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Turkey Shoots Down Jet; Suicide Vest Found; Security Scare in Paris; Jeff Bezos on Outer Space; Muslims in U.S. Fear Rise in Islamophobia; Late Night Political Funnies. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 24, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:09] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're watching this breaking news this morning. Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter jet saying the Russian's violated Turkish air space. Russia says their pilots were over Syrian territory. Putin announcing that he believes this is a stab in the back.

Joining us now for more is Jim Sciutto. He's CNN's chief national security correspondent.

So many development, Jim. We sort of need to tick through these things. Talking about this downed fighter jet, Russian fighter jet. I'm curious what you think the overall international reaction is going to be to this. We understand Putin's made some comments. Turkish officials have made some comments, don't test our patience. But internationally, given the fertility of the coalition, is this going to be viewed as an escalation?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's really, really tough. It shows just how dangerous the skies are over Syria because you have so many countries involved now. You've got Russian war planes operating very close to Turkey's border which, remind you, is a NATO ally, so the U.S. has treaty obligations to Turkey. Plus you've got U.S. jets over there. French. You name it. I mean it's complicated skies.

This is why U.S. officials have been so concerned about getting de- confliction, as it's called, between U.S. and Russian war planes and they've come to an agreement. They have a way of notifying each other when they're close to each other so there are no misunderstands.

Now, where this plane went down is not an area where U.S. planes operate, thankfully. But, you know, that is a U.S. ally involved.

PEREIRA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: And President Putin went on to say it's a stab in the back by, in his words, accomplices of terrorists.

PEREIRA: Right.

SCIUTTO: Basically accusing Turkey of supporting ISIS and other groups there that are fighting Assad, which Russia sports. I mean it's a witches brew of countries operating there now.

PEREIRA: It is. What kind of problem does it all pose for the coalition?

SCIUTTO: Well, here's a big issue. You know, does it escalate?

PEREIRA: Right.

SCIUTTO: You've got a long - a lot of strong words from each side. The big worry would be, does Russia feel the need to respond militarily. I mean Russia's got a lot of military capability there. You've got Turkish forces. You know, right now, you hear from officials that all sides want to tamp this down. They don't want it to go further or they hope that it doesn't go further. But there are a lot of pressures.

PEREIRA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I mean there's the possibility of a dead Russian pilot here. That's difficult for Russia not to respond to.

PEREIRA: All right. Obviously we're watching this news that Alisyn just told us about in Paris. We're going to try to get a reporter to bring us up to date on what exactly is happening there. But we know there was a newly discovered yesterday what appears to be a suicide vest in a garbage - a trash bin in Paris. How significant is this for the investigators on scene?

SCIUTTO: Well, it's really potentially hugely interesting because they also tracked the cell phone of that missing eighth attacker -

PEREIRA: Right.

SCIUTTO: Salah Abdeslam to the area of that garbage bin. There's this possibility that he bailed on the operation. Maybe his vest didn't work. But it's also possible he decided not to go forward with that level of the attack. It's just a really interesting possibility. Now you see the Paris metro stations being shut down.

PEREIRA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I'll tell you, I was there for a week. You know, the - it's a trigger - it's a hair trigger finger, pardon the expression, but that they're not taking any threats -

PEREIRA: No.

SCIUTTO: They're taking every threat, I should say, very seriously. So if they get a whiff of something, they're not going to hold back. They're not going to think about it.

PEREIRA: They're going to pounce.

SCIUTTO: They're going to shut things down.

PEREIRA: All right, so let's pivot here. You have a very special report airing tonight on CNN. It's called "Targeting Terror: Inside the Intelligence War." You were given unprecedented access to all sorts of security organizations and personnel. I'm really curious, what was the most memorable thing. You saw what you - what your takeaway was. And that big question that you even posed during the documentary, are we safer now than we were before?

SCIUTTO: Well, I'll tell you, we got exceptional access here. You get a real sense of the inside of these organizations. I think people back home, they know about the CIA -

PEREIRA: Sure.

SCIUTTO: They've heard of the NSA. But you have 16 different intelligence agencies involved. The NRO, the National Reconnaissance Office, that launches the spy satellites. The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. They're looking at all the pictures and the data, you know, from these satellites. You have so many groups involved with the effective mission of keeping Americans safe. But what struck me is that you have all this capability. You've got hundreds of satellites in the air. You've got the NSA with tremendous surveillance capability. But in this day and age, very simple tools can counteract that.

PEREIRA: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I mean terrorists can use an app that you can put on your iPhone to encrypt their communications and the NSA is effectively deaf to those communications. Satellites - I mean, I've got to tell you, the next front in the war may very well be in space. A lot of weapons being developed to take out satellites.

But when you come to the terror threat, this is what you realize, they're working every day to stop these kind of attacks. They've got tremendous capability. And the fact is they are stopping a lot of attacks. But what Paris showed you is you don't need a lot to break through that - that net. And that's a worry and that's what keeps then up at night, literally, fighting this war.

[08:35:09] PEREIRA: Yes. Jim Sciutto, I'm sure it keeps you up at night as well. Thank you for joining us and we look forward to this special tonight. Tune in at 9:00 p.m. to see this full CNN special report "Targeting Terror: Inside the Intelligence War."

Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Michaela, we are following that breaking news. There's a security scare in Paris right now. Subway stations have been closed. We will go live to Paris for the very latest, next.

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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And we have breaking news. There is a security alert in central Paris. Subway stations are temporarily closed in the area. Our own Clarissa Ward was briefly evacuated from the Place de la Republique. She's joining us now with the latest.

What was the response? And any sense yet as to what was prompting all this?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Chris, it was just about 40 minutes ago that police suddenly started to pour into this square behind me and started to push people out. They wouldn't tell us why we were being pushed out of the square. They just kept telling us, (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE), "back up. Back up. Get out of the square." We saw, as I said, dozens of police officers pour into this area.

[08:40:07] And interestingly, one of them we saw was looking through the flowers in the memorial behind me. He had some kind of a mirror and he appeared to be looking through those flowers, trying to ascertain what kind of a threat there was.

We went to one of the metro stops and talked to some police officers there. They actually were willing to speak us to. But all that they would say is that there had been some kind of a bomb threat on the Paris metro and that all of the surrounding stations around the Place de la Republique, which is where we are, which is where the media coverage has been centered on this past 10 days, they said that all of these metro stations had been closed down. It now appears that that was likely a precautionary measure. Police have subsequently opened up the square again and they have let journalists and passersby come back into the square.

But I think what it really gives you a sense of is just how something that would seem like a small incident can develop into a - I wouldn't describe it as panic. It certainly wasn't panic at all. But certainly can quickly develop into a high level security operation where people are being evacuated from an area because everybody here, Chris, is on such high alert.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Clarissa, absolutely. I mean it just shows how on edge everyone, including obviously law enforcement, is. Stay safe. Thanks so much for that report.

OK, back here, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has already conquered the ecommerce space. Now he's focusing on outer space. His new company, Blue Origin, has already launched one unmanned capsule. A second flight is planned by the end of this year which Bezos hoping to accomplish something NASA never could, landing and reusing a launch rocket.

Let's bring in CNN's digital correspondent Rachel Crane. She's live from San Francisco and she just spoke with Jeff Bezos.

Tell us about it, Rachel.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Alisyn.

I did just speak with him and he and his team are celebrating right now because they just pulled something that is unprecedented in the history of space flight off. They actually landed their rocket and it will be reused.

Now, what orbital - I'm sorry, what Blue Origin is focusing on initially is space tourism. Now, they haven't started selling tickets on their system. They haven't also disclosed how much they will cost. But I got to speak with him about the significance of what they've pulled off because reusability is sort of the holy grail of space flight because it would reduce the cost of space exploration some estimate by a hundred fold. Take a listen, Alisyn.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF BEZOS, FOUNDER, BLUE ORIGIN: We now know without any doubt that you can build a reusable rocket booster. And so, you know, we're now entering in - this is the first of what will be many test flights. We're going to - over the next couple of years, we're going to fly this vehicle, many, many times. And then when we're highly confident in it, we're going to start taking people up into space with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CRANE: He and his team, like I said, are very excited right now. Certainly celebrating.

Back to you, Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Rachel, thanks so much for that.

So after the terror attacks in Paris, how are Muslim Americans feeling and reacting? We'll explore that ahead.

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[08:47:20] CUOMO: In the wake of the Paris attacks the backlash against Muslim communities is as bad or maybe even worse than it was after 9/11. First the House passing legislation to lock down the country to Syrian refugees -- all of them. And comments from Donald Trump, and many others, to be honest, that Muslims maybe should be monitored and registered.

Our next guests are here to shed some light on what all of this is doing to Muslims communities and have some frank talk. We have Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates and Haroon Moghul, a senior correspondent for religion dispatches and a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

Let's just have the dialogue. I hear it all the time. I hear the fear. I hear what the resistance is on both sides. So let's just enable a conversation, Haroon.

The starting premise is this. The president of the United States won't even say what this is. He won't say that they are Muslims. He won't say that it is Islamist terror. He won't. He's hiding. He's placating. What do you say?

HAROON MOGHUL, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, RELIGION DISPATCHES: Just a today, a few minutes ago maybe, a Turkish plane shot down a Russian airplane. Turkey is a NATO ally. What people don't seem to get is that we are fighting ISIS alongside Muslims. So what does it gain us as a country to alienate our allies when we need them in a fight? People who stood behind us before, Turks fought alongside Americans in the Korean War. They chose to, they didn't have to, they volunteered. And we're just going to go and say that all of you are bad just because some of you are bad? That is the thing that is dangerous to me, that this is bad for us from a national security perspective.

CUOMO: Farhana, when you say I didn't say Muslim terror, you know, that they are all Muslim, well even though, you know, if you identify as Muslim then that is what you have to be taken as. But why can't the president say Islamist or Islamism terrorism, extremism, you know, within those groups? Why can't we be accurate to what the groups identify themselves as?

FARHANA KHERA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MUSLIM ADVOCATES: Well, Chris, let me first say that I, like all Americans, believe that violence, whatever its source, we need to be kept safe from that violence. And I certainly share the level of fear and anxiety that I think a lot of Americans have. I actually was just traveling in Brussels with my family this summer. So as these images are flashing across our screens, it hits home for me.

I think going to your question, though, I think the key thing here and what I find troubling as a Muslim is that by constantly referring and using Islamic terms, we're actually reinforcing their messaging. They want this to be a war of the West versus Islam, but this isn't. This is a war about civilized society against, frankly, a death cult. And I think that is what the real concern is.

[08:50:01] CUOMO: Well, you know what the concern is on the pushback. It is that he's trying to protect. He and these other lefties, they are trying to protect these Muslims because they are afraid of them. And he doesn't want to be honest and say what the truth is, which is these are Muslims. But in truth, I have many Muslim people in my life. I feel very lucky that way. And they say, listen, I'm fine with calling these guys - just call them the right thing. Just say they are Islamists, extreme Islamists, and that is fine because that is different than my faith. That is different than my mainstream Islam. Is that a meaningful distinction to you?

MOGHUL: It is. But I think that there is a distinction between security and bigotry and we're not making that distinction for two reasons. One, because a lot of the voice who are calling for all these measures against Muslims, against Syrian refugees, will not do the same thing about gun violence, mass shootings, white supremacist or racist groups. There's a double standard at work.

CUOMO: You know what they say is the gun battle doesn't result in somebody wanting to chop my head off. You know, that's the problem. Even when you talk about the Crusades and Christians, people say, yeah, but this is going on right now and these guys are trying to chop our heads off. How can you compare them to the KKK or anything else? Nobody is this bad.

MOGHUL: But it is worse than that. So Chris Christie comes out and says that not even a three-year-old Syrian refugee. There is no better illustration that Islamophobia is racism. You are saying that a three- year-old kid with no parents who's raised in a completely different context and culture is nevertheless going to grow up to be a terrorist. What you are saying in effect is that being an Arab and Muslim is a kind of genetic condition and there is no escaping it. And so even someone who has literally been abandoned by the world and is too young to know what's going on is still a threat to our country.

CUOMO: So what do you do with that? I mean, you know, this is like -- The only way I can relate to this is when I'm trying to process this. I remember growing up as a kid in Queens where everybody assumed if you were Italian you were in the Mafia. But that was -- We just dismissed it as stupidity. But now you have it where there's a danger attached to it, Farhana. When you hear the thousands and thousands of you people were celebrating as the towers came down. How do you hear those words? And how do you want to respond to them?

KHERA: So - you're absolutely right, Chris. Frankly, the reckless and irresponsible anti-Muslim rhetoric that we're hearing from public officials is actually dangerous and it is contributing to a very toxic environment in which the signal that is being sent, the American people that it's frankly open season to harass, attack and discriminate against American-Muslims. That is not who we are as Americans. The core values of who we are is a commitment to freedom, religious freedom, and that there is strength in our diversity from all different faith and racial backgrounds we come together. And our diversity is our strength as the country.

And so what we need at this time, especially this difficult time for Americans and for our country, is for public officials from both sides of the aisle to step forward and to actually not engage in this kind of divisive rhetoric. And I might add that it's not just public officials, but all Americans. I think this is the time to step up. Americans like Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers who made a point of calling out a fan who had yelled out "Death to Muslims." And so I just really applaud people like Aaron Rodgers, our interfaith allies who have been stepping up and standing with the American-Muslim community --

CUOMO: You know - I get and I hear from people. It can be a little frustrating when it takes a football quarterback to make an impact on the dialogue. But you know what, leaders come in many forms and different sectors, especially in American society. And we're always happy to have this conversation because it's got to yield some understanding. We can't stay the way it is right now.

Farhana Khera, thank you very much. Haroon Moghul, always a pleasure. Please to both of you, a happy Thanksgiving.

So what do you think? This is just a little piece of a dialogue that needs to happen many, many times in different ways. Well please, let's keep the conversation going. Tweet us. Facebook us. Whatever you like.

Also we're going to take a little break now but when we come back, we got some late night laughs. It is good to laugh, my friends. Makes your face go like this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [08:57:46] PEREIRA: All right. Late night hosts with plenty of material to be thankful for this week. Take a listen to how they're skewering White House hopefuls.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIMMY FALLON, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: In his speech last week, Bernie Sanders called for a new global alliance with Russia and the Middle East to fight threats around the world. And people said, you mean like Russia and the Middle East?

(LAUGHTER)

Two biggest threats, yeah.

(APPLAUSE)

Over on the Republican side, Ted Cruz's campaign announced that it's going to launch a national prayer team next month where people will pray for Ted Cruz to win.

(LAUGHTER & APPLAUSE)

Then God said, oh, I tuned out of this thing weeks ago.

(LAUGHTER)

TREVOR NOAH, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Billionaires are spending so much money in this election. It's like candidates are pretentious artworks. And the guy's like, yes, I picked up this Cruz at auction. It's a bit weird, but I do have eccentric tastes.

(LAUGHTER)

SETH MEYERS, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: After a protester was assaulted at a Donald Trump rally this weekend, Trump told reporters maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. And he might have a point because what the man was doing was attending a Trump rally.

(LAUGHING)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: That's great.

PEREIRA: They are kind of having a heyday.

CAMEROTA: Right. We have another funny to build on now. Another really funny thing.

PEREIRA: Yeah. Go ahead.

CAMEROTA: OK. Right now we're stealing "The Good Stuff" back because Chris -- it is actually about Chris. And you are probably asking, Chris? "The Good Stuff"? How is that combination possible? PEREIRA: Here's how, friends. "Men's Health" just named Chris one of

the fittest men of 2015.

CUOMO: I look (INAUDIBLE) on the cover.

PEREIRA: The magazine makes sure to note that Chris is 45, people, and says his five-day-a-week workout regimen helped him save a drowning man off Montauk over the summer. Chris is in good company. The other fittest men include "Mandela" actor Idris Elba, genuine American hero Alek Skarlatos, who helped with the French train attack.

CUOMO: That's accurate.

CAMEROTA: Now for the record, Chris placed eighth.

CUOMO: It wasn't done like that.

PEREIRA: Yeah. That's all right -

CAMEROTA: And by the way, he's also a contributor to the magazine.

PEREIRA: Oh, so you bought your way in?

CUOMO: That's true --

CAMEROTA: So make of that what you will. We're still proud of him.

CUOMO: That's a thousand pounds I was just lifting there.

PEREIRA: And I want you to know, he's able to do this with a diet of a doughnut a week. Every Friday.

CAMEROTA: Amazing. You're amazing.

PEREIRA: That's amazing.

CAMEROTA: Congratulations.