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New Day

Manhunt Underway for Sender of Mail Bombs; President Trump Criticizes Media; Trump Abandons Call For Unity, Attacks Media Again. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 26, 2018 - 8:00   ET

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


[08:00:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, the manhunt for a serial bomber is intensifying this morning. President Trump's focus, though, at least early this morning was on attacking the media. NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So the packages originated from Florida.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This investigation is very much in its infancy. It's all hands on deck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They all had those six American flag stamps on them. What they didn't have is the postmark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a question as to whether or not the bombs were designed to detonate or to intimidate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy is a counterpuncher. He feels he's treated extremely unfairly by the media, and he goes after them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No president has ever spewed the kind of consistent hate, disdain, and division.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president is certainly not responsible for sending suspicious packages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president has the greatest megaphone in the entire world, and the way he speaks matters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota on John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your New Day. It is Friday, it's October 26th, 8:00 in the east.

CAMEROTA: It's been a long week.

BERMAN: To say the least. A serial bomber remains on the loose in this country. The bombmaker targeting two former presidents, a former vice president, among critics of President Trump. But that is apparently not what kept the president awake until the wee hours of the morning. We'll have more on that in a moment.

First, though, the investigation. CNN has learned that all 10 packages were mailed through the U.S. post service, all of them. At least some of them went through a processing center near Miami. Investigators are pouring over these intercepted mail bombs in hope of finding DNA, hair, fingerprints. One of the key questions, why did none of the devices detonate? Officials do warn that more could be out there.

CAMEROTA: So while the manhunt intensifies, President Trump appears consumed by the perception that he's not being presidential through this crisis. He was up very late. His last posted just after 3:00 a.m. this morning. And the president is abandoning his very short- lived call for unity and attacking the media again. Sources tell CNN the president is upset. He believes he is being unfairly linked to the package bombs being sent to people that he criticized. Sources tell CNN that the president has no plans to pull up his fiery rhetoric and that he will not accept any responsibility for the toxic tone.

So let's begin our coverage with the latest on the investigation. We have CNN's Rosa Flores, she is live at that post office in Opa-locka, Florida. Rosa?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, good morning. CNN learning this morning that not only did some of these packages originate from Florida, but some of them were processed in the distribution facility that you see behind me. Now, I can tell you being here since yesterday that some of the law enforcement presence has been very visible. We have seen the Miami-Dade bomb squad, K-9 units, and very early this morning even postal police. But some of that law enforcement presence is not visible. We are learning about it from employees that we've talked to that are working inside. For example, they tell me that 20 inspectors are inside following clues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: The nationwide manhunt for the person or persons who sent at least 10 explosives to people vilified by President Trump now focused on south Florida, specifically this postal facility near Miami where law enforcement official tell CNN several of the packages were processed. Local police calling in their bomb squad and k-9 units to help in the investigation.

KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, UNITED STATE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: There were some leads. I think the FBI is tracking them all down wherever they take them.

FLORES: On Thursday, three packages containing potential bombs were discovered, including two addressed to former vice president Joe Biden that were intercepted at separate postal facilities in Delaware.

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: People want us to be more civil. I hope this has been enough of a shockwave for people to say, OK, enough is enough.

FLORES: Hours earlier, this package was found addressed to another Trump critic, actor Robert De Niro at his Tribeca production office after a retired police officer noticed the package and notified authorities.

JAMES O'NEILL, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: This package he saw yesterday was almost exactly like the package that they were showing on TV. And he took affirmative steps to call us and to make sure we could take it away safely.

FLORES: Law enforcement says tell CNN they believe that all 10 devices went through the U.S. postal system, including the package ultimately delivered to CNN by a private courier and the device placed in businessman and Democratic donor George Soros' mailbox. Many of the packages have no visible postmarks, which is making it more difficult to pinpoint where and when the packages were sent.

Another key question puzzling authorities, why none of the bombs detonated, raising questions about the skill and motive of the bombmaker or makers. Outside experts tell CNN that the lack of a triggering mechanism suggests the bombs were never meant to explode.

RAY LOPEZ, FORMER FBI AGENT: I think they were meant to be found and, again, just to deliver the message of fear and terror and to garnish attention.

[08:05:02] FLORES: Still, authorities urging the public to be vigilant.

BILL SWEENEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR-IN-CHARGE, FBI, NEW YORK: These devices should be considered dangerous.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Now, according to the FBI the bombs were transported to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, where investigators are processing them, hoping to get a break, perhaps getting a fingerprint from a piece of tape or finding DNA within the package. But at this point no suspect, no motive, and John and Alisyn, I can tell you meanwhile there are workers, men and women working in this facility that you see behind me who have been warned about these packages. They have been told they need to be on the lookout for them. They are just hoping to go home safely.

BERMAN: Rosa Flores for us north of Miami. And these postal workers, they are on the frontlines now in this battle and this search.

Joining us now, CNN crime and justice reporter Shimon Prokupecz, retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano, and a former department of Homeland Security assistant Juliette Kayyem. Thank you all for being with us. Shimon, first to you on the investigation, you have been working your sources again all night. Southern Florida really seems to be in the crosshairs.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: That is where a lot of our law enforcement right now is focused. They believe that some of the packages originated from south Florida area, went through this sorting site where Rosa Flores has been reporting from. Yes, we're not seeing a lot of law enforcement activity. And that is probably there is a reason for it. They are chasing leads. They could be chasing people of interest that they're trying to rule out. They may also have interest in people who may now even be under surveillance by the FBI. So we don't know.

I can tell you that last night and even this morning there has been some optimism from investigators that hopefully this will come to some kind of resolution soon, and really finding that sorting site has really given them a greater chance now to try to figure out who was sending these, where they were sent from. And so we could see some activity here soon, hopefully.

CAMEROTA: Let's hope. Juliette, only people who the president has gone after rhetorically received these bombs. So not regular people. Yet, as we have made the point, regular people are all up and down the chain of delivery, the delivery system, in the mailrooms, et cetera. And so the fact that there is a serial bomber on the loose, do you, as a Department of Homeland Security person, consider this is national security issue?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Oh, absolutely, because just look in our systems of deliverance, whether it is roads, postal services, through the Secret Service, something bad has been delivered, right? Whether it is a bomb that should have detonated or a safe bomb, we are still waiting for authorities to validate that, but there is bad things going through our system. That is a quintessential Homeland Security issue. Add on a potentially motivation issue, which is of course that the subjects of these deliveries are all the leadership of one of the parties, the Democratic Party or people affiliated with the party, and you have what is just your -- I don't want to say standard, but this is clearly a Homeland Security issue because you need to focus on two things.

One is, of course, the systems that are delivering the bad things. What was thought, what was shared, what was said, what kind of information can we get on the person. And then you can never forget, two of our former presidents were in the line in terms of these packages. That is a big deal no matter any way you slice it. We have never had this before in this country.

BERMAN: James, just a reminder, people have died within the last year receiving bombs in the mail, FedEx in Austin, Texas. There were two deaths right there. Ultimately, the person who carried that out was caught because of surveillance footage that had been around the places where he mailed these. I have to believe now that the geographic focus is around southern Florida. That's the type of thing they will be looking at now.

JAMES GAGLIANO, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: I have to continue to believe that we are getting very close. The news last night that Shimon and others have reported on, they were looking at the mail facility down in Opa-locka, Florida.

Here is a couple of anomalies, things that jump out at me. And I agree with a lot of the other assessments that these devices were messages. It doesn't make them any less dangerous because when you put explosives in something it is inherently unstable and dangerous. No initiator, so we know that bombs have four parts. An initiator is a critical piece of that. No one has said that there was a blasting cap there. There were explosives in some. We saw that there was a switch in others.

BERMAN: Shrapnel.

GAGLIANO: Shrapnel, the glass, of course.

[08:10:00] Second of all, why would a bomber, suspected bomber, put a switch that is a timer in a piece of mail? Those are typically booby trap initiated. You set a timer on it, you don't know where it's going to be along that continuum of delivery to where it's going to go.

The third thing, Opa-locka, one of the top five most dangerous per capita violent crime rate cities, not in Florida, in the country. Did this come from there? I don't think so because I think even going back as far as the Unabomber, the Unabomber traveled to San Francisco from Montana to mail his devices. And I think somebody probably would have gone to a different city to do that. These are all anomalies. The fact that there was actually a stamp that was put on this device, similar to the Unabomber. The Unabomber used to stamp his devices FC for Freedom Club. It is almost like these people want to put their imprimatur on something, their signature so that ultimately they're looking or craving that type of attention. All anomalies, investigators are looking at all these things, but these are the things that jumped out to me.

CAMEROTA: Really interesting. So Juliette, is it surprising to you that the Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, hasn't been more public, more front and center on this issue?

KAYYEM: Absolutely. I have been saying it since the beginning of the week. The department was created because of September 11th. And its goal now, though, because it has changed over time. It deals with storms and cyberattacks and everything else. But its main focus is to be the president's main communicator during -- before, after, and during a terror incident. You could define this however you want.

It is also intended to galvanize state and local support because that's where our first responders are, provide guidance, best practices, here's what you're looking out for, and to talk to us, the American public, who may be nervous about what's in our mail system. So her silence is either directed by the White House, they don't want anyone out there, or because of priorities of the Department of Homeland Security, as we know, are no longer around the real threat we face, but of course around a caravan 2,000 miles away.

Yesterday the secretary was at the border. It's just a priority issue. You can decide whether that's a bigger priority or not. But the priorities of the department right now are being just essentially delegated to the law enforcement side of the FBI, NCTC, and other agencies. It is a new look for the Department of Homeland Security. That's all I'll say. BERMAN: Just so people know what Juliette was talking about, that

picture we showed a moment ago, was footage from yesterday that was on FOX of the secretary of the homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, at the border. She's at the border. She's talking about the migrants who are in Mexico right now, a few thousand miles away, or 1,000 miles away from the United States. And that's a choice. That's an administration choice.

CAMEROTA: Sure. Focusing on that last night over an unfolding manhunt in this country, not something that's 2,000 miles away, is a choice, of course. Go ahead.

KAYYEM: Just quickly, the Department of Homeland Security overseas the Secret Service. So there is also a direct link to the presidential issue here. So it would be obvious.

CAMEROTA: The fact that these two former presidents, a vice president, first ladies, a secretary of state all being targeted.

BERMAN: Shimon, I just want to get a last word on the bombs themselves, because there was the question about why they did or did not go off. Where are they in terms of looking at these devices?

PROKUPECZ: So most of them now, or at least several of them we know are over at the FBI and Quantico. And they are going over that. but the NYPD yesterday, the police commissioner and the agent here, the special agent in charge of the New York field office, they were staying away from answering any questions about the devices. And I had spoken to someone about that. They said, look, we just don't really know. We have some indications of how these devices were made and whether they could go off or not. But they didn't want to speculate until the full analysis was completed by the FBI, which is probably now very much underway and could already have been completed. And really the NYPD bomb squad, some of the best bomb technicians probably in the world, they know what they were dealing with. So for whatever reason yesterday the NYPD did not to speculate. They say they didn't really want to give us a full readout of what these devices, how they were made and whether or not they could actually explode.

BERMAN: Part of a reason of that might be investigatory, because they don't want to tip off to the bomber that they know something, or because there's a fact that only the bomber would know and they may use that in the investigation.

PROKUPECZ: Yes. And that's exactly what -- that's one of the things they said they didn't want to release any kind of clues that could hurt the investigation.

CAMEROTA: You were optimistic yesterday, James. Are you more so today?

GAGLIANO: I remain optimistic. And here's why. Every day, now that we have more of these devices that, thankfully, no one has been hurt from, every day law enforcement is getting more and more things to help piece this together. This guy or this person is going to make a misstep. And a lot of things that they're going to get are going to be video camera surveillance, they're going to be going back and piecing together their trail, where they went from, and all the DNA that's going to be collected in those packages. Impossible to send that many packages without DNA being --

[08:15:00] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Even if they wore gloves?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even if they wore gloves. There are plenty of things. Hair and fiber evidence. I mean, even back in the '60s and '70s, we solved cases using policing methodologies through hair and fiber. They're going through these things with extra machines and a fine-tooth comb. They're going to track him down.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all very much. Really informative.

So with this serial bomber on the loose, something else, though has kept the president up late last night. So we'll talk about the president's focus, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: OK. While you were sleeping, President Trump was up late tweeting. At 3 a.m., he was again attacking the media after all the stories about the mail bombs. The president wants our focus to be on the Central American migrants. This morning, there were reports the president is considering an executive order to be even more aggressive against the migrants at the border.

So let's bring in our CNN political analysts. We have Jonathan Martin, of New York Times' national political correspondent here in studio. Wow. I did not know you're just in the flesh. And Josh Green, national correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek who I has seen in the flesh and I can confirm.

JOSH GREEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm real.

CAMEROTA: A lot of flesh. That's a lot of flesh. All right.

So let's talk about the so-called caravan. The numbers -- the latest CNN reporting is that the numbers have dwindled. So they're still somewhere between a thousand and 2,000 miles away. They're in Mexico, and the numbers, I think -- of our latest reporting have gone from 7,000 down to 3,500 because people are returning home.

[08:20:06] The trip is too hard on foot 20 miles a day. So who knows if they will ever make it to the border? But that is what this administration, what the president, what the Department of Homeland Security secretary, and what, frankly, Fox channel has been focussed on all week.

JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, look, I'm thinking it's obviously connected to the midterm. It doesn't take a PhD in political science to figure that out that they're trying to sort of hype up turnout going into the final stretch here. And I think, you know, looking at this sensible threat (INAUDIBLE) tells what the sort of central politics of this administration, which is sort of, you know, hard line nationalism. He embraced it the other night.

So not so surprising in that sense but what I'm struck by, guys, is this kind of living off the land politics. Having covered campaigns when you see the end of a campaign and one side is sort of veering from one issue after another, looking for something to sort of grasp onto instead of closing consistently on one message. That kind of gives away who is more concerned about the election typically.

That they're -- you know, one day it's the caravan, the next day it's this big tax cut that the president is talking about that you can't do without Congress being in session. The next day he is saying Democrats are going to take away your healthcare. So I think they're grasping to turn folks out because Democrats, obviously, have an edge in enthusiasm. And the president is saying, how can I counter that edge?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I got to say, I woke up to -- first of all it was Tal Kopan our former CNN colleague, now with the San Francisco Chronicle broke this story and everyone soon match it. And as soon I saw it, Josh, it seemed to me what was being said by the White House is that for a moment the spotlight has gone off where we want it to be, where we need it to be. And we need to get it back there especially because the story is they're considering it and they might do it.

It isn't that it's happening today or tomorrow, they need the discussion. The discussion is the end here. The debate that they want to have, they want to have people yelling, it's a good idea, it's a bad idea. That's the end here.

GREEN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, look, the original plan for Republicans in the midterms was to pass this big tax return bill and then run on that triumphantly as Republicans who delivered a big tax break to Americans. But the problem is, the Republicans own internal poll shows that that message is basically failing and that voters don't buy it.

So Republicans need a different message to mobilize their voters. And Trump always in his own campaigns when he's campaigning for other people in the home stretch tends to return to the same nativist anti- immigrant appeal to stoke fear and anger in his base because fear and anger are very good motivators. I think that's exactly what's going on here with Trump and Republicans trying to inflame the story about a migrant caravan.

CAMEROTA: Jonathan, let's talk about healthcare because Democrats on the campaign trail are talking about it. And they're saying the Republicans are going to take away pre-existing condition. The president is trying to make it sound as though he isn't but the evidence suggests otherwise.

MARTIN: Yes, I mean, the challenge they have is that they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the key part of which includes those protections. Now, the Republicans will say, look, we want to scrap the parts of the ACA that we don't like, we will save those. And so they have an argument there but obviously politics is not always fair in terms of when you sort of vote to repeal a large bill and there's popular items therein that isn't always specified.

But you raised a point, though. You know, that's what Democrats are running on basically from coast to coast. You can go in a red state and a blue state, you're going to find a similar message from Democrats. They are running on healthcare. That's what they're closing with, and Republicans, it's a little bit more of a different story trying to figure out what's going to really pop.

BERMAN: And I will say Democrats have been unusually patient for Democrats on this. They were getting nervous at the beginning of the week, holding on for dear life and hoping that they hadn't blown it. I think maybe today they feel a little better than they did earlier in the week, but we will see. There still 11 days --

MARTIN: Which is real fast, I would say. If you look at the battlefield in the House, John, especially, the Republicans are putting more money into more seats. The field is widening not shortening.

BERMAN: Josh, to the president's statements about the media, and I want to talk about this in a political sense because he had a choice. He had a choice last night overnight at 3:15. He could have made a statement about the investigation. He could have reached out to the people who received these bombs, and he didn't.

Instead, he went after the media which to me also seems to be part of his closing argument. He was headed down that way before these bombs went out and he seems like he can't escape it. He can't get off his attacks on the media.

GREEN: No, he's pretty went into his subjects of attack. You know, one are immigrants, I think the other is the media. This has been a consistent winner for him all along. He obviously doesn't seem to care about the effects this is having in the real world. Apparently motivating a serial bomber to send bombs to media outlets and liberal personalities.

[08:25:00] And so I think he's doing what he always does in trying to stoke anger in his base, using the same issues that he's used all along. As Jonathan points out, I don't think that's helping him in a lot of the suburban districts that are going to decide control of the House. It may be helping the migrant issue, maybe helping in some of these red states in the Senate currently occupied by Democrats, places like North Dakota and Missouri where the Democratic incumbents are threatened.

But by and large, you know, the sign to me that this isn't really working in any kind of a broad way is that Democrats really haven't been shaken. If you look at what it is they're running ads on from coast to coast in these Democratic districts, you don't see Democratic challengers suddenly putting up ads that address the migrant crisis. They are sticking with healthcare as Republicans flail around looking from issue to issue, whether it's the media, whether it's the caravan, whether it's these late breaking claims that they've suddenly moved to Democrats left on healthcare and are going to protect pre-existing conditions. That isn't the sign I don't think of a confident party, at least not when it comes to its House races. And those are the ones I think most people are going to be focused on November 6th.

MARTIN: Yes. I was going to say, you know, if you look back to the last midterm guys in 2014, at this time, the concern was Ebola. And it was kind of similar actually. You know, there was this kind of seemingly alien threat, at least, you know, in the eyes of some people. And Republicans tried to seize on that to motivate their base. And that did worry Democrats and actually for good reason, that was a tough cycle for Democrats.

But you don't see the kind of panic. You don't see the response on the air here. I think to Josh's point, the kind of (INAUDIBLE) I've been using is, look at the home stretch. The red states and the red districts are staying red or getting redder but the purple ones are getting bluer. And that's the problem for the House, is that a lot of these House races are pointing out in the purplish territory. And I think if you look at the seats needed, 23 seats, at this point that's still very gettable for Democrats.

CAMEROTA: Josh, is it possible that both can be true, that voters can be concerned about immigration policy and concerned about their own healthcare and then who wins?

GREEN: Well, I think that depends on the district and I think it depends on the voters. I mean, sure, voters are motivated by (INAUDIBLE) of issues. You know, for certain types of Republican voters. I do think that sparking this migrant crisis will help to activate and mobilize them.

The problem is there aren't enough of these voters in these suburban House districts for that to necessarily to be a winning formula. And I think that's why you see Democrats sticking by and large with the same consistent message they've been pushing all along, focusing on healthcare. Not even when President Trump but on healthcare, kitchen table economic issues and the kinds of things that they think are going to motivate their voters and independents to go to the polls and vote for Democratic candidates.

BERMAN: Josh Green, Jonathan Martin, great to have you here. You make us smarter. Appreciate it. Come back, soon. Even in person, love to.

CAMEROTA: Particularly.

BERMAN: Back in the flesh as Alisyn likes to say.

All right, coming up, we're going to talk much more about the manhunt for a serial bomber. And joining us will be the lead Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. What has he heard overnight about the investigation?

We'll be right back.

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