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The Mall Shooter's Ex-Girlfriend Speaks Out ; Jenni Rivera's Remains Identified; Terror Agency Can Check Your Information; Rockers Raise Millions For Storm Relief; States Hit By Sandy Still Struggling; States Hit by Sandy Still Struggling; Leaders at Fiscal Cliff Logjam

Aired December 13, 2012 - 13:00   ET

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

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Suzanne Malveaux. We have just learned the Oregon mall where three people were killed is set to re- open tomorrow. We have new details. Meanwhile, we're getting details about the shooter as well. An ex-girlfriend says 22-year-old Jacob Roberts, known as Jake, had been working as a cook for more than two years. She says he was an outgoing, happy guy, skateboarder in high school, and he was a sandwich shop employee at the time of the shooting.

Here's his Facebook page. It shows the work of a street artist with a spray painted slogan, follow your dreams with a big red canceled sign across it. He writes, quote, "I may be young but I've lived one crazy life so far." He lists shooting as one of his 10 interests along with camping, rafting, sushi, and spending money. The ex-girlfriend also says Roberts told her his mother died at child birth, that he never met his father and he left his aunt's home at age 14. I want to bring in our law enforcement analyst, Mike Brooks, to talk a little bit about what we know about his profile. Is there anything that stands out in some of these details that we've learned?

MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: You know, if you look at everything totally, especially that Facebook post, it really doesn't -- nothing really jumps out at me, you know, as a former investigator, if I was going to be looking into the background of this young man. So, you know, it's the people that were closest to him. Did he exhibit any signs to them of maybe a downward spiral? You know, but looking at just what we've seen, Suzanne, they really don't see anything that really pops out.

MALVEAUX: He looks like -- I mean, if you saw all this, he would look like a normal kid to you. You would not suspect that this was somebody who was capable of going on a shooting rampage.

BROOKS: No. Unlike the suspect in Aurora, in the theater shooting, who did have, apparently, a history of mental illness and had sought help. You know, so -- but nothing at all in this guy's background.

MALVEAUX: Tell us about the weapon that he used. It was a -- it was a stolen weapon, and how it was that he was able to get that.

BROOKS: Well, he apparently took it from a friend of his. It was an AR-15, semi-automatic rifle. There's a lot of AR-15s out there in the market and a lot of people own the AR-15. They use it sometimes for target practice, some people use it for hunting, but mostly for target practice and personal protection. So, when I heard it was an AR-15, you know, it didn't surprise me at all. You know, we heard that, apparently, it did jam, but apparently he was unable -- he was able to clear that which says to me that he knew a little bit of something about this weapon to make sure that when he was able to jump the magazine and clear that weapon and continue on.

MALVEAUX: And, Mike, I want to talk about something that was -- struck us that is very important from the county sheriff.

BROOKS: Yes.

MALVEAUX: When he said there were multiple drills that had taken place in this mall, and he had 10,000 people who were actually able to escape safely. It could have been a lot worse. I want to listen to what he said.

BROOKS: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRAIG ROBERTS, SHERIFF, CLACKAMAS COUNTY, OREGON: It appeared that the suspect's rifle did jam while he was attacking individuals in the food court, however he was able to get the gun working again. Clackamas Town Center had a lockdown procedure for this type of incident, and they did a great job implementing that program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Tell us a little bit about that program. What would that have looked like if you have law enforcement officials and employees at that mall participating in drills before this actually happens?

BROOKS: See, and that's one of the key things to mall and shopping center security, Suzanne, is the relationship between law enforcement, fire and EMS. And the sheriff was right. They -- most jurisdictions, they will train and even if it's in the middle of the night when no one's in the mall, they will have -- they will go through an actual incident.

Let's say an active shooter scenario inside that mall to see how they will, you know, respond to this, where they will stage their ambulances, because I was looking at some of the video early on in this that we've seen and I saw the medic units, the ambulances lined up. I saw the fire apparatus staged in a certain area. I saw the different SWAT teams, because you had over 100 officers that responded there within a matter of minutes. That says to me that they have trained and they have drilled and they have a great mutual aid program within that whole area surrounding Portland.

MALVEAUX: You have actually had -- we've seen at least six different shooting rampage incidents --

BROOKS: Yes. MALVEAUX: -- over the last two years. Is this the kind of thing that's going to become typical where you have law enforcement actually enacting, playing, gaming this it out because it's necessary?

BROOKS: Absolutely because right after Columbine, a lot of things changed dealing with active shooters. I know I was a part of the federal law enforcement training center, part of a program putting together an active shooter program that was used around the country. And right after that, we saw law enforcement agencies going out to schools, you know, when school was out of session in the summertime, training.

When you go by a school nowadays, you look at the doors -- you look at the different entrances and you'll see numbers on them. That's all part of the preplanning that law enforcement, fire and EMS has done as a result of Columbine and a result of these active shooter scenarios we've seen play out throughout the country.

MALVEAUX: All right, Mike Brooks. Thank you, Mike. Nice to see you.

BROOKS: Thank you, Suzanne. Absolutely.

MALVEAUX: Getting some new information. We have just learned that music star, Jenni Rivera's, remains have been found. That is according to a spokesperson. As you know, Rivera died in a plane crash on Sunday. That was near Monterrey. She was one of the most celebrated musical artists, in the Latin world as well as here in Mexico and the United States, known as the diva of Banda music, and she sold over more than 15 million albums. She is really one of the most extraordinary singers. She had a reality show and a lot of people really mourning her loss and missing her. Her relatives had claimed they weren't sure if she was dead, but now we know with her remains that they have been found and identified. We also know the remains of her publicist and the plane's co-pilot have also been identified.

Well, is the government watching you? That is the question. The answer, yes, if it wants to. That is according to the "Wall Street Journal." There are new rules that are in place that, quote, "allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens even for possible criminal behavior and even if there is no reason to suspect them. The center was created back in 2004 specifically to use data to connect the dots in the fight against terrorism. I want to bring in Julia Angwin who wrote the article for today's "Wall Street Journal." She's joining us from New York.

Julia, really fascinating. And a lot of people look at that and are somewhat alarmed by what we have learned. You spent a lot of time actually taking a look at how these rules have changed. So, before, it used to be that the National Counterterrorism Center was not allowed to store this information and use this information about ordinary Americans unless that person was a terror suspect or in some sort of related investigation. Now, the rules have changed. How so? JULIA ANGWIN, EDITOR, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Thanks for having me on. You know, basically, this is a reversal of really the spy protocol throughout the intelligence community which has generally been that you should have some reason to suspect someone before you pull their files. So, you know, sometimes that net can get rather broad, like there's a suspect, and then you might, you know, investigate people that they know.

MALVEAUX: Yes.

ANGWIN: But this is really a new step where the National Counterterrorism is saying -- Center is saying, look, we just need everybody's files, and then we're going to figure out who the suspects are by looking through them.

MALVEAUX: Then how did that change? When did that change? Was that between the Bush administration? Because we know President Bush was pushing for the ability -- stronger ability to look at people in the so-called war on terror, and then the Obama administration that seems to have expanded this.

ANGWIN: Right. So, interestingly, the Bush administration issued pretty strict guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center that didn't allow this. They said, you have to have a reason to suspect someone before you pull the data. And then, what happened was on 2009 on Christmas day, there was this attempted bombing of a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, it was known as the Christmas day bomber, the guy that tried to light his underwear on fire.

MALVEAUX: Oh, right.

ANGWIN: And so, he -- after that incident, there was a huge re- examination of the policies, because it turns out that he had been a suspect but he was not flagged and he was allowed on the plane. And so, the National Counterterrorism Center, among many other agencies, came in for criticism because he had been flagged as a suspect in their files, but they hadn't sort of raised it to the next level --

MALVEAUX: And --

ANGWIN: -- so that he wasn't allowed to board the plane.

MALVEAUX: -- I think a lot of people would be surprised, too, when they look at your reporting and you realize that the changes also allow this agency to hand over databases of ordinary Americans, right, to foreign governments to allow them to do their own analysis. How did that happen?

ANGWIN: Right. Right, so after that Christmas day bombing, they asked for this new authority to get lots more data. And one of the things that they asked for and got was the ability to share entire databases with foreign governments. And they're -- you know, to be honest, we don't know exactly under what conditions that would happen. They wouldn't say. I asked them this question, but it does seem, you know -- I don't know. I personally don't want my files sent overseas. I just -- I felt a little squeamish about that. MALVEAUX: Yes, Julia, it begs the question, what happened to the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution that says, searches of persons, houses, papers and affects shouldn't be conducted without probable cause that a crime had been committed. How does --

ANGWIN: Right.

MALVEAUX: How does the government justify this?

ANGWIN: Right. So, unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to the files that the government keeps about its citizens, and those are the files the Counterterrorism Center is able to get. So, you know, when you go just do regular business with the government, you don't think that your records are going to be swept into some sort of terrorism investigation. But that's what this new change would allow. And the Fourth Amendment sadly has nothing to say about that.

MALVEAUX: Julia Angwin, thank you very much for your reporting. It is unique reporting and, of course, it has a lot of people asking questions, the very questions we've been asking about, what your right is as a private citizen in this country. Thank you.

ANGWIN: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Sure.

This view of a New Jersey roller coaster. This has really become symbolic of the devastation and the tri-state area faced after Superstorm Sandy. Well, six weeks now after the storm, the area is still trying to recover. And some lawmakers on Capitol Hill today, they are fighting now for federal aid. We're going to hear from the Hoboken mayor, Dawn Zimmer.

Plus, the founder of CNN, Ted Turner, he has this to say about the conflict in the Middle East.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED TURNER, FOUNDER, CNN: The big, intelligent, well-educated countries have already quit war. You don't see France getting ready to go to war with Germany or Russia getting to go to war with Poland. That used to happen all the time but it's not happening

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Two of New Jersey's famous sons singing for storm relief, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi joined dozens of other stars at a concert last night in New York, benefitting the hurricane victims of Sandy. A 12-12-12 concert featuring line-up right out of rock and roll hall fame, Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney all performing their biggest hits. Organizers raised about $30 million in ticket sales alone. Donations during this televised show also expected to push that even higher. The money, it is needed very badly. The storm caused 10s of billions of dollars in damage in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, all of the places, people from towns hit hard by the hurricane. Well, some of them, now, are on Capitol Hill today. They are painting a pretty vivid picture of this massive damage that was done in their communities. I want to talk about this. Joining us live from the Russell Rotunda, Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer. Mayor Zimmer, you were testifying this morning before the Senate here, talking about -- specifically how small businesses have struggled here. Tell us about what is going on in Hoboken. What do you need?

DAWN ZIMMER, MAYOR, HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY: Well, yes, I mean, first and foremost, my -- part of my message is that Hoboken is very much open for business. We've got fantastic restaurants and nightlife and shopping and Washington Street was not flooded. But many of our businesses have been impacted by the closure of the path, 60 percent. Some businesses are reporting as much as 60 percent down in business. But, you know, my main concern is the 200 or so businesses that are off of Washington Street who are struggling to either stay open, they're operating in an alternate location or, you know, are, you know, potentially over these next several months going to be forced to close down. So that's my focus right now and --

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: So, -- sure. I understand there was $100 million in damage in Hoboken. What is the main source of revenue for helping people get back to work and get back to business?

ZIMMER: Well, for businesses, the only -- the only option for them from the federal government is an SBA loan. And that SBA loan is either at 4 -- or, ironically, if you have better credit, it's at 6 percent. And it's, you know, in this economic climate when businesses have already taken loans, they just can't afford to take on so much more debt. So I was advocating today for direct grants for the businesses, which is not currently available, for much lower loan rates. I mean, for an individual, you can get a rate of 1.6 percent. Can we do that for businesses as well? And also raising awareness about the basement issue, which is a huge, huge challenge both for businesses and for our residents of Hoboken. It's -- you know, it's basically, if you are operating your business in what we call a garden style -- you have a garden style business, it's considered a basement and you get very limited coverage for flood insurance.

MALVEAUX: When you spoke with the senators, what did they -- were they receptive to your ideas? Did it sound like they were willing to cough over more money and more support?

ZIMMER: Well, I mean, I think, you know, Chairwoman Landrieu, I mean I have to hand it to her, I mean she really highlighted the numbers when you consider the impact. You know, it's four -- between New York and New Jersey, it's over 450,000 businesses that could be lost and there were only 18,000 with Hurricane Katrina that -- which they thought was devastating. So really, I mean, I'm hopeful that Congress will looks at this as, you know, this is -- the economic engine, you know, of the United States really. I mean the northeast is very important economically. And so we need to be looking, as quickly as possible --

MALVEAUX: Sure.

ZIMMER: At how we can support our businesses. And they were very receptive. I mean some of them were very receptive. One senator didn't really believe me on the basement issue and he's going to be looking into it. But it will require an act of Congress to change the rules which right now are very, very unfair to our local businesses and to our residents.

MALVEAUX: And the concert -- speak a little bit about the concert. The 12/12/12 concert that happened last night raising tens of millions of dollars in relief there. Pretty impressive. What was your, you know, what was your feelings about that when you saw that?

ZIMMER: Well, I think it's fantastic. I think it's -- I mean, obviously, we're going to need as much money as possible. I do recognize the federal government can't do everything and so that's why locally we are starting up a rebuildhoboken.org, where we're trying to do fund-raising locally and we're going to be, you know, trying to get support, especially again, because in Hoboken we face the huge insurance gap. And that's a huge problem where people are just not getting, you know, really barely any coverage for their loss, both for business and the residences. So we really appreciate the concert that they had. It's fantastic.

MALVEAUX: All right, we wish -- we wish -- we wish you -- we wish everybody in Hoboken really recovery and assistance, and we appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

ZIMMER: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Sure.

Coming up, I sat down with media mogul Ted Turner. Why he says no to nukes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: I think nobody should have them. That way either we all have them or nobody has them. We play by the same rules.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: A whole lot of pushing, shoving, shouting. Not a wrestling match, of course. At least not a professional one. These are lawmakers in the Ukraine. The fighting started when opposition members accused two party members of changing their political views, tried to block them from actually being sworn in. Several people actually injured from all this craziness. Dana Bash, our CNN congressional correspondent, joining us from Capitol Hill.

Dana, at least I don't think it looks that way over there yet, right? Scary, huh?

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boy, does this put -- this puts things in perspective, doesn't it, Suzanne. I mean we think -- we think it's bad that they're not talking to each other, but maybe if it ends up like that in certain parts of the world, not talking is not such a bad thing.

MALVEAUX: Yes, it hasn't got -- devolved into that quite yet. But, Dana, where are we, seriously, with this -- the idea of compromise? Is there any solution here to not going over the fiscal cliff?

BASH: We heard a lot of the same today from leaders in both parties. From the speaker coming out and saying that the president's got to put more spending cuts on the table, and from the Democratic leaders say that the Republicans just have to give on agreeing to raise tax rates for the wealthy. So, no.

And, guess what? We just heard from our Deirdre Walsh, our House producer, that the House speaker is going to go home this weekend. They reminded us that there are phones and airplanes in his home state of Ohio, but he's not going to --

MALVEAUX: Really?

BASH: But he's not going to be here. They're going to hopefully talk on the phone, but no face-to-face meetings.

MALVEAUX: So, Dana, you actually talked to a couple of guys who spent their careers in Congress making deals, and they talk about how they did it. Tell us a little bit about that, their insights here.

BASH: A really -- had a really fascinating conversation with the former Republican leader, Senate leader, Trent Lott, and the former Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, who were on opposite sides of the table for almost 10 years. I covered them for a large part of that. And I asked about, you know, kind of, what was different back then versus now. And specifically since they both have cut deals, I started by asking Senator Lott, in this particular part of the interview, whether or not his party just has to understand that they're probably going to have to give on those tax rates for the wealthy. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRENT LOTT (R), FORMER SENATOR: There will come a moment when the speaker is going to have to, you know, make a decision on that, and the president is going to have to make a decision on what he's doing to do in return on spending. But they need to do it in concert. It's like directing the orchestra. You've got to have the winds and the brass come together and they're not quite there.

BASH: Or maybe hold hands and jump off the cliff together?

LOTT: Well, it would be -- it would be -- it would be a --

TOM DASCHLE (D), FORMER SENATOR: There are a lot of metaphors you can use.

LOTT: Yes. It would be more fun on the way down. At least you'd have company.

DASCHLE: The time has come for us to put our country ahead of our party.

LOTT: Yes.

DASCHLE: And that's really what it's going to take, putting the country ahead of the party, dealing with these issues, not with concern about the next primary or the next election, but as the old expression goes, the next generation. This is that opportunity.

LOTT: It is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Suzanne, I got to tell you, this interview made me nostalgic. Certainly there were very tough times when these two ran the Senate, but, you know, you kind of always knew that they were -- they, along with whoever was president at the time, whether it was Clinton or Bush, that they were going to get some deal done. Different from today for sure.

MALVEAUX: Yes, definitely a different feel. Dana, thank you so much.

If you want to see more of Dana's report, go to "The Situation Room" tonight. I understand we're going to see a lot more of those two former leaders.

Dana, really appreciate it.

If we go off the fiscal cliff, we're all going to pay higher taxes. But if Republicans and Democrats agree to go along with the Obama administration's plan, just the wealthiest 2 percent are going to see that tax increase. Well, billionaire Ted Turner says that's fine with him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: You're a successful person. You have many different ventures. Do you think you should pay more as a wealthy American? Do you think you should pay more taxes?

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: Yes.

MALVEAUX: How much?

TURNER: You know, whatever's reasonable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Whatever's reasonable. We'll find out.

Plus, why the media mogul says war is now a thing of the past. My interview with Ted Turner, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MALVEAUX: Tackling huge challenges head on, something Ted Turner is not afraid to do, whether it's starting the world's first round the clock cable news network, CNN, or pushing for major action on issues like climate change and nuclear weapons. Ted Turner, he's a force to be reckoned with. I sat down with him to talk about what he thinks President Obama should make a top priority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: President Obama, he says in his second term he wants to make climate change and protecting the environment a top priority. What do you think he should do? What should he do first?

TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: He should do it. Do what he said he was going to do.

MALVEAUX: What's that?

TURNER: And that's why -- go ahead and make climate change and the other environmental issues a top priority. I'd like to see him add -- might as well as getting rid of nuclear weapons to while we're at it. We're going to make the world safer and better. We might as well make -- go all the way.

MALVEAUX: Eliminate nuclear weapons?

TURNER: Weapons. That will stop nuclear proliferation.

MALVEAUX: Do you think it's fair for what the Obama administration is doing now for Iran? It says, Iran, you can't have nuclear weapons but we can.

TURNER: No, it won't work, because we have thousands of nuclear weapons. How can we look with a straight face into any other country and say, you can't have two? Particularly when we said it was OK for Israel to have 100.

MALVEAUX: Do you think, if Iran has nuclear weapons, it would be a dangerous situation?

TURNER: It's already a dangerous situation.

MALVEAUX: How so?

TURNER: Because Russian and the United States have nuclear weapons. Israel has them. Pakistan has them.