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New Day
Gunman Kills 49 in Mosque in New Zealand; New Zealand Mosque Shooter Livestreamed the Attack. Aired 8-8:30a ET
Aired March 15, 2019 - 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: The accused gunman is believed to have posted an 87-page manifesto on social media. It is full of white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric. The White House put out a statement a short time ago condemning the attack as a, quote, vicious act of hate. President Trump himself tweeted just moments ago. He says "My warmest sympathy and best wishes go out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the mosques, 49 innocent people have so senselessly died with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all."
Let's get right to CNN's Anna Coren live in Hong Kong with all the breaking details. Anna?
ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, as you say, 49 people have been killed in this terror attack. But there are dozens more that have been seriously injured. So that death toll could very well rise.
We believe that the gunman for both of these attacks, he's been arrested as have two other men. But that gunman, a 28-year-old Australian citizen, he livestreamed his killing spree on social media, on Facebook. And it was just horrendous to watch. He talks through it. He laughs through it. But he is cold, he is calm, and he is calculated. You would have to assume that he's had a great deal of training. There was a great amount of planning that was involved in this attack. But he rained terror on the city of Christchurch. It's the third largest city of New Zealand, a country with a population of just 5 million people. This is a peace-loving, welcoming country that allows migrants in, allows Muslims in to make a home. And the terror that he rained down on this city has just rocked the nation.
Let's take a listen to what one of the witnesses who managed to escape had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just keep firing and firing at this. Small window, I tried to open them. It was very hard. But I smashed the window. The firings just keep going. People were waiting outside. They say, what's going on? I said just run away from the mosque.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COREN: So Alisyn, just horrific details of what took place in Christchurch. But this gunman, he was wearing a helmet camera. As we say, this was livestreamed. I watched the full 17 minutes of him arriving at the mosque, taking out his weaponry, the semi-automatic weapons, walking inside the mosque, mowing down dozens and dozens of people, returning to his car, getting more ammunition, killing people on the pavement, walking back inside that mosque and finishing off the job. He walked up to those victims slumped, lying on the ground at point blank range, and executed them. It was absolutely awful to watch, one of the most horrific things I'd that I have ever had to witness. Alisyn?
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm sorry you had to watch it. So sorry you had to go through that. And it is repugnant that this man, this killer taped it and filmed it live.
CAMEROTA: It's just another level of the depravity and the sickening nature of all of this.
BERMAN: Joining us now is Josh Campbell, former FBI supervisory special agent and a CNN law enforcement analyst who worked counterterrorism investigations in Australia and New Zealand, Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, and Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary, Department of Homeland Security, and a CNN national security analyst. Josh, I want to start with you. I want to really quickly get to the bigger picture here of hate-filled killings around the world and what might be inspiring them. Before we do get to that, though, with your investigatory experience, tell us what's happening now. What threads are being followed? What's necessary to figure out in these first 24 hours?
JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So there are so many aspects to this investigation. Let's start with the actual crime scenes. We have two mosques that obviously have the scene of a deadly loss of life. So investigators are going through those locations right now and gathering evidence separately from that. There are witnesses that are being interviewed, again, to provide information. What did they say? That will get into whether police officials actually are confident that they have in custody everyone that was involved. A witness may see something, see someone fleeing that might be an additional lead that law enforcement officials will need. Again, we're trying to figure out how large this actual network is. So there is that piece.
Now investigators are actually going to be digging into the subjects themselves. What was their role, what was their background? Again, what was it that they do to plan and to execute this attack? We'll get into that additional question whether there are other people that might be involved.
And beyond that, and I can say happening in New Zealand, having worked with officials in New Zealand and Australia, New Zealand is part of what we call the Five Eye Arrangement. We've been talking about this overnight. This is a group of five nations, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, that share information on a daily basis. These countries have liaison officers assigned to different countries. They share information rapidly. [08:05:08] And what we can expect is going on behind the scenes right
now is those officials in the different countries are going through intelligence holdings, trying to determine do they have any piece of information that may insist investigators there in New Zealand, anything that may have been collected once they have identifiers of the subject, they want to see is anything derogatory that they can share. So this is going to be an international investigation. Again, we don't yet know if there are any global threads to this. But again, that is going to be going on behind the scenes.
And then the last piece, officials will be interviewing the subject to try to determine anything they can glean as far as what took place and as far as the motive, John.
CAMEROTA: Juliette, I used to love hearing about investigations. I was a crime reporter. I used to love all the details, the nuts and bolts of an investigation. Now, all we know is that there is an uptick in rightwing terrorism around the globe. Domestically there is an uptick in these kinds of arrests. It feels like the investigative tools that we have, and we do, and thank God for investigators, it's not stopping this from happening. What is the solution to the uptick that we are seeing everywhere?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Unfortunately, it is more than an uptick. This has been noted over the last couple of years is that the sort of rise of whatever you want to call it, rightwing extremism, white nationalism, not just as an ideology but of course as a motivation for a terrorist attacks has been on the increase. We see it here in the United States. While the public's sense of terrorism is that it's ISIS inspired, in fact it is a three to one ratio when you look at even FBI numbers.
So part of it is clearly a sense as the world becomes more global and as it becomes more diverse and as cities like in New Zealand and Christchurch become, are accepting of the other, there are people who view that as a threat, whether they fear the displacement, misplacement, anti-immigration. And they also, as I have been saying, view it as a zero-sum game. It isn't just simply that I hate my neighbor. It is that my neighbor, my new neighbor, actually displaces my capacity to have a free life. And that sense of zero-sum game is what animates the ideology and the literature and the public amplification and the political amplification that we are seeing in places like -- for example, like in Australia, which has a big sentiment there, but obviously Europe and the United States.
It's got to be toned down from the top. And then you have your traditional counterterrorism tools. Find it, name it, isolate it, arrest them, and try to stop them before they do it. But we've got to name it. And it is what it is, which is this is an anti-Islam, an attack against a mosque. And it is white supremacy terrorism.
BERMAN: And it's terrorism, period, full stop. And people say it's New Zealand. It's far away. The rhetoric is not far away at all. The language of invasion, which is all over the manifesto, was the same language used by the Pittsburgh killer in the synagogue. Invasion is also language that's been used in political campaign ads by the president before the midterm elections. The language of replacement in the manifesto. And Farhana, we heard white supremacists chant "Jews will not replace us" in Charlottesville. This isn't happening in New Zealand. It's happening everywhere, and very, very close to home. So these white supremacist movements around the world, why is this language important to them?
FARHANA KHERA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF MUSLIM ADVOCATES: Right. And I would go further to say why they are seeing inspiration from our own president, John, is you have a president who, when he was a candidate, talked about banning Muslims from entering this country. And then as president, one of his first acts as a policy matter was to put in place that policy. And that policy was cheered on by these white nationalist groups. Our president then called those neo-Nazi marchers very fine people.
And now the shooter according to these reports specifically invoked our president as an inspiration and said he was a symbol of the white identity movement. So I know earlier the president tweeted a message of sympathy to the victims, but the president and the United States needs to go further. President Trump needs to specifically condemn and disavow and disassociate himself from this shooter and from the white nationalist movement.
CAMEROTA: Farhana, you are keeping it together emotionally a lot better than I am this morning.
(LAUGHTER)
CAMEROTA: You are so rational and so reasonable.
KHERA: I shed tears last evening. So it's --
CAMEROTA: Of course. Of course. But I wondering if you can, again, just share with us some of the conversation of the Muslim community is forced to have this morning.
KHERA: It's just heartbreaking. The fact that people, a house of worship is a sacred, sacred place for not just Muslims, but people of all faith. And to see that shattered, and not just vandalism on the side of the wall, but a man so barbarically enter the premises and gun down men, women, and children. And it's heartbreaking. It's one of greatest fears coming to reality. And if it can happen in New Zealand, it can happen in the United States. And so there is a very real, great fear about that.
But I'm also so proud of the American Muslim community. We have been through a lot these last few years. Our mosques have been fire- bombed. We have been attacked. But people are resilient. We are not stopping from going to mosques and worshiping and reaching out to our friends and our neighbors. And so we are going to get through this. But we're also going to demand more action from our elected officials in law enforcement to protect us and all Americans from this white nationalist threat.
CAMEROTA: That's really powerful. Very quickly, Juliette. KAYYEM: Just every mayor should deploy additional resources to
mosques tonight, not because there is a specific threat, but to repeat what Farhana said, which is these are places of worship that we respect and we want to secure the ability of people to pray and celebrate their community and religion tonight. So I urge mayors to do that tonight.
BERMAN: Well said.
CAMEROTA: Farhana, Juliette, Josh, thank you all very much.
Now to this. North Korea is threatening to pull out of nuclear talks, and more importantly, they are also threatening to resume missile testing. Breaking details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:15:00]
CAMEROTA: OK, we do have a little breaking news. Moments ago, National Security Advisor John Bolton came out and met cameras. He talked about the massacre in New Zealand, as well as what's happening with North Korea. So listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: To follow up on the statement, I think, Sarah Sanders just put out, we're obviously greatly disturbed by this, what seems to be a terror attack, this hate crime in New Zealand. We've been in touch with our embassy overnight.
We're still getting details, but the State Department and others are following up on it. We're very concerned. We're going to cooperate with the New Zealand authorities to the extent we can, if there's any role that we can play. But we're obviously following the events there very closely. That -- that's really all I can say on that at the moment.
(CROSSTALK)
JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: North Korea's -- one of their top officials said you and the secretary of state created an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust that thwarted the Hanoi talks. What's your response to that?
BOLTON: Well, I -- I think that's inaccurate, but the president is our decision-maker. I've seen the statement you're referring to. Just within the past hour, I've spoken to my South Korean counterpart, and we've discussed their reaction and our reaction. But I'd like to speak further within the U.S. Government before we respond.
Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right. That was National Security Advisor John Bolton. The question's being asked there by CNN's Joe Johns. Joining us now, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois; he's a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER, R-IL, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: You bet.
BERMAN: I got to say. We love having you on the show. Thank you so much for coming in. It stinks --
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: -- it's on a day like today.
KINZINGER: Yes, yes.
BERMAN: It just stinks. Forty-nine people killed, massacred while they were praying in mosques, in an apparent anti-Muslim, anti- immigrant attack. Your reaction?
KINZINGER: Yes, it's disgusting. I mean, you know, anytime somebody of faith is targeted for any reason, really, anytime anybody's targeted, innocent, for any reason, it's disgusting. To see this is especially disgusting. You know I am praying for these people. And I know, when I say thoughts and prayers are with these folks, I mean it.
I mean, that this is time where we need the god of the universe to step in and to change people's hearts, because for somebody to wake up, decide to grab a bunch of guns, decide to murder innocent people, even if they're a different religion, to me, is just the pure epitome of disgusting evil.
BERMAN: You ask for god to change people's hearts.
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: I have a question for you? Does god need to change people's language? And I ask you that because this killer apparently, in a screed, some people call it a manifesto, said he is a supporter of President Trump as a "symbol of white identity." Why would anyone see the president as a symbol as white identity?
KINZINGER: I think god needs to change people's hearts, and I beg he does. He needs to change the language, but you cannot put this on President Trump.
BERMAN: I'm not putting it on President Trump. There's one man who pulled the trigger here, OK.
KINZINGER: Right. Yes.
BERMAN: The person who is giving a sign of allegiance to President Trump is the killer here. He calls him a symbol of white identity.
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: The language he uses in this manifesto is all about invaders. It's all about invaders, which is similar language to the killer at the synagogue in Pittsburgh. It's also language that President Trump used in a campaign ad before the midterm election. The word "invader" means something to white supremacists around the world. Why?
KINZINGER: So I think, again, to make the connection of a president saying I'm concerned, for instance, with illegal immigration -
BERMAN: He says invaders.
KINZINGER: Hold on. But to say that and then to go a guy that's willing to kill 50 people, he may make a connection and say President Trump's my idol. That doesn't put it on President Trump. I don't know what a sick man that would decide to kill 49 people innocently was thinking.
I don't want to have any idea, frankly, what was in his mind. But what I know is this. It cannot be connected. We cannot sit here and say what is it that President Trump is doing that's somehow triggering these people. This is an evil man that made a decision to murder 49 people. And that is on him and frankly the evil in his heart.
BERMAN: If this monster is hearing something in the word invader and the president is using the word invader --
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: -- can the president really not do anything?
KINZINGER: Well, I think -- look -- the president can come out and reaffirm, as he did in his statement and as we'll see on Twitter, where he's like, this is disgusting and wrong. He can say it in his verbal language. But for somebody to be triggered to evil and put in some manifesto and then the president says things like -- look, I don't agree with all the president's language on immigration. I want to be clear about that. But I don't think -
BERMAN: Do you agree with the invasion language?
KINZINGER: No, I think it's an invasion. I think there're things when it comes to drug cartels and -
BERMAN: And you've just been at the border, and I know, and I've heard you talk about that. I haven't ever heard you use the word invader there.
KINZINGER: No.
BERMAN: And I'm just telling you what these people are seeing -
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: -- and he's using the word -- I mean, you know, we're not showing this manifesto, but the title of it is "The Great Replacement."
KINZINGER: Yes. BERMAN: Where'd we hear replacement? I heard it in Charlottesville, when those white supremacists were chanting, "Jews will not replace us."
KINZINGER: Yes.
[08:20:00]
BERMAN: People that president called "very fine people." You know, Twitter is everywhere -
KINZINGER: I agree with you (ph).
BERMAN: -- television's everywhere. People hear this, and if you're a monster and you hear the president of the United States say that, what are you supposed to do?
KINZINGER: Yes. So I'm not -- I'm not defending all of the president's language on this stuff. What I am saying, though, is if you look back to the Holocaust where six million Jews were killed and Hitler basically brought a whole group of people into evil thinking to do what they did, that was way before President Trump.
This -- this anti -- this hate for people, whether it's a religion or whether it's race, has existed since the beginning of humanity. This person, this disgusting animal, is evil. And if President Trump's language triggered him, that wasn't intentional; it wasn't President Trump triggering. It was just saying, though, this is a disgusting person that, frankly, deserves, I think, to do. I'm not sure what his future's going to be in New Zealand.
BERMAN: Does he -- does the president need to stop? If people are perceiving this language to mean something, does he need to stop using it?
KINZINGER: Yes, I mean -- yes, I -- again, I'm not going to paint the connection, but I do think -
BERMAN: But you -- but you can tell the president to stop using it.
KINZINGER: Yes, I think the president shouldn't use terms like invasion and hordes. But I also think, though, that -- that doesn't mean he can't be passionate about the fact that he wants to stop illegal immigration.
BERMAN: You're -- you're as passionate as anyone I've ever met -
KINZINGER: But again -
BERMAN: You're as passionate as anyone I've ever met on the issue.
KINZINGER: I am.
BERMAN: And you just went to the border, and you came back, and I haven't heard you use the word invader. KINZINGER: No. But again, I think, though, saying -- it's one thing
to say change your language or use a different language, but the connection cannot be made. I firmly believe it. You cannot make a connection of what was said versus -
BERMAN: I -- I'm not. He's making -- the killer made the connection.
KINZINGER: Yes, he's also a disgusting animal that killed 49 people.
BERMAN: He's absolutely a disgusting animal here who's hearing something. He is hearing something, and I'm just telling you what he's saying.
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: All right, North Korea. We just heard breaking news on North Korea. Kim Jong-un, you know, is suspending nuclear talks -- that already happened -- but the new language is considering new missile tests. The president came back from this meeting and said he got a promise that Kim Jong-un wasn't going to do missile tests.
KINZINGER: It'll be interesting to see. Here's where the president needs to go on this, in my view, is we need to go back to having the stick option on the table. That doesn't mean threatening military action, but that means resuming the large-scale military exercises, making clear we're staying in South Korea, making sure sanctions are enforced. This is a time where we have to inflict pain on North Korea to make it clear they're not going to do what they've been doing for 40 years, down the wrong river with us.
BERMAN: You were part of a remarkable vote, yes, in the House of Representatives. Four-hundred and twenty -
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: -- to nothing, that's pretty unanimous.
KINZINGER: Was that the Mueller Report? Yes -
BERMAN: Yes.
KINZINGER: -- it was unanimous.
BERMAN: This vote was that the House of Representatives, Republicans and Democrats wants the public release -
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: -- of the Mueller report. The House passed that resolution; it goes to the Senate, blocked by Lindsey Graham.
KINZINGER: I don't know. You have to ask him. I think, look, in my view, America's paying for this Mueller investigation. I said, from the beginning, you know, we want to know what's in it and -
BERMAN: He doesn't, apparently. KINZINGER: Yes, I don't know his reason. I just know that he said that. I think it needs to be brought out to public. Four-hundred and twenty people in the House of Representatives did. I think he'll -- he'll (ph) be in good shape.
BERMAN: All right. Adam Kinzinger, a congressman from Illinois, again, thank you for being with us.
KINZINGER: Yes.
BERMAN: Please come back. And one day, it'll be under better circumstances.
KINZINGER: Yes, certainly.
BERMAN: I appreciate it.
KINZINGER: Thank you.
BERMAN: (Inaudible) Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: The terror attack in New Zealand puts President Trump's violent rhetoric into focus. Do his words matter? We'll discuss it next -
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:25:00]
CAMEROTA: Breaking news this morning. At least 49 people were murdered in a terror attack in New Zealand. Muslims were targeted during Friday prayers at two mosques in the city of Christchurch. The gunman is believed to have posted an 87-page manifesto on social media. It is full of white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders put out this statement, quote, "The United States strongly condemns the attack in Christchurch. Our thoughts and prayers are with victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with the people of New Zealand and their government against this vicious act of hate."
President Trump tweeted this. "My warmest sympathy and best wishes go out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the mosques. Forty-nine innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all."
Let's bring in Dana Bash who's our CNN chief political correspondent, and John Avlon, CNN senior political analyst. John, you've got -- you've just been looking through the so-called manifesto that authorities believe at the moment, though these are early hours, are connected to this gunman. And he talks about invaders.
I mean, the language in it is language that we've heard before -- very close to home -- some of the same language the president has used in his campaign ad before the midterms. It's just rife with that stuff, of someone who just -- he's just a white supremacist.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I mean, again, we need to be careful about -- about the -- what's in here, but he language is all resonant of kind of white nationalist, white identity politics -- extremist that goes back to the Christian militia movement in the 1990s. There's a flow-through of this, and you can see it, some of the rhetoric at Charlottesville, some of the rhetoric we've seen outside Tree of Life. It's all of a piece.
And that itself speaks to, I think, the troubling nature of what we're confronting. That is not to say there is responsibility for incitement, but it is part of a larger echo of a conversation that's occurring on the extreme, sometimes in the deeper recesses of the internet. And in there identity groups that feel deeply aggrieved that are striking out against feels of change often direct it at Muslims and migrants.
BERMAN: It's in the deep recesses, but it bubbles over into broad daylight.
AVLON: Oh, very -
BERMAN: And sometimes, if you talk about invaders, if you talk about replacement. When you talk about birth rates -- I mean, in that manifesto your hand is on, which we're not quoting from, but it's all over it.
AVLON: Yes, and this is rhetoric we have seen percolating. And sometimes it gets picked up by powerful people. And when they echo it with their megaphones, that -- that has a real effect in people's minds because it legitimates them -- it legitimizes it. And so, this is what we are seeing in these early hours, this horrific massacre at a mosque in New Zealand.
CAMEROTA: Dana, your thoughts?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look. This is tough. I mean, let's just call it what it is. It's very tough because you do want to assign blame, as Adam Kinzinger was saying to you very forcefully, John Berman, in the last segment, to President Trump or anyone in particular for somebody who is a nut job and an animal and every other synonym you can come up with.
[08:30:10]
