - have expected the campaign to have made months ago. But the reality is, it's going to come down to the candidates. So when Ben Carson is barnstorming Iowa, meeting voters face to face, people are going to have to be able to have a conversation with him and trust, especially in the wake of the Paris attacks and in the wake of San Bernardino, that this is a guy who's ready to be commander in chief. And the real problem is that Ben Carson hasn't projected that kind of knowledge and that kind of strength up until this point. And that's a different - that's a tough thing to turn around in just a couple of weeks.

KEILAR: Yes, he has his work cut out for him.

All right, let's talk Donald Trump. He talked to Fox News last night. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I hope you're going to be calling the White House. And I promise you will get through. You'll always be invited. And we're going to do something really special. We're going to make a lot of amends for - for mistakes that have been made over the years. So I hope you're going to be calling the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right, that's his New Year's resolution, obviously, to become president. He also got in a jab at Hillary Clinton, Sara, where he said, I think I'll be her worst nightmare. Do you think this feud between Trump and the Clintons is going to simmer down or is this just going to get worse?

[13:25:13] MURRAY: I think it's just going to escalate, Brianna. I think when you hear Donald Trump talk, he feels so optimistic about - you know, he's almost talking like he's already won the Republican primary and he's in a general election battle with Hillary Clinton. And that's kind of how we hear him talking on the campaign trail, too. He's been going after Hillary Clinton a lot harder in recent days actually than he has against even some of his Republican rivals. And I think also by putting the things he's put on the table the last couple of days, Bill Clinton's past infidelities, that whole, you know, line of character assassination, I think we're going to see a lot more of that. It's pretty clear, as far as Donald Trump's concerned, there's not really a lot that's off limits.

KEILAR: No, and Bill Clinton hits the campaign trail for his wife this week, so we'll see sort of how he handles that as well.

Ted Cruz's campaign is now saying that he's expected to raise almost $20 million in the fourth quarter. His poll numbers, we see those rising. He's getting some momentum. Is he really the most formidable challenge to Donald Trump at this point?

MURRAY: I think right now, when you look at the ground game in Iowa, Ted Cruz is absolutely the biggest challenge to Donald Trump. He's polling the closest to him. He's spent a lot of money on a ground operation there and he's tapping into a more reliable voter base than what Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is talking about bringing in a lot of new voters, Republicans who haven't voted before, who haven't voted in 40 years. Or even Democrats who want to vote for a Republican.

That's a trickier thing to do than what Ted Cruz is talking about, which is turning out this sort of evangelical base. That said, there are some people who talk to me on the ground in Iowa who say the risk for Cruz is, we still have weeks to go and Iowa voters break late. So it's possible that his, you know, resurgence is coming just a little bit too early for comfort.

KEILAR: Is he before the wave? We will see.

All right, Sara Murray, thanks so much. Happy 2016 to you.

MURRAY: Happy 2016.

KEILAR: Here we go. We're going to be on the road for a year.

All right, coming up, investigators are trying to figure out what caused a fire that ripped through this luxury hotel in Dubai.

Plus, a photographer trapped nearly 50 floors up posted pleas for help on social media as he planned to repel down the building. His camera rolling the entire time. We will play this for you next.

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