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Nine Confirmed Dead in Oakland, California Fire; Trump Under Fire for Phone Call to President of Taiwan; Syrian Forces Continue to Pound Rebel Held Neighborhoods in Aleppo; Auto Loans Could Drive Another Market Downturn; Young ISIS Recruit: I Was Blinded by Love. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired December 03, 2016 - 16:00   ET

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


[16:00:05] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. 4:00 p.m. eastern. 1:00 p.m. Pacific. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

We begin this hour with very tragic breaking news. Nine people confirmed dead, more than two dozen others still missing. This after a fire swept through a crowded late night party in Oakland, California. Officials on scene say they are preparing for potentially a worst case scenario with as many 40 people possibly dead in this two-story warehouse.

The fire broke out last night around 11:30 p.m. Firefighters still though today not able to fully search the entire building because of safety concerns and falling debris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SGT. RAY KELLY, ALAMEDA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT: It's just a task to get through the front door with all the debris and wreckage that is there. So we are slowly making our way in and we have to go systemically because any missed step on the part of our people could mean that they get injured or fall through a floor or have something fall on top of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)\

HARLOW: Let's bring in our Dan Simon. He is there in Oakland where this all broke out. What is the latest from authorities, Dan? Do they have any leads on

what could have started this?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, first of all, it's our understanding that some fire crews as well as personnel from the coroner's office have gotten into the building and now have the grim task of removing the bodies. You ca see these tents behind me and some of the sidewalls. That's to prevent, you know, the bodies from being seen by the public.

It is just a horrifying situation. This broke out at 11:30 at night. In terms of the cause, we are not really getting much information. We know that this building was approximately a 10,000 square foot warehouse. This was an artist studio. And apparently some people live here as well. And they got together for probably what's being described as a holiday celebration. There was some live music and then the flames just spread so quickly, Poppy, that folks just had a really hard time getting out.

We are hearing some stories of people actually jumping from the second floor window. People had congregated up there, perhaps as many as 100 people at this party. And of course the statistics are terrible. We are talking about nine people confirmed dead and as many as 25 people reported missing, Poppy.

HARLOW: What are they saying, Dan, about the victim, those missing people? Because I know in the press conference just last hour they said, you know, a lot of these people were not taken to the hospital. They are just they cannot find them. Are they increasingly believing that they were indeed killed or just that they have not been able to locate them or contact them?

SIMON: Well, they are being very cautious in what they are saying. At this point let's just be clear, they are saying nine people dead, 25 missing. But in terms of the people who got out, they weren't injured, Poppy. They didn't have to take them to the hospital. So if they got out, they were safe. If they didn't get out, they probably died. So that's what authorities are trying to figure out, trying to get in there, assess the situation. Remember, it was difficult for them to get into that building at first. It was deemed unsafe. Apparently they have shored it up to some extent. And now feel comfortable going in. And now, they are going to remove all the bodies and hopefully give us an update in the next few minutes.

HARLOW: Dan Simon, thank you very much, reporting for us in Oakland. So bring us more when you have it.

And joining me on the phone now is Norman Agustin. He is the deputy fire chief in DeKalb County, Georgia for their fire and rescue services.

Thank you very much for being with me. And if you could just give me your assessment of what the firefighters are dealing with right now given all of the falling debris, given the fact that the structure is very unstable right now. So difficult that the head of the fire department there said that they are having, you know, an incredibly hard time even at this hour getting their people inside to finish this search operation.

NORMAN AGUSTIN, DEPUTY FIRE CHIEF, DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA (on the phone): Yes. And every search is done in a real systemic manner. And making sure the building is safe is at the top and utmost priority. And getting that information to ensure that that building is safe is a challenge and it appears to be a challenge in this case also. It all goes down to gathering that information and assessing that information properly to make sure everyone is safe while they do the search.

HARLOW: Local media reports say that the firefighters, some had to take what's called the defensive position when they arrived. What is that mean? AGUSTIN: Well, defensive position is a term used to refer to attack

in the fire from an outside position. Safe position. Outside of the hot zone. And the hot zone is that area of immediate danger. Sometimes it is high capacity hand lines or high capacity aerial lines on the top of ladder trucks. So it's basically no one in the immediate fire area. That's what's meant by a defensive mode of operation.

[16:05:00] HARLOW: We know that there are -- well, we know just looking at county records here that there were indeed building violations. What they found is that this warehouse had been cited numerous times for illegal interior building structures. Some violations as recently as last month. How does that complicate things and do you see things like that often in fire like this?

AGUSTIN: Well, we do see it often. And one thing about those is they are commonly known. And when say that I mean that if there's a violation that local fire department usually knows about it and they have already preplanned for it while they are working with the owner to get the violation handled or fix in some cases. But, you know, our job as the men and women that are actually running the call is to make sure we are safe and the public is safe. And we preplan for these structures.

HARLOW: Deputy Chief Norman Agustin of DeKalb County, Georgia, thank you for your expertise. We appreciate it very much.

And of course, we will bring you updates from this tragic fire in Oakland as soon as we have them and as soon as we know about those other people that are missing at this hour.

We do have a lot of head this hour including politics. Donald Trump's phone call with the president of Taiwan raising eyebrows. What is the broader implication? And how is China responding? Ambassador Chris Hill joins me next.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:09:30] HARLOW: Welcome back.

President-elect Donald Trump has yet to officially takeoffs but with a single phone call he has already in as up-ended decades of U.S. diplomatic policy. Why? A phone call yesterday, ten minutes, between him and the president of Taiwan. They -- two of them spoke after she called him. A ten-minute chat may not seem like a big deal, but the conversation marks the first time a U.S. president or president-elect has officially spoken to a Taiwan leader in nearly 40 years.

A sudden break from U.S. policy could do more than ruffle a few feathers. China is already warning that it could potentially damage relations with United States. China is today filing a formal complaint over the call.

Let's talk more about all of this, what it means, the implication to break from policy with someone who was once charged with overseeing U.S. relations with China.

With me now ambassador Christopher Hill. He served as former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs under President George W. Bush. Thank you for being with me.

[16:10:25] AMBASSADOR CHRISTOPHER HILL, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC, My pleasure.

HARLOW: You said ambassador, last night to my colleague Erin Burnett, you see this phone call a quote "winging it." Kellyanne Conway on Trump's team says it is anything but. She says Trump is quote "well aware of what U.S. policy has been." And she said he has been quote "fully briefed." Does this phone call suggest to you and the readouts that we have from both parties that he wasn't fully briefed?

HILL: Well look, the U.S./China relationship ever since 1979 has been guided by two main elements. One is one China policy that is all official contacts especially at our president's level or in any kind of official context, they need to be done with Beijing, with the People's Republic of China. But the other element is something called the Taiwan relation act. And what that act does is set out the sort of types of contacts we will have with Taiwan, especially and including arms control sales. So that's how we have done it for some 40 years. That's how Ronald Reagan did it. That's how George Bush Senior did it. That's how Bill Clinton did it. That's how everybody has done it until yesterday.

HARLOW: But we know, ambassador - correct. But we know this is not a president-elect or a president like any other. Right? I mean, he used very tough rhetoric against China on the campaign trail. This action seems to be following through with that. And Donald Trump did tweet something in response saying that look, it is the United States. It is this current administration. The Obama administration, they has sold nearly $2 billion in arms to Taiwan.

HILL: Correct.

HARLOW: Obviously, details of that, many of them are defensive arms but does he have a point?

HILL: You know, those armed sales done during the Obama administration, done during the George W. Bush administration, done in the Reagan administration, et cetera, are all in the context of the Taiwan relations act. There is nothing new about that.

And what I think the president-elect is pointing out is something to a lot of laymen looks funny, that we can't say hello to somebody but at the same time we can sell arms. Well, that's how it's been set up since 1978. Now of course, he may want to change that. I mean, you pointed out that he had ideas for what to do on the trade relationship. He never talked about changing our one China policy.

So this is something new from yesterday. And the question is, is he going to double down on it as some of his surrogates suggest or is he going to take this as kind of what to call it, a gap and move on. And I hope it's the latter. HARLOW: Why is that? I mean, why is it better -- why is the one

China policy better right now for this country?

HILL: You know, Donald Trump has talked about draining the swamp in Washington. But let me just say that U.S./China relations - U.S./Taiwan relations for that matter have been on dry ground for a long time. There is no problem there. There are problems in North Korea. There is problem in the South China Sea. There are problems on China's trade issues, but there's been no problem on how to square the circle of relations with Taiwan and the one China policy. So it's worked.

So, you know, I think the old adage is if it isn't broke, don't fix it. And I think that's what I hope will be the upshot of this. The Chinese have already tried to low-ball it although he complained. But I hope we can just move on from this.

HARLOW: That's not the way though, obviously, that Taiwan and their new relatively new president sees it. Obviously, you know, this administration has -- had more of an independence focus than passed.

Let me ask you this because Michael Pillsbury, an adviser on China to Donald Trump during the campaign but also served under president Reagan, President George W. Bush and President Obama put it this way. Quote "we should have warmer tires with Taiwan and it could be done without alienating Beijing." He went on to say, the zero sum mentality is an old way of thinking. What's ooh your response?

HILL: Well, you know, if you want to - if someone wants to change how we have done this for 40 years, and bare in mind president Reagan never bet with the Taiwan president or talked directly with the Taiwan president.

HARLOW: That's true. But he did invite a Taiwanese delegation to an inauguration. I mean, he was more open with them.

HILL: These things have happened. But I'm just saying that if you want to change this, you ought to have some consultation. You ought to bring the Senate, the Congress involved in this. You ought to talk to the state department. There are a lot of things you want to do besides make a phone call. And so, I think what I worry about more than the actual issue of what happened yesterday is the process.

You know, the president, he is the leader obviously, but he also is presiding over a large government with institutions and professionals who know a lot about how to do these things. I think what I worry about more than the actual issue of what happened yesterday is the process. You know, the president, he is the leader obviously, but he also is presiding over a large government with institutions and professionals who know a lot about how to do these things. So I think we have a real process problem here. And I hope that when president- elect becomes president, he will have a staff to make sure we don't have problems like this in the future.

[16:15:30] HARLOW: A guest on my show earlier tonight said that essentially they believe that the Taiwanese president, that she is in essence sort of playing Donald Trump knowing that the president-elect would take her phone call and she could ruffle feathers and rattle the Chinese. Do you see it that way?

HILL: I think there's an element of that. As you know, the Chinese foreign minister said it was sort of Taiwan trickery as he put it. So I think there's definitely an element of that.

I would like to think that when a foreign leader calls the president- elect, there would be some discussion about what the president-elect is going to say. And of course, this call comes in the context of the president-elect talking to the president of the Philippines who then said he has been invited to the White House. It comes in the same week as talking to the leader in Pakistan who suggested that all is well.

So I think there are problems as to how these phone calls are being done. I think there's an element of winging it. But again, I don't think it's a faux pas. But I don't think it has to be serious unless there's an effort to say this was a real policy change. And if it is, this is not the way to change policy. There are plenty of ways and the president will have plenty of time to change policy if he wants to add a crisis with China to an already difficult world situation. But I don't think he has to do it by picking up the phone like this.

HARLOW: Let me quickly get your take on one other thing. Obviously, you said this follows other calls that he has had including a very controversial call that he had this week with Pakistan's prime minister calling him a terrific guy, saying the people of Pakistan are fantastic. Really eluding to and making it seem as though there's a very cordial and uncomplicated relationship there where as you know the White House came out and said, you know, it's anything but, it is a very complicated relationship as Josh Earnest said this week.

Does that concern you perhaps even more than this call with -- or as much as this call with Taiwan's president?

HILL: You know, I think the call with Taiwan's president is imbedded in a 40-year history with a country that has a population of some 1.4 billion people. It is the world's second largest power. So I kind of put that in the top echelon. But certainly, the tone of that conversation with Pakistan was frankly a little off. But again, it's up to the president if he wants to change the policy to Pakistan.

But I would suggest a consultation or two within the institutions that we have. You know, we are not a one person rule in the United States. We have a longstanding institutions. And by the way, we have people who really know these issues through the decades.

HARLOW: Ambassador Christopher Hill, I appreciate your time with us today. Thank you.

HILL: My pleasure.

HARLOW: All right. Coming up, we will have more on Donald Trump's phone call with the president of Taiwan coming up. But first, heartbreaking suffering of Syrian children caught in the

midst of this horrific war. We will take you to Aleppo where rescuers are pulling children from the rubble of a suspected air strike.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:22:20] HARLOW: More on our breaking news. Nine people confirmed dead. More than two dozen still missing after the fire swept through a crowded late night party in Oakland, California.

Coming up at the top of the hour we will hear from the city's mayor set to speak live in just abo 40 minutes time. We will bring that to you as soon as it begins.

Meantime, the Syria where government forces in Syria, forces of president Bashar al-Assad continue to pound rebel held neighborhoods in Aleppo with a barrage of airstrikes. This as the U.S. secretary of state John Kerry continues to try to negotiate a truce with Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

Senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is inside Syria. He takes us inside this tragedy where the biggest victims of Aleppo's violence are its tiny children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Another day, more violence in Aleppo. The youngest suffering the most.

This video from the Syrian civil defense showing rescuers saving a child after a suspected airstrike. The fighting claiming at least 45 lives on Wednesday alone according to monitoring groups. Over 30,000 people, mostly children, have been displaced since government forces launched a large scale offensive making sweeping gains in the east of Aleppo the U.N. says. In Rome, efforts continue to try and broker some sort of truce and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged areas. U.S. secretary of state John Kerry meeting Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: And so, hopefully, if humanitarian situation could be dealt with in Aleppo more effectively, and if indeed we could create a framework for the passage of people out of Aleppo so that Aleppo itself might be able to be relieved from this agony, that could open up the space to perhaps be able to start some kind of conversation in Geneva.

PLEITGEN: Even as its air force pounds rebel positions, Russia said it's still committed to a political solution in Syria.

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): There is no military solution to the Syrian conflict. We sported this position within the framework of the international Syria support group. Unfortunately, not all of its members were ready to support this common position, that there is no military solution. But I am sure it is absolutely clear anyway even without formal acceptance of this point of view.

PLEITGEN: In a desperate effort to fend off Syrian government troops, rebel factions in the besiege areas of Aleppo, have announced a new alliance named the army of Aleppo. But their fight remain desperate in a face of an offensive that is already cost the opposition much of the territory it held in Aleppo for years.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Damascus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[16:25:16] HARLOW: Fred, thank you very much for that reporting.

All right. Still to come, China lodging a formal complaint to the United States over president-elect Trump's phone call with the president of Taiwan. What are the long term effects of that phone call on the incoming administration? And what's the history behind with this 40 years of diplomacy as we've known it? We'll talk about it next.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:49] HARLOW: A surprising Friday phone call ruffling feathers for sure. It is the ten minute phone call president-elect Donald Trump took from the president of Taiwan. How could it impact the person who accepts the secretary of state job in a Trump administration? And also, what is the history behind the 40 years of U.S. diplomatic policy with Taiwan and the one China policy as we know it.

Joining me now is Princeton historian and professor, Julian Zelizer. He is also the author of "the fierce urgency of now." Thank you for being here.

JULIAN ZELIZER, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Thank you.

HARLOW: Take us -- give us a history lesson, professor. Why is it that as Donald Trump pointed out, the United States can sell billions of dollars in weapons to Taiwan but the president-elect isn't supposed to take a phone call from the president?

ZELIZER: Well, during the 1970s, we starting with Nixon culminating in Jimmy Carter, normalized relations with China. And part of the deal is not recognizing Taiwan. At the same time, since the early 1980s, there's been informal efforts to either lend support to Taiwan or even sell arms in this way. So we have basically had a two-tract policy, but we have maintained that policy.

[16:30:01] HARLOW: Why -- I just had Ambassador Christopher Hill on who, obviously, was in charge of the diplomatic relations between the countries under George W. Bush. Why is it that that is the policy that is believed to work and it'd be in the best interest of the United States? Because others have come out in the wake of all of this, including Michael Pillsbury who advised Trump on China but also worked under Reagan and George W. Bush and Obama and said it's not a zero-sum game anymore.

ZELIZER: Well, the goal of China has been to, first, normalize relations and ultimately, hopefully, to integrate both countries rather than create an adversarial situation.

HARLOW: So couldn't this be the first step in doing that?

ZELIZER: Not this way.

HARLOW: Right.

ZELIZER: I don't think people are disputing possibly having different relations with Taiwan. We're disputing doing this through a President-elect in a phone call that was not vetted and that was not planned and at the same time, following up with tweets. So I think a big part of this is about the method through which he's doing it and wondering, does the President-elect have a strategy? Is he being briefed on all these or is it just off the cuff?

HARLOW: His team says he is, indeed. But again, we know that he and his team did not have a call with the State Department or the White House about this beforehand. And it's interesting because the China complaint logged about this today went to the Obama administration in the White House because he's the current sitting President. Any parallels you can draw for us in history that this phone call reminds you of?

ZELIZER: Not from a president-elect. This phone call combined with the tweets that followed it are unusual and they are different. We've had provocative statements, and we've had statements that are interpreted as potentially breaking with policy, such as with Ronald Reagan, but not of this sort with direct contact. And we've seen this several times now.

HARLOW: How different is this from Ronald Reagan? Because when he was coming into office, obviously, he sort of extended a bit more of a hand -- Republican administrations have done that --

ZELIZER: Yes.

HARLOW: -- towards Taiwan, invited the Taiwanese delegation to the inauguration. Why is this so different?

ZELIZER: Well, he went beyond that and he made this contact through the call to him which, basically, is being perceived as normalization of relations. So that's different than the delegation coming. Reagan did make many provocative statements once he president about the Soviet Union, calling them an evil empire, once joking that he was going to start bombing, and those actually caused problems for him where he had to walk back from that. So, as president, Reagan learned the dangers of this. HARLOW: And before I let you go, very quickly, you know, former

President George W. Bush also said something very controversial in an interview on ABC about Taiwan, basically saying, yes, we will defend their independence.

ZELIZER: And --

HARLOW: Or defend them if needed.

ZELIZER: And early in the administration, he had an encounter when a U.S. spy plane went down and there was a dispute with the Chinese over how to handle it, and it really actually scared the administration, backing away from the confrontation.

HARLOW: Yes.

ZELIZER: So the tendency is still toward the diplomatic channels and working within frameworks to change relations rather than aggressive, off the cuff changes.

HARLOW: Yes. Of course, President George W. Bush's team had to walk that back on subsequent days.

ZELIZER: Yes.

HARLOW: We're not really seeing that from the Trump administration --

ZELIZER: Not so far.

HARLOW: -- team right now. Thank you, Julian. We appreciate it very much.

ZELIZER: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up. The hazard lights are flashing on something you're probably not thinking about but you should, subprime car loans. Why do you care? Because roughly 6 million borrowers with low credit scores are late on making their payments. Are you thinking about the mortgage meltdown? Could this be, at all, equivalent? Why does it matter? Some worry the U.S. economy is set for another fall. We'll talk about it all next live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:37:13] HARLOW: The U.S. economy may be buzzing along at "CNN THIS WEEK'S" very strong jobs report, but it wasn't that long ago that it was nearly dragged into a depression, thanks to the mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis. So what if I told you there is another place where economists are pretty worried about a similar crisis, maybe a smaller magnitude but still really important?

One really risky place not getting nearly enough attention, cars. Yes, your cars. I'm talking about auto loans. And to give credit where credit is due, John Oliver was all over this months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN OLIVER, HOST, LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER: Let me take you on a tour of the subprime auto loan industry, and we'll start with so-called "buy here pay here" dealers who do their own lending. They have been around for years, and their ads make it look very simple.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How can we get you finance when others can't? Two reasons. First, we are the bank. We don't have to send you or your deal anywhere. The second reason we can get you financed is because we don't even look at your credit score.

OLIVER: Of course. In fact, we don't even know what a credit score is. What is a good one, PG-13, 640 on the verbal, 710 on math, three under par? Is that good credit score? We've got no idea and that's why you should trust us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Huh, no one like him. But seriously, this is really important. News this week that the hazard lights are flashing on subprime car loans, 6 million borrowers with bad credit scores now at least 90 days late making their loan payments. That's according to the New York Federal Reserve. That is the highest delinquency rate since 2010.

Why should you care? Here to tell us, CNN Money's Heather Long, also Peter Atwater, president of Financial Insyghts and author of "Moods and Markets." Guys, thank you for being here. There is your book, my friend, "Moods and Markets."

Heather, let me begin with you. Since the end of the great recession, there's been this explosion in auto loans over a trillion dollars' worth. You say we're in what should be looked at as the early warning signs. How big of a risk really is this to the economy? Could it threaten to take it down like the mortgage meltdown?

HEATHER LONG, CNN MONEY SENIOR WRITER AND EDITOR: Right now, people say no and the reason is simply the size of the market. So when we're talking about the home loan market, that's eight times the size of the car market.

HARLOW: Right.

LONG: So it's simply not the same magnitude. Similarly, people will remember that alphabet soup back in the home mortgage days that --

HARLOW: Right.

LONG: -- they would take one loan and they would take pieces of it, and it might have eight to 10 different people on the other side who were trying to get a piece of that loan and own it.

HARLOW: And trading it.

LONG: And trade it.

HARLOW: Yes. LONG: That's happening a little bit with auto loans but it's just not

nearly the level. It's a drop in the bucket in comparison. So most people don't think this is going to sink the U.S. economy into a recession because of these auto loans.

HARLOW: All right. All right. So then why should we care, Peter? Then why is the New York Fed coming out and using words like "a pronounced worsening" and "significant concern"?

[16:40:08] PETER ATWATER, PRESIDENT, FINANCIAL INSYGHTS: So subprime car loans are the worst, and they're always made at the very peak in confidence in the cycle. And the fact that they are beginning to deteriorate makes them the canary in a bigger coal mine because, as we saw in the mortgage crisis, the bad loans to the worst customers always go first. The worst are first. And that's exactly what's starting here.

So, to me, this is a harbinger of problems to come in the auto loan sector overall. And that's a big problem because in this cycle, the auto lenders have been extremely aggressive because they think their worst case scenario is what happened to them in the mortgage crisis.

HARLOW: And that's a good point, but that isn't necessarily equivalent to what would happen here because, you know, it's very different than that. Even though that's a bigger market, there are different risks here.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said recently auto is stretched. He said someone's going to get hurt. He said, it won't be us, our bank, because we have very little subprime. But he also said, as you point out, it's not systemic. This is a trillion-dollar market versus an eight or nine trillion-dollar market. However, Heather, it is a risk to the economy. Why isn't it being talked about more broadly? I mean, if you coupled this with all the concerns about outstanding student loan debt?

LONG: It's not too much further away, just in the total loan volume from the student loan crisis.

HARLOW: Yes.

LONG: And I think the bigger issue here -- I said there's reasons to care. Number one is we just had a president who got elected, Donald trump, because of frustration and anxiety on the economy. This goes right to the heart of that. When you're talking about 6 million people who are 90 days, three months, late on their car loan, that means that the bank or whatever financial institution had started the process, more than likely, to repossess, to take that car away.

HARLOW: Right.

LONG: And you know what's interesting, the two states that have the worst incidence of this right now are Louisiana and Mississippi. So these are states where it's not like people can turn around and take the bus.

HARLOW: Yes.

LONG: This isn't New York City where everybody takes the subway. People need that car to get to work and some people even live in their cars. And so there's a sense that when you have this many millions of people who are about to lose a vehicle, we've got a very deep problem in this economy on a personal, individual level.

HARLOW: And how it would impact each person. Peter, you actually have some interesting insight into this because you've said it's unlikely the borrowers will keep paying on a loan when they know their car is worth far less than is outstanding. So that exacerbates this problem, right? And you've also said that the, you know, ride sharing evolution, Uber, et cetera, has actually made this worse. Why?

LONG: Well, it's made it worse because, in this cycle, you don't need your car. You can borrow somebody else's. You can use Uber, you can use Lyft, you can use these other services, and I think that the lenders didn't anticipate that.

And one of the things that is so troubling about this problem is it's outside of the banking system. In fact, I think it's indicative of the fact that in this cycle the problems are not going to be originating within the banks. They're going to be within the nonbanks, so companies we've never heard of before, organizations we know very little about. And even more, organizations that don't have the systemic support of the Fed and the OCC and the FDIC. So this is a situation where the crisis is in places we've never gone to look before.

LONG: Yes.

HARLOW: That' a scary thought.

LONG: Right.

HARLOW: The crisis is in places we've never gone to look before, and the mortgage meltdown is in too recent history to forget the lessons learned there. Credit, right, guys, to John Oliver for being on top of this a long time ago. And if you hear an ad that says we don't check your credit score, it's probably not the best one to follow.

Thank you, Heather Long, Peter Atwater. We appreciate it.

A lot ahead coming up at the top of the hour. We hear from the Mayor of Oakland about that deadly fire that, so far, has left at least nine people dead. Officials at this hour still looking for 25 more missing. We'll bring you that live press conference straight ahead.

[16:44:19] And up next here for us. A startling story. Young, in love, and radicalized. A Mississippi State cheerleader and her boyfriend committed themselves to ISIS but ended up behind bars. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: The FBI is saying that the attacker this week at Ohio State University may have been inspired by ISIS or al Qaeda. The Somali immigrant and OSU student was shot and killed by police after he injured 11 people with his car and a butcher knife. If terrorism is confirmed, it will not be the first case linked to a college campus.

Our senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin has this exclusive report on a cheerleader and her boyfriend from Mississippi State who tried to join ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Muhammad Dakhlalla, just 24 years old, is at the very start of an eight-year federal prison sentence for trying to join and help ISIS. A radical Muslim extremist? Hardly. He's as American as you and me, and he got into this mess because he fell in love.

GRIFFIN (on camera): How did this happen?

MUHAMMAD DAKHLALLA, FEDERAL PRISON INMATE: Where do you want me to start exactly?

GRIFFIN (voice-over): His friends know him as Mo, born and raised in Mississippi, Muslim and non-Muslim friends, hit and miss with the ladies, until, at Mississippi State University, in his senior year, he met and fell head over heels for a Mississippi State cheerleader named Jaelyn Young.

DAKHLALLA: Yes, she was beautiful and things like that.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): She is American, too, and Mississippi all the way. But within months, Mo says Jaelyn was changing, converting to Islam, changing her dress. Then began introducing Mo to the online brand of Islam she had been learning about.

GRIFFIN (on camera): This happened so fast, did it?

DAKHLALLA: It did. Maybe got a little too fast, you know.

GRIFFIN (on camera): But you were in love?

DAKHLALLA: Yes. Yes. But love can --

GRIFFIN (on camera): And she was coming to you right?

[16:50:00] DAKHLALLA: Yes. And, you know, that love can ultimately, you know, blind out your intelligence.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): The Federal Bureau of Prisons rarely grants access to convicted felons like Mo. This is an exception. An agreement between the Department of Justice, CNN, and Mohammad Dakhlalla himself, perhaps for all to understand just how powerful ISIS' online propaganda can be. His girlfriend, Jaelyn Young, really showed Mo the videos. The videos did the rest.

DAKHLALLA: And so when she showed me that video, I think it's kind of like brought a tenseness in her. You know, I felt those same things, I guess, just because she was feeling it.

GRIFFIN (on camera): And that progressed?

DAKHLALLA: Yes, it progressed to the point that my mind wasn't thinking straight.

GRIFFIN (on camera): Mo, what were you going to do? Drop your entire life and run over to a war zone?

DAKHLALLA: Yes. I mean, when she first looked at these videos, she had, you know, a strong belief that, OK, this is the group to really help out, you know, the Muslims rebuild towns, people helping to feed the needy.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): According to the FBI, Jaelyn Young reached out to a contact she thought would help her and Mo travel to Turkey, cross the border into Syria, and join ISIS. The two secretly married, began an intensive preparation period, bought one-way plane tickets to Istanbul.

On August 8, 2015, Mo and Jaelyn packed their bags. He wrote this goodbye letter to his parents. The first lines, "I'm sorry. I love you. I've decided to leave and I won't be coming back." They got as far as the boarding gate.

GRIFFIN (on camera): The moment they arrested you.

DAKHLALLA: Oh, my heart sank. I felt like my whole body shut down.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): It turns out the online ISIS recruiter who had been helping make arrangements for the couple was, in fact, an FBI employee. This past summer, they both pleaded guilty. Mo given an eight-year sentence authorities, citing his cooperation with authorities. Jaelyn Young, the mastermind, was sentenced to 12 years. She's refused to speak to CNN.

GRIFFIN (on camera): You haven't said her name once.

DAKHLALLA: Oh, yes.

GRIFFIN (on camera): You haven't.

DAKHLALLA: No, I have not.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): He also finds it difficult to speak about the other woman in his life, the woman he wrote this final goodbye to. Mo Dakhlalla's mother was suffering from cancer at his arrest. She died earlier this year.

DAKHLALLA: And that's probably or is one of the biggest regrets that I have in my life. It still haunts me to this day that I would prefer this woman that I've only been together with for under a year and lied to my mother about where I was going.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): His other regret, that in time of confusion especially about his religion, he failed to reach out to his dad, an imam himself, who would've never thought his son to kill or hurt anyone.

DAKHLALLA: Yes, I wish I just reached out to my dad. You know, if I had just asked him, he would just illuminate me on what's really happening with this group. I feel like that I should owe people back to say, hey, don't do what I did. That's not what they're doing over there, what ISIS is doing over there, that's not Islam.

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GRIFFIN: Poppy, Mo Dakhlalla is not bitter. He says he's glad he was caught. He says, if he made it to Syria, there's a good chance, he now believes, he'd be dead. Eight years from now when he leaves prison, he'll be 32 years old -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Remarkable reporting, Drew Griffin. Thank you so much for that. Incredible.

All right. Coming up next at the top of the hour. Much more on our breaking news. Nine people confirmed dead, more than two dozen others still missing after a fire swept through a crowded late night party in Oakland, California last night.

At the top of the hour, the city's Mayor is set to speak. We will bring you that press conference as soon as it begins. But, first, don't miss the season finale of "ANTHONY BOURDAIN: PARTS UNKNOWN." Anthony Bourdain uncovers the real Rome. He reveals a vibrant modern city behind the artifacts.

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ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST: For Pasolini, it was the outskirts, the margins of Rome that were interesting and beautiful. The real Rome, not the temples and monuments of a long dead empire. A place where people struggled every day to live and to love.

[16:55:14] ASIA ARGENTO, ACTRESS: Gracias.

BOURDAIN: And you've been eating here for how long?

ARGENTO: Since I was a kid. I used to love it as a child. It's comforting.

BOURDAIN: Food the same, more or less? I mean, it changes but --

ARGENTO: Always the same, yes. That's the thing. That's why I keep coming back, for the grandma who makes it. It's always her cooking. She cooks every time, and she makes fettuccini fresh.

BOURDAIN: Rome is a city where you find the most extraordinary of pleasures in the most ordinary things, like this place which I am not ever going to tell you the name of. Asia has been coming here regularly, forever.

ARGENTO: Gracias.

BOURDAIN: She brings her kids still, so I'm not going to screw it up for her.

It looks good.

ARGENTO: It's good. Children's food. Isn't it comforting?

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HARLOW: I am hungry just watching that. Of course, it's Rome and comfort food on the season finale of "PARTS UNKNOWN," tomorrow 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only right here on CNN.

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[17:00:00] HARLOW: Top of the hour, 5:00 p.m. Eastern. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. We continue to follow the breaking news this hour.