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Obama: Terror, Climate Change Threat Not Unrelated; U.S. and China Discuss Roles, Responsibilities in Climate Change; Officer Charged With Murders Posts Bond; Investigators Believe Planned Parenthood Shooter Acted Alone; The Manhunt for Salah Abdeslam. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired December 01, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN HOST: He was working on the Russia and allies about the need to unite against ISIS. And, he says the catastrophic predictions of global warming are urgent enough that they could ultimately affect the global war on terror.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know some have asked why the world would dedicate some of our focus right now to combating climate change even as we worked to protect our people and go after terrorist networks.

The reason is because this one trend. Climate change, affects all trends. If we let the world keep warming as fast as it is, and sea levels rising as fast as they are, and weather patterns keep shifting in more unexpected ways, then before long we are going to have to devote more and more and more of our economic and military resources, not to growing opportunity for our people but to adapting to the various consequences of a changing planet. This is an economic and security imperative that we have to tackle now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta is in Paris, and Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and current Professor of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government is with me, too.

Welcome to both of you. Jim, I want to start with you. So, the president has connected climate change and terrorism. I can kind of see some in our audience rolling their eyes. What is he trying to say?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know -- yes, I mean this is something that Chris Christie, Donald Trump, they have all seized on in the last 24 to 48 hours. But, you know, I had a chance to ask Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Adviser to the President yesterday about this, because it does seem to be this odd juxtaposition.

And, what they are saying inside the White House is that imagine if the president had changed his plans or imagine if Paris had canceled the Climate Summit, what message would that have sent to the world?

And, so, the concern inside the White House is that it would have handed ISIS a victory, had this Climate Summit been canceled. And, so, they are sort of turning the argument around and saying, "No, you cannot cancel a Climate Change Summit just because of what happened two weeks ago.

But, at the same time, as you heard the president say there, we have heard this from administration officials over the last several months, as they have been preparing for this Climate Change Summit, they do believe that this issue of global warming, this issue of rising sea levels, which could really harm countries with low-lying population centers could become a major national security issue for the U.S.

And, it is something that has to be dealt with, not just because the Earth is warming, but because there might be national security consequences of all of this decades down the road.

COSTELLO: One of the democrats running for president, Bernie Sanders, put it much more starkly. Let us listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN DICKERSON, CBS NEWS, "FACE THE NATION": Senator Sanders, you said you want to rid the planet of ISIS. In the previous debate, you said the greatest threat to national security was climate change. Do you still believe that?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I-VT) DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Absolutely. In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And, if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you are going to see countries all over the world -- this is what the CIA says, they are going to be struggling over limited amounts water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops, and are going to see all sorts of international conflict.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And, so Ambassador Burns, the CIA Director John Brennan said this -- he said, "Extreme weather is exacerbating food and water shortages that make populations vulnerable to extremism." What do you say?

NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: I think that there is a direct link between the potential for climate change and deteriorating security conditions around the world. Carol, it is interesting for me to listen to all of this. We are the only country in the world, I think, where the climate science is being challenged by significant political party and a significant part of our political leadership, on the center in the right, the Republican Party.

That is not happening from the rest of the world. From my students here at the Harvard Kennedy School, younger people in their 20s, this is the issue of their generation. And, there is widespread acceptance around the world that the science is correct and that this conference in Paris is actually a critical step to begin to mitigate against the worst dangers and lower carbon emissions.

And, the United States is kind of the outlier here in terms of our political discussion. For the president, this is going to be one of his hallmark achievements. He is the first president to put forward a comprehensive policy and to make this a priority in foreign policy.

I think that gives us a leadership role. It gives us more credibility than we have had before. And, I hope our domestic conversation here is going to catch up with where the rest of the world is.

COSTELLO: Jim, I do not think it is. Do you?

ACOSTA: Well, I think the world is getting its act together when it comes to climate change. We are seeing that here in Paris when you have nearly every country on earth committing to these carbon reduction goals, that is progress.

[09:35:00] And, keep in mind, China, they used to be carved out of these climate agreements in the past. China is on board with the United States. You know, as you recall, last year in Beijing, President Obama, President Xi hammered out that climate agreement to lower carbon emissions over the next couple of decades.

And, so, this is happening. And, Carol, you know, the scientists are right on this. If you look at the hottest years on record, they have been in the last couple of decades, if you look at what is happening to the arctic ice, it is melting dramatically. If you look at what is happening to the glaciers in Greenland.

If you are looking at the sea ice shelf in Antarctica, you know, scientists are warning if those ice shelves go away, sea levels will rise 10 to 20 feet over the coming decades and you are already seeing sea level rise problems in Miami Beach. Imagine what might happen in the next few decades if you see that kind of dramatic rise in sea levels to Manhattan and Washington, D.C.

And, so, this is something that the world is going to have it deal with. The science is there. And, you know, the question becomes, what does the united states do about it? What does the rest of the world do about it and they are trying to tackle that problem here in Paris? And, the president sounded very confident. He sounded more confident about climate change than he did about tackling ISIS, quite frankly.

COSTELLO: Well, there is the thing. And, Ambassador Burns, I want to bring that up, because most Americans maybe they would think, "Yes, climate change is a concern." But, that is a concern for the future. ISIS, terrorism, is an immediate concern that needs to be dealt with. So, why are we joining these two? We have to concentrate on one, fight it, defeat it.

BURNS: Well, there is no tradeoff here. The United States is the world's greatest global power. So, we got to be able to do five things at once every day. We should obviously focus on ISIS. And, I think, for instance, Hillary Clinton has been right to say, we need to defeat ISIS, not just contain it and the president needs to be more aggressive in that fight.

But, I think it is wrong to criticize the president for spending 48 hours at a climate change conference and to somehow insinuate that he is not paying attention to the rest of the world. He is. He used his meetings with Narendra Modi of India and Xi Jinping of China and many other world leaders to talk about the ISIS problem because they were all together.

But, we got to be able to juggle lots of different issues. And, to somehow assert that we only do one thing and focus on one thing. That is just not how we have ever operated for 70 years as a global power. And, I think President Obama has balanced is very effectively over the last couple of days.

COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Ambassador Burns, Jim Acosta, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a Chicago man jailed for threatening a mass shooting at a college campus. Why he may have been planning that attack?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:47:00] COSTELLO: The Chicago police officer, who shot and killed Laquan McDonald is out of jail this morning. A barrage of media on head as officer Jason Van Dyke posted bond last night. And, while Van Dyke is out, another man is now in.

A 21-year-old Jabari Dean. Police say Dean posted that online threat targeting the University of Chicago forcing the campus to close. Dean's threat was apparently to avenge Laquan McDonald's death. CNN's Ryan Young live in Chicago with more on that. Good morning.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Just a strange occurrence. We were on campus yesterday, I can tell you, you could hear a pin drop on that campus. We did not see anyone around for most of the afternoon.

Of course, we were all wondering, why the school closed? What was the threat? And, of course, now the threat has been released, so we can read it for ourselves. I will share this information with you. This was posted online.

"This is my only warning at 10:00 A.M. on Monday morning, I am going to campus quad of the University of Chicago. I will be armed with an M-4 carbine and two desert eagles all fully loaded. I will execute approximately 16 white male students and/or staff, which is the same number of time McDonald was killed.

I then will die killing any number of white policemen that I can in the process. This is not a joke. I am going to do my part to rid the world of white devils. I expect you to do the same."

Now, this was written on an internet site. Jabari Dean was captured and arrested. His uncle yesterday talked after the court appearance and said that his nephew was a creampuff and that he just wrote this on the internet as a way of expressing his anger.

Of course, no one was taking this lightly. And, of course, that campus was shut down. People are obviously reacting to this as you see this on this note, and it was kind of -- now they are moving to the next part, which is what we are told is they will do a task force --

Will create a task force here in the city of Chicago, where they want to have citizen leaders as well as police officers all come together, so they can start looking at some of these claims from the community to try to bring people together. Look, all this has been going on for several days here in Chicago, people upset. And, you can see how this has kind of transformed over the last few days. Carol?

COSTELLO: So, going back to this threat, I mean who is this kid? Does he attend the University of Chicago? And, what are the penalties for putting such things online?

YOUNG: Well, he was a student at the University of Chicago. He has been charged with transmitting a threat and interstate commerce. We do know that the judge said -- somebody in court said, basically, that they will not push against his bonds.

So, we believe he will be released to his mother. A lot of this is still developing. Obviously, with the threats this seriously, people are watching this stuff and obviously he will be facing some serious charges. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right. Ryan Young reporting live from Chicago this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, is this the home of a suspected killer? What we are learning about the man accused of killing three people at a Planned Parenthood Clinic.

[09:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Investigators say they believe the man accused of the Planned Parenthood killings acted alone. Robert Lewis Dean appeared via video in court for the first time yesterday, just two days after the shooting spree that killed three people.

Police say Dear moved from North Carolina into this remote neighborhood in Colorado a year ago. So far, it's unclear exactly what Dear's motive was and why this particular Planned Parenthood was targeted.

CNN's Dan Simon is live in Colorado Springs with more. Good morning, Dan.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, watching that video, it almost looked as if the suspect, 57-year-old Robert Dear, was struggling to stay awake. He looked to be somewhat out of it. He was slowly blinking his eyes. I can tell you, Carol, that this was a routine court hearing, routine in the sense that, you know, he was advised of all his rights, he was appointed a public defender. But obviously you have a high-profile suspect accused of a very high- profile crime.

[09:50:00]

The public defender that was appointed, we should tell you, interestingly enough, is the same attorney that represented James Holmes, the mass shooter in that Colorado movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

You could see Dear was wearing some kind of protective vest ostensibly so he wouldn't hurt himself. Carol, in terms of the investigation, we're learning some new information. We're told from a law enforcement source that investigators are continuing to review the evidence, evidence that includes a multitude of weapons -- handguns and rifles that Dear allegedly brought to the scene in a duffel bag. They believe, investigators believe that he acted alone. But at this point they're still not sure why he allegedly targeted that Planned Parenthood clinic. Carol?

COSTELLO: No word on where he got the guns or anything like that yet?

SIMON: That's still part of the investigation, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Dan Simon reporting live from Colorado Springs.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the massive manhunt for Salah Abdeslam continues. But officials are clashing over the terror suspect's possible whereabouts.

But first, some good news for a change. This Sunday, we pay tribute to the CNN Heroes of 2015. Here's a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our heroes don't fly. They soar.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't see barriers. I see solutions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Connecting with the communities along the way helps you reestablish your faith in humanity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Love you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Love you, too.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't give up on yourself because you're still worried.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See the stars come out to celebrate the change- makers.

KATHY GRIFFIN, COMEDIAN: We all love to pay tribute. And this is a way we really can.

ZACHARY PINTO, ACTOR: It's people who are living the work that they're doing every day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's going to be really, really inspiring.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN Heroes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please join me in honoring CNN Hero.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no time to waste.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The top ten CNN heroes of 2015.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's an honor to be recognized.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is an amazing honor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Join Anderson Cooper for "CNN HEROES: AN ALL-STAR TRIBUTE" Sunday night at 8:00.

(END VIDEOTAPE

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:44]

COSTELLO: We're hearing of a new arrest in Paris. Just last hour, authorities say a relative of the man who let the Paris attack's ringleader stay in his St. Denis apartment has been taken into custody. You might remember that this is the same apartment where a violent police raid occurred that killed the ringleader.

Troubling news in the manhunt for surviving Paris suspect Salah Abdeslam -- investigators don't even know what continent he's on. While French investigators reportedly believe the key suspect escaped to Syria, the Belgians don't think he made it out of Europe. CNN's Alexandra Field has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The search for Salah Abdeslam, a global manhunt that's turned up few leads. Sources tell CNN French intelligence authorities are now working under the assumption he may be in Syria. But Belgian officials are not convinced. They're still searching neighborhoods in Brussels.

(on camera): A day after the attacks, at 1:00 in the afternoon, Salah Abdeslam turns up here in Lochin (ph), a neighborhood in Brussels. A childhood friend of his, Ali Oulkadi, meets him at this metro station. Oulkadi's attorney says the men go on to a cafe and, at some point, Abdeslam tells his pal how his brother, Raheem, has killed people in Paris and then blown himself up.

(voice-over): The men then drive several minutes until the suspect gets out somewhere in Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek. Ali Oulkadi's attorney -- OLIVIER MARTINS, ALI OULKADI'S ATTONRYE (via translator): My client

doesn't know how long Salah stayed in Schaerbeek. Actually he doesn't know if Salah stayed in Schaerbeek. Maybe he went somewhere else afterwards. My client doesn't know.

FILED: The sources close to the investigation now reveal more details about Abdeslam's alleged role. In September, they say, he's seen in Paris. In October, he purchases ten detonators at a fireworks store north of the French capital. Two days before the attacks, he's caught on a gas station camera in a car he used to carry out the plans.

Police say Abdeslam drove the car to the soccer stadium to drop off bombers before abandoning it in a pedestrian crosswalk near the site of one of the attacks. Later, investigators trace his cell phone to the suburb of Montrouge. Days after in the same neighborhood, they find discarded suicide vests.

130 people are killed by 7 terrors who shoot them and detonate bombs on the night of November 13th. By morning, the only living suspect is gone. Salah Abdeslam crosses the border from France to Belgium, driven by two friends. Police stop Abdeslam at the border but eventually let him go, not realizing they had just questioned one of the world's most wanted men.

Alexandra Field, CNN, Brussels.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: All right, something just into CNN. The ex-wife and daughter of ISIS leader al Baghdadi has been released as part of a prisoner swap in Lebanon. This is according to a Lebanese security official. This is video of Baghdadi's ex-wife taken in Lebanon earlier today after her release. She and her daughter say they both plan to move to Turkey. ISIS is not believed to have been part of this exchange.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

[10:00:00]

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Right now on Capitol Hill, the U.S. strategy in Syria front and center.