Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Ohio State University Suspect Killed; Trump Holds Meetings for Cabinet Positions; Wisconsin Election Recount. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 28, 2016 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very, very much. Thanks for sticking around. We really appreciate it.

Thank you all for joining me AT THIS HOUR. A lot of breaking news we've been watching and all that breaking news will continue now with NEWSROOM with Brianna Keilar starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks so much for joining me. I am Brianna Keilar.

And we're following breaking news this hour. It is a violent attack at Ohio State University's Columbus campus. A federal law enforcement official believes there was one suspect, that the suspect is dead, and that this was predominantly a knife attack where a car was also used at the beginning of the attack.

The Columbus Fire Department says at least eight people have been injured. A shelter in place has just been lifted there at the university. And the scene, we are told, is now secure. But campus officials have told people to avoid the Watts Hall area. That holds the university's materials science and engineering building.

The Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is on the scene right now, as well as dozens of local law enforcement officials.

I want to bringing in now CNN national correspondent Deborah Feyerick and CNN's senior law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes.

The real question here now, Deborah, is, who is this suspect who we're hearing from sources has now been killed and why did this happen?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Absolutely. And that's part of the ongoing investigation.

What we can tell you is that that law enforcement official telling us that they believe that there was one suspect. That one suspect now dead. And that he apparently use a knife. A very large knife. In the words of one eyewitness, it looked like a machete.

And apparently the gunshots that everyone heard was a quick-thinking police officer who responded. And after the crowd scattered, according to this eyewitness, that's when the police officer opened fire, shooting several times. The eyewitness saying at least three times. And he credits this police officer with very quick thinking that possibly saved a lot of lives.

But the gunman, Brianna, as you say, did do enough damage to send eight people to the hospital with injuries. One of them initially was described as critical, but they're all characterized as non-life threatening.

A car was involved. That's possibly why we saw this massive sort of SWAT team sweep of this garage that everybody was sort of focused on. One individual was led out in handcuffs, but it appears he may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But according to the eyewitness, Brianna, this suspect said nothing during the attack. He just had a crazy look in his eyes, according to the eyewitness. But he was silent even as he was shot by that police officer, Brianna.

KEILAR: And, Tom Fuentes, we hear, and Deborah's talking about the reports of the shots fired. We don't necessarily know that this suspect even had a gun, right?

TOM FUENTES, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Right.

KEILAR: Those shots that have been reported could have just been from police who were - the police officer firing at him?

FUENTES: Exactly. If the witnesses that saw him wielding a machete or other large knife called 911, then the police would get the call and respond. If he was still at the scene with that knife and in the process of possibly stabbing or slashing people, then, yes, the police would - would shoot. And then witnesses outside of the building that heard shots fired didn't know if it was a shooter who was a bad guy or the police doing the shooting.

KEILAR: What questions do you have as you look at what has transpired over the last hour or so?

FUENTES: Well, clearly, do we have a garden variety psychopath that was doing this? And we've had those in the past. Or was there some political motive? Was there somebody angry at the school or fellow students? Or all the way up to and including terrorism, which we don't know yet. And we won't know that until they identify the suspect, look at all of his social media and interview friends, neighbors, family and get more background on who is this individual and what might have motivated him.

KEILAR: All right, I'm going to have you, Tom Fuentes and you, Deb Feyerick, stand by for me.

I'm going to bring in Anthony Falzarano. He is a senior at Ohio State University. He's joining me now on the phone.

So, Anthony, I know that you were in class at the time of this shooting, which may have just been the shooting by a police officer of the suspect. Tell us what you heard. ANTHONY FALZARANO, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENT (via telephone): Yes.

So that seems to be what everyone believes now, that it was just the cops. But we were sitting in class, in lecture, it just starting, and we heard - we heard what appeared to be like a couple pops. Someone - someone turned to me and he was like, did you just hear that? And I was like, what? It sounded like just - just pops. Or like fireworks or something in the background. And then, out of nowhere, every single one of us got the Buckeye Alert Message, which is an automated system and it sends us text messages and it says "active shooter situation, lockdown on campus." And then our teacher ran and locked the door. And at the same time we all saw a ton of - we heard a bunch of sirens and a bunch of, like, cop cars all just started flooding towards that area, the corner of College - College and 19th, I believe, or College and Woodruff.

KEILAR: Now, could you see the area? Or could you just see the area that police were responding to and where they were staging?

[12:05:02] FALZARANO: So we could see - we could see the area on the corner. I think it happened more towards the front of the building. But we saw the area that they ended up cordoning off and we saw all the cops and the fire trucks and the ambulances all rushing towards that area.

KEILAR: It was - it happened very quickly that you received an alert. You said it was a matter of moments or you - or how long do you think it was, a minute, two minutes?

FALZARANO: I - it had to have been almost - yes, almost a minute or two. We - as soon as we started seeing all the police officers, we got the text, which was, you know, very - very thankful, you know, for me and thankful for it because we got the door locked down immediately.

KEILAR: Now it is phenomenal how quickly you were alerted. Obviously keeping a lot of people safe. What then happened, Anthony? Can you tell me, did -

FALZARANO: Everyone -

KEILAR: What - what sort of safety measures did you take?

FALZARANO: We got - you know, everyone kind of like flooded around the window and started taking pictures and videotaping and that's when I - that's when I took a video for my Snapchat and someone was like, you should put that on Twitter as well. And so that's what I did.

And then - and then everyone just was quiet and turned on their - their phones and their computers to listen to the news. And then everyone was just, you know, terrified because there were reports that the entire campus was on lockdown and that there was a bomb threat and that there were - that they were looking for another active shooter. That they were going to look through some parking garage or something. And so it was - it was - it was pretty surreal and terrifying.

KEILAR: Yes, and a lot of confusion, obviously, happens, when - when these things do transpire. We heard reports that some students at Ohio State were barricading

themselves in classrooms. Did you feel unsafe? Were you taking precautions?

FALZARANO: We felt - we felt pretty safe in our room. I don't - I don't know what the mechanism is or - or when they installed it, but our room had a door, the professor had mentioned that she was the only one who could unlock it from the inside with like a code.

KEILAR: Oh, OK.

FALZARANO: So our door was closed and locked. It was - we felt very safe. Later - later, maybe 30, 45 minutes after the incident, someone had stepped outside to go to the bathroom and there were they said guards in the hallway. They told him to get back in the room and close the door. So I don't - I don't know where they were stationed. Maybe that was just because we were - we were close when, you know, we were in an adjacent building, so maybe that's why they were there, but -

KEILAR: All right, Anthony Falzarano, thank you so much, as we're learning from federal - a federal source that the attacker at Ohio State University mainly used a knife and a car in the attack. We still don't know the motive. We don't know the identity of the suspect.

I want to bring in now Congresswoman Joyce Beatty. She is the former senior vice president for outreach and engagement at Ohio State University.

So, congresswoman, you have a lot of connections, of course, to the university. Tell us about your impression of what - what happened today and what your concerns are.

REP. JOYCE BEATTY (D), OHIO (via telephone): Well, first, let me just say, thank you for reporting this. Needless to say, we are all very sympathetic about what happened. But if there can be good news in this, it is that the university appears to be secured now. Students appear to be safe.

I have had the opportunity to talk to the president of the university, Dr. Drake. It appears that there was a car that drove into a crowd of people and caused some orthopedic injuries. We're not sure if that is eight or nine people at this time. Four of them are in our OSU Wexner Hospital and surrounding hospitals. Also, it was reported that the multiagency police that were involved were very timely, very responsive, and very helpful.

What we don't know is, what was the motive, the why behind this. But at this point, it is my understanding that at least one, and if there were two, most of the injuries were from a stab wound that occurred. And one of shooters - we're saying shooter, but we're not sure, so let's call him one of the individuals who caused the injuries was apprehended by the police, I've been told from some reports.

KEILAR: Wait, can you repeat that last - that last part, tell me?

BEATTY: That it has been reported on some of the local news stations. I did not get this from the - from the school, that they thought there was a shooter, but we can't determine if it was a shooter involved or if it was actually the police making the shots, the attack.

KEILAR: Yes. OK, that's right, their shooting - shooting - that police officer who shot the suspect.

So I'm wondering, congresswoman, if you -

BEATTY: Yes, one suspect that they killed, yes.

KEILAR: Yes, so you - so you're getting that update. Is that coming from the university? Is that coming -

[12:10:06] BEATTY: From the university that the scene is secure.

KEILAR: Yes.

BEATTY: That the multiagency police and that it was a vehicle that drove into a crowd, and that eight or nine of the students appear to have stab wounds.

KEILAR: OK.

BEATTY: And that is what they have reported. They are comfortable that the university is secure.

And it tells you another thing. The alert system that they put in place certainly is working, from the one student who I talked with, they said they felt safe and that they were advised, because they got the alert, that -

KEILAR: Certainly. No, and that's what we're hearing from students. In fact, I think a lot of us remember, you know, almost ten years ago covering Virginia Tech where it was two hours before an alert went out.

BEATTY: Absolutely.

KEILAR: And we hear that students got this alert, everyone got alerts on their text - by text on their phones before they even had police arriving at the scene. So that's certainly very, very good news.

BEATTY: Absolutely.

KEILAR: Congresswoman, stay with me.

I want to bring in our law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes, and then I'm going to bring you back in as well.

But that's a really good point, that this alert allowed people to stay in place. We heard from one student, doors that were locked from the inside. These are key lessons that have been learned over time.

FUENTES: Absolutely. One of my daughters was down the hall from the first two people killed in the Virginia Tech shooting.

KEILAR: That's right. That's right.

FUENTES: And what happened in that case is that the young female student had just taken out a restraining order on an individual she was dating, who ultimately had nothing to do with it, but that's what the police started pursuing until they established that that individual was 50 miles away at a construction site. By that time, the shooter had gone back on campus, went into the engineering building and then shot an additional 30 people, plus himself, so -

KEILAR: That's right. And when the alert went out, it was just missing details. So we're certainly seeing that there's a little more responsiveness.

Congresswoman, I want to ask you about a report that we're hearing from a 20-year-old student there at Ohio State, and he says that he was there when a man pulled a knife outside between Coffkofle (ph) Laboratory and Watts - the Watts building, that science and engineering building that we're talking about. He said that he was there when the man pulled the knife. It was a large knife. He started chasing people around trying to attack them. he said there were so many people - luckily there were so many people, he couldn't focus on one target. I didn't see anyone get stabbed, but I saw the police officer take down the stabber. He waited until everyone was clear and the stabber clearly wasn't stopping, took three shots to take him down, stabber had a crazy look in his eyes. And this young man saying that the attacker appeared to be an African-American male in dark clothing. Is that meeting the description of the attacker that you have heard about from officials there?

BEATTY: Other than the physical description, it does match what I was told by the university, that a person in a car got out, did start stabbing individuals with what we're calling some type of large knife and appeared to have orthopedic injuries to eight or nine. We're not sure of the exact numbers. At no time did I know the race or ethnicity of that attacker.

KEILAR: OK. OK. All right, Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, thank you so much. We certainly appreciate you sharing information with us. Very helpful as we learn about what happened there.

So we're taking away from what she said was that it started with a car. The suspect driving into a crowd, if appears. This is what she's hearing from the university. And that there were eight to nine - that caused orthopedic injuries. So we would expect broken bones or something of the like. And then there were eight to nine people who seemed to suffer stab wounds. And that seeming to be the predominant injury among - among folks who had to be transported to the hospital. What do you take away from that?

FUENTES: Well, it sounds again like an individual that just was killing anybody or trying to hurt anybody that he could come across. And, again, it's going to take getting his identity, and doing the background on him, his social media, what he has said to friends and others. And oftentimes, you know, someone suffering extreme sociopathology also has an extreme degree of narcissism. So if they're going to do all this, they want everybody to know that they're doing all this and want to make themselves famous in the process. So if that's the case, you'll have social media postings by the person. You'll have him tell possibly close friends, neighbors, if he's a student, fellow students, others, that he's about to do something and become famous.

KEILAR: All right, Tom Fuentes, thank you so much for your insight.

We're going to continue to follow this throughout the hour.

[12:14:55] Still ahead though, today's other important story, all eyes on potential candidates for the top spot in the Trump administration and the big controversy surrounding one of the biggest names on the list.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: It's another full day of job interviews at Trump Tower, including for the senior most senior position in a cabinet still very much under construction. And to an already packed schedule, the Trump team squeezed in a meeting today with former CIA director and former NATO Commander David Petraeus, presumably to talk about the post of secretary of state. Trump is due to meet tomorrow with two others being talked about for that role, Mitt Romney, whose very name is sending many Trump backers into a rage, and also Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. Firmly in the anti-Romney camp is Trump's former campaign manager and current senior adviser Kellyanne Conway. Trump said to be irritated with Conway's public attacks on Romney's attacks against Trump before the election. And for most president-elects, that would be plenty of drama right there. Instead, though, we have Donald Trump now insisting that he won the popular vote. Quote, "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."

[12:20:24] For the record, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by almost 2 million ballots. That's by our count. It's a gap that is widening by the day. And the Trump team is offering zero evidence, none, for this outlandish claim, nor for this follow-up. "Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California," Trump tweeted, "so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias, big problem." And we have Democratic and Republican officials in those states saying that is not happening. There's no credible source that has come forth with any data supporting any of these claims.

We do have a recount in the works in Wisconsin, though, spurred by former Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and joined over the weekend by the Clinton campaign, who will be monitoring that recount. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 votes out of 2.9 million cast.

And with that, I want to bring in CNN's Phil Mattingly, who is watching the action at Trump Tower, and our Jeff Zeleny, who is on the recount beat here in Washington.

Give us the latest, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, never a dull moment, as you just said, Brianna. Look, the Trump campaign has made it very clear, they are kicking the meetings back up into high gear. And while there was, obviously, a lot of focus on the president-elect's Twitter account and on recounts over the course of this weekend, they've moved firmly back into focusing on filling out that cabinet. A number of meetings today. Eight total that we know of. And we're talking about people who sources tell us are in contention for places like Department of Homeland Security, Treasury secretary, but most importantly, as you noted, Brianna, secretary of state.

Obviously we've heard a lot about that over the course of the last 24 hours, the last 48 hours really. And probably the most intriguing visit of the day today, David Petraeus, former CIA director, highly decorated general, who I think anybody would have killed to have in their cabinet over the course of the last couple of decades. Obviously he was disgraced. His government career more or less imploded after he was caught passing classified information to a mistress. It cost him his job at the CIA. It also cost him his security clearance. But he is now in the mix for that secretary of state position.

You mentioned tomorrow's meetings as well. Plenty of intrigue there. Mitt Romney, Bob Corker and don't forget, I'm told, Rudy Giuliani. Obviously the very close adviser to the Trump campaign, throughout the campaign process. Remains a very close adviser to the president-elect now and is openly campaigning for that position. So a lot of names moving in and out right now and a lot of intrigue surrounding that, Brianna.

KEILAR: And tell us about this report that the president-elect is irritated at Kellyanne Conway's attacks on Romney?

MATTINGLY: Look, I think what's most interesting about what we've seen over the last 48 hours, and Kellyanne Conway, keep in mind, campaign manager for the victorious, very surprisingly victorious Trump campaign, has earned her spot as a voice in the Trump team and is a close adviser to the president-elect. But she has taken to Twitter, she has taken to television to more or less rip Mitt Romney repeatedly, over and over again. And her point publicly is this, she's hearing from Trump supporters over and over again saying, loyalty should matter. And what Mitt Romney did during the campaign, which is more or less eviscerate the president-elect over and over again in public speeches, in public remarks and Twitter posts should essentially disqualify him for the secretary of state position.

And here's what we know. That's happening publically. It's also happening behind the scenes. Inside the Trump team, there is a split on the perspective of Mitt Romney. You can look at the camps being the chief of staff, Reince Priebus, also Steve Bannon playing a role in there, and the vice president-elect, Mike Pence, as well. But what's most interesting, Brianna, clearly is, this is all happening in public, and that's a little bit frustrating to the president-elect.

KEILAR: Yes, it is remarkable indeed.

And, Jeff, tell us what's going on with the recount? How is this playing out?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the election officials in Wisconsin had a meeting that wrapped up just a short time ago in Madison, Wisconsin, and they have decided that this recount will go forward and start on Thursday if Green Party candidate Jill Stein pays for this recount. It was at her request, of course, here. But the election board has said that the 72 counties across Wisconsin will not be required to hand-count these ballots. They can simply re-tabulate them. They can, if they choose individually, but they will not be required to. So that could open up the election commission to a potential lawsuit from the Stein campaign. We're keeping an eye on that.

But what this really means is, all 72 counties in Wisconsin would have to go over their ballots and have this done by December 13th. No small task there. But the bottom line is that people on both sides, Republicans and Democrats who I've spoken to in Wisconsin and elsewhere, they do not believe the outcome will be changed by this. He did win Wisconsin, Donald Trump did, by some 22,000 votes.

But all of the comments over the weekend about questioning the - if anyone was voting illegally was really sharply criticized by the head of the election commission in Wisconsin. Mark Thompson is his name. And he chided Donald Trump just a short time ago saying it's inappropriate for the president-elect to say that, you know, these people were voting illegally in Wisconsin across the country here. So some sharp words from him. But as this stands now, it looks like the recount in Wisconsin would begin on Thursday, and the Stein campaign still has their eye on potentially Pennsylvania and Michigan as well. Again, though, no suggestion that the outcome of this election will change.

[12:25:39] Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, it is fascinating, and you gentlemen are watching. Thank you so much to both of you.

And up next, he said all along he would accept the election results if he won, which he did, so why is Donald Trump now tweeting about serious election fraud in several states where it didn't happen? And what is he saying about plans for that recount?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: A rift is emerging in the Trump transition team today. A source now telling CNN that Donald Trump is irritated after one of his closest advisors openly questioned why Mitt Romney is on Trump's short list to be secretary of state.

[12:30:02] Let's bring in our panel. We have CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, CNN political analyst Josh Rogin. He's a columnist for "The Washington Post." And we have Rebecca Berg, CNN political analyst and national political reporter for Real Clear Politics.