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84 Dead After Terrorist Runs Over Crowd; Sources: Trump Asked If He Could Back Out of VP Pick. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired July 15, 2016 - 15:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: -- information as far as what exactly happen here in France.

[15:30:04] We're talking to an eyewitness coming up, someone who witnessed this carnage firsthand right here along the promenade in Nice.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN's special live coverage here along the promenade here Nice, just coming up here on the 10:00 here.

Coming up almost to 24 hours since this madman mowed down innocent women, children, you know, fathers here as they were celebrating Bastille Day, essentially French independence day, independence from the monarchy, becoming a republic, music, fireworks.

[15:35:10] So, we wanted to make sure we talked to people who were here who could describe what they saw, what they heard.

So, joining me now, thank you so much, the vice mayor here of Nice, Rudy Salles. I also have Imad Dafaaoui, who lives in Morocco but is on holiday here.

Both of you were here for the celebration amid the 60,000 or so revelers.

Tell me -- I mean, you were -- how close were you to his truck?

IMAD DAFAAOUI, SURVIVOR OF TERROR ATTACK: There was only a bench between me and the truck.

BALDWIN: Only a bench.

DAFAAOUI: Yes. So we can say around 20 centimeters.

BALDWIN: What was happening in that instant?

DAFAAOUI: Well, when I saw the truck actually, I was in the middle of the road, just in the middle taking pictures with my friend. After that we heard people screaming in the back. So we looked around and we saw people running everywhere and they were also pushing each other because it was too crowded. After that, we realized that there was a truck behind them and we were

really shocked about that. It was crashing them just in front of our eyes. We were really shocked. I stayed in my place. I freeze for around ten second. I didn't know what to do.

BALDWIN: Didn't know what to do.

DAFAAOUI: Exactly. I even ran into the wrong side. I was going toward the truck and the truck was just about to hit me. So I was running toward the beach and there was a bench in front of me. It was blocking me from continuing running. Had to jump over it. And I realize that truck is really, really close to me.

So after I jumped, I found out that I also hit a woman by mistake because people were just pushing each other and it was super crowded. If I didn't jump, I would die like. Then after jumping, I closed my eyes and just waited for it to either crash me or just survive.

BALDWIN: You closed your eyes and waited for either the truck to crash into you --

DAFAAOUI: Exactly.

BALDWIN: Or hoping you would live.

DAFAAOUI: Exactly.

And few moments, like around two seconds, when I close my eyes, I just heard the bench getting broke and the lights also getting broke. There was electrical fire. Just a little bit.

BALDWIN: I'm fully listening to you. I don't know if you can hear the noise here at home. This is pretty extraordinary. There are satellite trucks as far as the eye can see. But your city is cleaning up. These are essentially garbage guys, you want this promenade re- opened as we're talking about it.

DEPUTY MAYOR RUDY SALLES, NICE, FRANCE: Yes.

BALDWIN: Why is that so important to you?

SALLES: It's very important because, you know, we have to show to the world and to the terrorists, that we are going to live and going to stop living. And, you know, it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It's one of the most beautiful avenues in the world. Everybody want to come here for leisure, to be in a quiet city, beautiful city. We don't have this image of murder. We have to come back like we are all the time.

BALDWIN: But it's what happened and to hear him describing this not knowing if he would live or die, being hit by the truck or not. You know, again, I stand a place and say you never would have thought this would have happened here. People were being critical of President Hollande for not doing enough. Do you think that's a fair criticism?

SALLES: Yes. Yes. I'm a member of French parliament. You know, we had terror attack in January. We have terror attack in November in Paris. And all the time, we have beautiful compassion. But we are not only waiting for compassion, we are waiting for decisions because we have to act.

You know, when you make war to terror, you don't make war with the law (ph) of peace. We must make war with the law of war. In short, we are waiting for the government. So, we say to the prime minister and the president today, and I will be saying that in the French parliament next week.

BALDWIN: So strong words and criticism from you, the vice mayor here of Nice. If I can just end with you, despite what happened, on your vacation, this beautiful part of the world, how will you approach life moving forward?

DAFAAOUI: Well, to be honest with you, for example, today in the morning when I went out in the streets, like I noticed everyone is looking at each other and they were just walking suspicious way. Everyone is not feeling safe anymore. But I think the cops are doing their job and Nice is getting its safety again.

BALDWIN: Will this change you? Will you come back to Nice?

[15:40:01] DAFAAOUI: Well, to be honest? Yeah. It won't stop me from visiting Nice. Nothing will. Of course, my parents told me to leave because they think it's too dangerous. They never know what's going to happen next. But I decided to stay and just continue my vacation normally.

BALDWIN: Imad, thank you for swinging by. Appreciate it.

SALLES: Thank you very much.

DAFAAOUI: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: To Mr. Vice Mayor, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Merci.

As we are getting more information, too, on this investigation into the why, how would this affect U.S. security back home? We will talk more about that coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR PHLIPPE PRADAL, NICE, FRANCE (through translator): I believe today the lone wolf myth which means a terrorist who set up operation by himself is a convenient one that doesn't really exist. Regarding the radicalization process, we are not certain today whether the perpetrator went through it, but he shows certain number of signs of radicalization.

But, however, I don't believe in a lone wolf who decided one morning to get up, pick up a truck, and kill the greatest number of people he could. I think these people are indoctrinated, that they are part of networks, that they are in cells, that they are supported.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: All right. That was the mayor here in Nice.

Joining me now, Ali Soufan, the CEO of the Soufan group and a former FBI supervisory agent who investigated the attacks on the USS Cole and the 9/11 terror attacks. Also with me, our own national security commentator, Mike Rogers, who's the host of CNN original series, "The Classified", and a former U.S. congressman and FBI special agent.

So, gentlemen, welcome to you.

Ali, you heard the comment there from the mayor of Nice. He's not necessarily buying this lone wolf theory. Do you think he's correct?

ALI SOUFAN, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Well, we don't know. I mean we have to wait for the investigation. But it seems to me that individual did not have any contact, it appears, with different groups. He acted alone. But he also had some weapons with him.

So there is a possibility he might be connected with other people. We don't know. But I think the investigation now will probably reveal that to us, will reveal if he has been in contact with people like ISIS or other individuals acting on behalf of ISIS or al Qaeda in France. And we will know more.

But as it looks today, it seems it's one individual who committed this horrific act. Now, was there a network that supported that individual in Nice? I think it is yet to be seen.

BALDWIN: Congressman, what do you make of the fact that this weapon that he used being his truck, you know, opening fire on all the people who were out here for fireworks and celebration on Bastille Day? Because I know that there had been some -- I believe it was "Inspire" magazine, sometime ago, according to our terror analyst, that that was a specific call from these terror networks to use trucks to take down Westerners.

MIKE ROGERS (R), FORMER HOUSE INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN: Yes, and if you recall, Brooke, in the "Inspire" magazine, they did the pressure cooker recommendation that was used by the Tsarnaev brothers in the Boston bombings. So, it has a track rerecord of, unfortunately, leading people to use their suggestions in acts of violence.

And I think the mayor gave a pretty important clue that there are signs that he went through some radicalization. They probably don't have the whole picture yet. I think what he was hinting is there is likely someone else engaged. Nice has an issue with foreign fighters. And these foreign fighters do come back and they help and talk to other people and have conversations.

And I think what we're going to find in this is that this isn't one guy who sat at home who was depressed about his life, read a couple of articles online and decided to do this. I think there's probably -- we're probably going to find there is more to this story.

This is a big deal. Someone just doesn't go out, take this truck which, by the way, was inspired to him by "Inspire" magazine and committed this horrific act. So I think we're going to find there is more to this story than meet the eye. And clearly, his assembling of even fake weapons and weapons took some coordination. Somebody else knew what he was up to, and somebody gave him permission, I would argue ISIS, "Inspire" magazine, his whatever degree of radicalization he went through gave him in his mind permission to do this in accordance with what he believes as his faith.

And that's the most troubling part of this lineage. We see this over and over again. There is a lot of similarities in this case just up front to the Orlando shooting and the process he went through. He was also having similar --

BALDWIN: You are not the first person to say that.

ROGERS: Pardon?

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. You're not the first person to say that these last two hours comparing what happened here and potential motivations to what happened in Orlando when 49 people were killed there just a couple of weeks ago.

But I come to this point, Ali Soufan, where I'm getting on too many planes asking the same question at the site of these different terror attacks which is what do we do about this? You know, we just heard from President Obama talking about the successes in, terms of the U.S.-led coalition, both in Iraq and Syria. And that's great and that's on the battlefield. But to me, whether it is Turkey or France, or, you know, Bangladesh, et cetera, it is a new kind of war.

SOUFAN: Look, for sure, it is. It is. We are at war. And ISIS thinks we are at war. Al Qaeda thinks we are at war.

And I think if you look at the situation in France, I want to go back to the foreign fighters that Mike just mentioned. You have more than 1,700 foreign fighters who went to France to the conflict zone in Syria and Iraq, 250 of them came back. In Europe, you have 5,000 people -- 5,000 of their own citizens in Western Europe -- who went to Syria and Iraq. About 30 percent came back. It's such an astronomical job for their intelligence services to just monitor what's going on, to just monitor these returnees and to just collect intelligence and collect information about people who are sympathetic to them, plus, dealing with the day to day threats that they deal with.

So, I think the situation is very complicated, especially in France and especially in Europe, because most of the recruitment happens in community-based situation. We don't have the community-based recruitment in the United States as much as they have it in places like Belgium or places like France. So, yes, there is war going on.

But actually, we need to be very smart on how to fight this war. First, I believe we have to prevent is, and al Qaeda, and other groups, from occupying physical space in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen. We have to uproot them from there because this is -- this is what's giving them their brand, this is giving their narrative that there is a caliphate going on, there is a state going on.

But also at the same time, more importantly than defeating the physical space -- defeat them in the physical space they occupy, we have to defeat them -- we space that they occupy in the hearts and minds of people who are alienated, of people who are franchised, of people who are sympathetic to them. Only when we defeat them in that space we will win the battle.

We've been fighting this battle more than 20 years, and so far, we never had a comprehensive strategy to deal with this threat. We have lots of tactics. Some of these tactics are extremely effective. However, we never dealt with the ideology. We never dealt really with the incubating factors regionally, locally and internationally to the narrative.

Only when we have to realize that we have to fight this, we have to combat them both physically and mentally, then we can be victorious.

BALDWIN: Yes.

On the tactics, you know, and on -- a lot of Americans are saying could this happen here, "here" being in the United States.

Congressman to you, you know, as far as also the politics of all of this, we are hearing from two people who would like to become the next president of the United States. They are weighing in this the wake of what happened here in Nice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: War.

[15:50:01] If you look at it, this is war, coming from all different parts. And, frankly, it's war and we're dealing with people without uniforms.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: A very different kind of war. We could be easily misled. We've got to be smart about this, not get pushed or pulled into taking action that doesn't have the positive effects it needs to have.

(END VIJDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Congressman, two marked differences, to marked responses here. What would you like to see, the U.S. response, or any sort of changes moving forward?

ROGERS: Yes, I think we have missed a significant subject here to hut pressure on where their command and control energy is, in Raqqah, with Arab-led forces. And so, what the United States has not done is engaged its full capability and intelligence, logistics, medical evacuation, and special capability soldiers. So, there's -- nobody should get the notion that sending the 101st Airborne Division into Syria is a good idea. I don't think it is.

But what we can do is leverage up our Arab partners in the region who do want to do something about this.

And Ali is right. The longer they sit there, the longer they have the opportunity to propagandize and give permission slips. Remember, every case, San Bernardino, Orlando, Brussels, this case in Nice, all of them got permission slips, in some cases even orders from Syria, from ISIS, from their propaganda machine.

We need to take away the capability to take away that permission slip. It won't be the end all/be all, but you cannot allow them to be there.

Remember, they are brutalizing people there. This isn't about a place that's happy that they're there. They just burned women alive in cages because they wouldn't submit to being sex slaves. That's the kind of mentality we're facing. You have got to uproot that and take away their capability to have that space to operate.

And I agree with Ali. This is also a time to take the words of al- Sisi, the Egyptian president, from about a year and a half ago, who talked about needing to go into the Muslim community and reclaim their faith. Yes, absolutely. We ought to stand with him in any way that we can to help them go through that reformation, that process of trying to drive out this ideology that is leading to the recruitment of people who are -- wherever point in their life and are susceptible to this kind of recruitment.

He clearly was. He clearly walked down that path. And without that two-pronged approach, but by the way, we can't talk about the successes we've had in the last five years and take that seriously. It clearly is not working.

So, let's change this and put a stop to this. I think that is what the deputy mayor was talking to you about, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes, yes, yes, just a moment.

Smart conversation, please, both of you come back. Ali Soufan and former Congressman Mike Rogers, I appreciate both of you.

We're going to pivot here from what's happening in Nice and talk about politics coming up, because we have some breaking news involving Donald Trump. Running mate search, you know, we talked so much about the sort of public audition for the veepstakes game. And although he named Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his selection, we now have reporting that Mr. Trump want today back out as late as last night. We have that for you coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:56:18] BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin, live here in Nice, with our continuing breaking news coverage of the massacre that unfolded right there, just now, 24 hours ago on this promenade. For a moment, though, let's talk about what is happening back home for

the race for the White House. Could Donald Trump be questioning his choice of his running mate?

This is what played out in front of cameras just a short time ago. Donald Trump's choice for vice president, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, leaving Trump Tower in Manhattan, telling reporters how happy he is to accept Trump's offer to share the Republican ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MIKE PENCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We love our country. My family and I could not be more honored to have the opportunity to run with and serve with the next president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right. There is a twist here. Let's me bring in CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash who has some scoop as far as maybe some questioning that Donald Trump had. You know, he just -- you just dropped a bomb with this tweet. So, tell us what you're hearing.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hearing that even after Donald Trump made his formal offer to Mike Pence, and even after Mike Pence had flown from Indiana to New York, Brooke, Trump was still having second thoughts to the point where, we're told around midnight Eastern, remember he was on the West Coast, around midnight Eastern, he -- Donald Trump was calling some senior advisors saying is this a done deal? Is it too late to change my mind and back out? And the answer was no.

Now, we're not told that he wanted to change his mind, but he was definitely not entirely comfortable with that decision according to people who we talked to.

I will tell you that the campaign is pushing back hard on this, as you can imagine. A spokesman says there is zero truth to this, but we feel confident that this is something that did happen, and if you watched what happen last night, Brooke, in public, Trump was calling into FOX News talking to Greta van Susteren, saying he had not yet made his decision, saying nice things about Chris Christie, saying nice things about Newt Gingrich, and that was after, according to reporting, in several sources on this, he already made the offer to Pence.

I think it all speaks to the following, that Donald Trump has become someone because he has gone with his gut. And his gut has led him to the most successful life both in business and now in politics. And this is a decision that he did not make with his gut, he made it based on what was politically practical and he is not used to following his gut. We'll see if this watershed moment in his campaign and in his life will bear out his gut being right or listening to what's practical. BALDWIN: OK, I love the inner workings and the behind the scenes

scoop, that is fascinating. And you're right. He has become successful by going with his gut, we'll see, we'll see you in Cleveland.

Dana Bash, thank you so much for all of that reporting.

And again, I'm Brook Baldwin here in Nice, the beautiful French Riviera here covering just the absolute tragedy of 84 people, just sit with that for a minute, 84 people killed, ten of them children, so many people injured, doctors overwhelmed here. Just think about them as I close tonight.

I'm Brooke Baldwin here in Nice. Thank you so much for being with me the last two hours, we'll be back out here tomorrow.

For now, let's go to Washington. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.