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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Trump Calling for Shutdown of Muslims Entering U.S.; FBI Says Female Shooter Radicalized for at least Two Years; Will Obama's Strategy Work?; Terror in the Tube. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired December 07, 2015 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:10] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening. Thanks for joining us.

We begin tonight with Donald Trump's proposal for keeping any and all members of the Muslim faith out of the country. He is at a Pearl Harbor day rally tonight aboard the World War II (INAUDIBLE) town, near Charleston, South Carolina. He unveiled the plan just a few hours ago, less than 24 hours after President Obama spoke from the oval office warning against letting the fight against ISIS be defined as a war between American Islam. That, the president said, is exactly what ISIS wants. As we said, the campaign rolled out the plan this afternoon. The candidate read from the press release tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. We have no choice. We have no choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Again, this comes barely a day after the president spoke telling Americans that freedom is more powerful than fear. It also follows the ISIS inspired mass shooting in San Bernardino.

Now, in a moment what could be a key development in that investigation.

But first, our Randi Kaye with the Trump campaign in South Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As supporters waited in line to hear Donald Trump speak tonight in South Carolina, words started to spread about his latest idea, banning all Muslims from entering the U.S.

Donald Trump is now saying Muslims should not be allowed to enter this country until the U.S. figures out what is going on. Do you agree with that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I do.

KAYE: Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want them here. Who knows what they are going to bring into the country, bombs, ISIS, what? They need to go.

KAYE: He is not the only supporter backing Trump's call for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S. in fact, no one here we spoke with had a problem with the plan.

LAUREN MARTEL, TRUMP SUPPORTER: That is a very prudent idea and I think he is done due diligence when he makes that statement. We have to protect our American citizens first and the vetting process and whole program lacks integrity.

KAYE: That is not true. In fact, the vetting process run through multiple agencies is vigorous. Some folks saying not all Muslims are bad when pressed but say they don't want to take chances, even if some are coming to terms with it slowly.

HUDSON JEFFERSON, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I think that they should go through screening. I mean, extensive screening. I mean, we just let terrorists into this country that did the California shooting.

KAYE: He is not saying screening, he is saying no Muslim should be allowed to enter the country right now. Do you agree, yes or no, it's that simple.

JEFFERSON: Yes.

KAYE: Trump's harsh words for ISIS have also energized his supporters. On FOX recently, Mr. Trump shared part of his plan for how he would bring down ISIS including targeting terrorists' families.

TRUMP: You have to wipe out their homes where they came from. You have to absolutely wipe them out. That is the only way to stop terrorism.

KAYE: Are you in forever of bombing terrorists' homes?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely. Absolutely. People will continue to reproduce and they will raise children in their beliefs. Somebody needs to go in there and take control. So, I just I think it's going ramped and I'm worried about America. I'm worried about our safety. They are getting in. They need to be stopped.

KAYE: At a November rally, Trump had some of his strongest words yet.

TRUMP: We got to go and we got to knock the shit out of these people.

KAYE: Why do you think he is the guy to take on is?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is got the guts to take it on and he can build a coalition to take them on, as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: COOPER: Randi joins us from outside Trump's rally in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

Was anyone you spoke with at all surprised by Trump's plan to ban all Muslims from the United States?

KAYE: Well, Anderson, as we were going down the line of supporters, we were really the one who were telling them what Trump had just said, what his new idea was in the press release. And I think most of them probably expected to hear that from Donald Trump. At least that is the feeling we got. But there was one guy, Anderson, who wouldn't back down. I don't think he believe that it was truly thought we were spreading misinformation out there. He demanded to know our source. He kept following us of questioning us, demanding to know if it was a legitimate source.

And finally, Anderson, we showed him the press release that the Trump campaign had put out and then he finally backed down. But I think he was actually very surprised by what Donald Trump put out today.

And one other note, Anderson, talking to these people, you know, I made a point them he doesn't have any political experience. He has never run a country during wartime. He has never been in-charged of a country or taken a country to war and they still said he is the guy to take out ISIS. He is the guy to wipe out ISIS. They didn't care how he is going to do it. They believe he can do it and that he is the man for the job, Anderson.

COOPER: All right. Randi, thanks very much.

The White House, they denounced the Trump's plan. Jeb Bush calls it quote "unhinged." Chris Christie says it's a ridiculous position, his words. Carly Fiorina calls it dangerous over reaction and Ben Carson thinks he believes that all foreign visitors should be registered and monitored and spokesman for Rand Paul touted the senator's own legislation for temporarily blocking visitors and immigrants from nations with known radical immigrants. Senator Ted Cruz adding that Trump's proposal is not his policy.

Perspective now from CNN political analyst Maggie Haberman. She is presidential campaign correspondent for "The New York Times." Also CNN political commentators Jeffrey Lord and Van Jones. Jeffrey served as White House political director during the Reagan administration. Van is a former senior advisor to President Obama.

Maggie, I mean, obviously, Donald Trump, look, he said controversial things before, things that people said look that is beyond the pail. This is ridiculous. His opponents, the words they are using they used for similar things in the past before as well. Is this different?

[20:05:50] MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that if you are a Trump supporter and you have stuck with him through various controversy that I think, as just reported from South Carolina a second ago, you are not going to see people say, well now, this is the moment where it's gone too far. You have people who are genuinely scared. There are people who are worried after San Bernardino and what happened. There are people who are afraid that the president is not addressing it forcefully enough.

However, what Trump is proposal is a very constitutionality. It is not clear to me how this would even work. A spokesperson said in the statement to the "Associated Press" I think it were someone else earlier today, this would include Muslim Americans abroad that they wouldn't be able to come back. And I guess Trump then said later on that some people serving in the military would be able to come home. But it's not clear how this would even function. This is a different level than what we have heard from him before. If you remember, there was that uproar when he voiced support for some kind of a registry of Muslims in the United States, he wouldn't quite disown it. But he insisted report even raised by a reporter. This is getting within that ballpark.

COOPER: Jeffrey, Lindsey Graham says it's a death sentence for interpreters and others working to help Americans overseas. Has Trump gone too far? Do you think this is a good idea?

JEFFREY LORD, FORMER REAGAN WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: You know, Anderson, I have to say I am just amazed there is lots of president for this. In World War II within days of Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt revoked the nationalization process for all German, Italian and Japanese immigrants in this country. They were called, using the authority from the -- if I can look at this, the alien enemies act of 1798 and he issued three executive orders. It gave the government of the United States the right to detain and to label all of these people as enemy aliens. They were not permitted to travel beyond five miles from their home. They could not have cameras. They could not have short-wave radios. There were a lot of restrictions put on these people --

COOPER: So are you suggesting like Japanese camps?

LORD: No, no, no, this was totally different than that and that certainly I think was wrong. No, this was totally different than this. This had nothing to do with the internment camp issue that came later. And all I'm suggesting to you is, there is a lot of president here and he is saying is let's be cautious. Let's use some common sense which --

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That is not all he is saying.

COOPER: Van, go ahead?

JONES: That is not all he is saying. Well, first of all, the fact you have to appeal to one of the most shameful moments in American history is all - it speaks for itself. I never, Anderson, thought I would ever say this --

LORD: I didn't refer to that.

JONES: I'm going to finish.

I never thought I would say this, Anderson, I miss George W. Bush. George W. Bush six days after 9/11 went to a mosque. He put his arms around Muslims and he said in the worst moment, 3,000 Americans killed, American icons falling to the ground, firefighters' risking their lives, risking their lungs to pull out body parts. He said this is not about attacking all Muslims. He put this on six days after 9/11. Now, I miss George W. Bush and that kind of leadership. This is the most despicable terrifying hate mongering from a national political figure. The number --

LORD: So you're saying, Van --

COOPER: The number one recruiter now for ISIS is Donald Trump, the number one recruiter. They may as well pay him to do what he is do. He is terrifying people around the world. He is wrong for it and you're wrong to defend it.

KAYE: Jeffrey, do you not have any concerns that this essentially declaring war against Islam? Which is a war against billions and billions of people.

LORD: No, it's radical, it's radical Islam.

COOPER: Right but Jeffrey, it's painting with a very broad brush all Muslims. It is not trying to distinguish radical Islamist from computer programmers that are going to work in Silicon Valley.

LORD: What he is suggesting is we have a pause to have a better understanding what is going on. And as I say Franklin Roosevelt did some version of this. This is very old stuff and this has nothing to do with Japanese American internment camps.

COOPER: How long --

LORD: Not moral.

COOPER: But what is that even mean to put out a policy statements saying we should stop this until we figure out what is going on, what does that mean?

[20:10:08] JONES: Well, I tell you what it means. It's a completely unworkable fear tactic but what it does is this is exactly what ISIS wants. ISIS and Trump are now playing off of each other. What ISIS wants is for all Americans to turn against all Muslims so that they actually can become - and that is exactly what you do when you say because of some white shooters did something all white people can't go someplace. That would be horrible or if some black person that something or Jewish person did something.

LORD: This was done, Van --

JONES: That is wrong. That is wrong.

COOPER: Jeffrey, you keep --

I know, but Jeffrey you keep going back to 1940s wartime rather than addressing the realities of this process itself. I understand you're saying --

LORD: This is war. We are in a war. We are in a war. There are people, President Obama being one who apparently don't want to acknowledge it but we are war. We have 14 dead Americans.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Jeffrey, aren't we also fighting wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq to actually support Muslim dominated regimes? I mean, Afghanistan --

LORD: Sure.

COOPER: -- Iraq --

LORD: Of course. This country --

COOPER: So to say that no Muslims can come into this country, does that - I mean, you are painting it with a very broad brush, aren't you?

LORD: Until we understand how this works, we have dead people in America, dead in a conference room. I mean, we are in a war here. All we are saying --

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: Let me tell you where you're right and wrong. You're right we are in a war. But there is a smart way and a dumb way to prosecute a war. If what you do while you try to prosecute a war, actually recruits thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands of people to be against you that is a dumb way to fight a war. No, that is not true. Right now you have a microscopic minority of Muslims, a microscopic minority of Muslims that joined a death cult. You have, you know, a billion and a half Muslims who are not that way. But you are now supporting and I can't believe you're doing this, supporting the worst possible strategy to actually increase our enemy --

LORD: Van, Van --

COOPER: Let's take a pause on this conversation.

LORD: That is like saying Martin Luther King lead the marches to increase the number of white segregationist. That is crazy.

COOPER: Let's just pause there for a second because we are going to take a break. We are going to continue this discussion because it is an important discussion to have. I want to and continue it.

Also, we are going to have late news in the San Bernardino investigation and new estimate of just how far back these two ties to radical Islamists goes.

And later, cameras capturing a horrifying attack on the London underground. See what we have done to stop it. A lot of British Muslims are doing to condemning the assault.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:16:38] COOPER: Welcome back. We are talking about Donald Trump's new plan for blocking all Muslims from entering the country until, in his words, authorities figure out what the hell is going on.

Dick Cheney has just weighed in on this talking to Hugh Hewitt saying this idea goes against everything we stand for and believe in. Those were his words.

Back with Maggie Haberman from "the New York Times," Jeffrey Lord, Trump supporter and Van Jones as well.

Maggie, you co-authored a look recently, a report for "The New York Times" looking at every public speech that Trump has made during this campaign. How does what he is saying about not allowing all Muslims in or pause, whatever you want to call it line up with other things he said?

HABERMAN: We looked actually at a week. We looked at 95,000 words over the course of a week and we analyzed speech patterns and things that stood out and certain lines of attack, ways in which he appeals to his crowd. But there were clear elements that for people who have studied a demagoguery seemed familiar to people like George Wallace for instance. He uses violent rhetoric very often and he talks about ISIS chopping people's head off in literally almost every single speech or almost every single speech and in several interviews. He repeatedly says something really bad is going on out there. We don't know what is going on. He uses them versus them repeatedly. We didn't have the guns in the terrorist attack. They have the guns. He has talked about that about San Bernardino and in terrorists. And he does it repeatedly (INAUDIBLE) himself to his crowds.

In terms of this claim that he just or this call that he just made about Muslim banning travel into the U.S. or immigrants, this is fitting with where he has been going basically since the Paris attacks. There was a moment his rhetoric got much darker and it was right after Ben Carson took the lead in a poll over him in Iowa, excuse me, and he made it very, very strong criticism of Dr. Ben Carson, mocked him on stage in Iowa, question whether people of Iowa were dumb for believing his personal life story. The next day was the Paris terrorist attack. And since then, he has been making increasingly hasher statements.

COOPER: Jeffrey, and I think he actually said something else about his new proposal tonight. So let's just quickly play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We are going to have to figure it out. We have to figure it out. We can't live like this. It's going to get worse and worse. You're going to have more world trade centers. It's going to get worse and worse, folks. We can be politically correct and we can be stupid. But it's going to get worse and worse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: You know, it is interesting, Jeffrey, to hear Dick Cheney saying this goes against everything we stand for and believe in Ross Doubt (ph) that who also write to "New York Times" and is hardly a liberal, he is conservative, wrote of Trump quote "it seems fair to say that he is closer to the proto fashion zone on the political spectrum," again, those are his words, not mine, that is Ross --

LORD: Right, right, right.

COOPER: What do you make of this response from, you know, conservatives from Dick Cheney and obviously against most of the people Trump is running against?

LORD: I have a lot of respect for vice president Cheney. But I imagining his state, he was also called the fatuous. So, I mean, this kind of talk goes on a lot.

COOPER: But when he says this goes against everything we believe in, everything as a country stand for.

LORD: With all due respect to the vice president, Franklin Roosevelt did these kinds of things, did infinitely more than what Donald Trump is talking about. I mean, there were like 600,000 Italians -- Italian-born residents in the United States --

[20:20:04] COOPER: Right. But Jeffrey, in the 40s black people -- Jeffrey in the '40s black people didn't have the same rights at white people in this country. So I mean, to compare to something going back to the 40s isn't the best argument you can make.

LORD: It is because we were at war - we were at war with Italy. We were at war with fatuous, I might add.

JONES: You know something, Anderson, I used to actually -- I'm going to admit. I used to actually somewhat enjoy Trump doing stuff like this because I was in my partisan bubble and I was like this is great. It's destroying the Republican brand.

This has now become dangerous, not for Republicans, this is dangerous for America. When you have someone of his standing, he is probably now one of the most famous Americans in the world, he may be next to Obama, the most famous, certainly the most covered American in the world saying stuff like this, this endangers the country.

The one thing we have over ISIS is that we actually have believes and principals and values that inspired the world. To flush those down the toilet because a death cult has sent some people to do some horrible things is so irresponsible and so dangerous because you do have Muslims out there who are on the bubble, they don't know whether or not ISIS is telling the truth, that the west is trying to destroy them or not.

The best recruiting agent for ISIS is named Donald J. Trump. They should pay him to do this. I'm going to tell you right now. We are going to regret giving this guy this kind of a megaphone, this kind of microphone, this sort of hatred and ridiculousness out in the public air waves.

LORD: This is hysteria.

JONES: No. He is hysterical.

LORD: Van --

JONES: You don't know --

COOPER: Let him talk.

LORD: By your logic, van, there should have been no civil rights movement because all that would do is encourage white segregation. That is despicable.

JONES: Oh my God.

JONES: First of all, when you are talking about the civil rights movement, I might know a little about that, sir. And what that movement was about was saying more people should be seen as human. That we should have more trust and more love. What Donald Trump is saying is the opposite and the reverse. Yes, challenge them. I'm saying challenge them. Dick Cheney is saying challenge them. George Bush did challenge them. He challenge them in a smart way and don't paint with a broad brush innocent people, a billion innocent people --

LORD: So in other words we should take down the memorial to Franklin Roosevelt?

JONES: Listen --

LORD: So you want to remove --

JONES: He was not perfect and what you're describing are things --. Listen, he was no friend of civil rights.

LORD: Now we are getting somewhere, Van. Keep going.

JONES: Listen. You have to go through the looking glass here. He was not perfect. He was no friend of civil rights, he did go against civil liberty, but at the end of the day, the train he put this country on, led to the enthronement of the Japanese, one of the most shameful moment in American history and Donald Trump is taking us right back there.

LORD: We agree.

COOPER: Maggie, do you think this actually hurts Donald Trump or is this just like every other statement he is made for his supporters, just the poll numbers go up?

HABERMAN: I think that he is making this comment at a moment of extreme anxiety among Americans about terrorism and that is colliding with economic anxiety. And that has been fueling him all along. So no, I don't think this is going to sink him. It will be interested to see how conservative radio hosts react to this in the next couple days because messing around with the constitutional potentially is not usually something that holds a lot of appeal.

I think this makes it harder for Trump to grow his base of support. I think that has always been the case. The polls are all over the place in terms of where he is. He has held basically at an average about steady. It's within the margin of error in most of them. The question is whether he can get more support. And right now, I don't see this as an avenue towards that.

COOPER: Maggie Haberman, Jeffrey Lord, Van Jones, good discussion. Appreciate you-all being here.

Up next, breaking news. New details about when exactly the female terrorists in San Bernardino became radicalized. What investigators believe about how deep her roots to violent jihad may have gone?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:27:58] COOPER: We got more breaking news. New insight into how a young couple became husband and wife mass killers, terrorists, the road to jihad radicalization. Here is a newly obtained photo of them in Chicago's O'Hare international airport a-year-and-a-half ago.

Late tonight we learned just how much further back investigators believe their radicalization, especially her radicalization began and that is far from the only development tonight.

CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown joins us with all of that.

So the FBI today saying this couple was radicalized quite some time ago, you actually have now information on that. What have you been told by sources?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: That is right. It's become readily apparent to investigators, Anderson, that ISIS wasn't the only terrorist group influencing and inspiring this couple because investigators believe that Tashfeen Malik and possibly her husband Syed Farook were radicalized at least two years ago. We know that they believe she was radicalized before she came to the U.S. on that fiancee visa. So they believe she was radicalized before ISIS even proclaimed its caliphate in June of 2014.

They are still piecing together the timeline. And it's difficult to pinpoint exactly when it began. But from what they have gathered now, Anderson, and it is clear that this couple was influenced by more than just one terrorist group. It seems at this point and that is why officials keep saying this is a complicated investigation.

Also it raises concerns Anderson, how was she able to get in the U.S. on that fiancee visa? It was something missed along the way. We know the state department now reviewing the program.

COOPER: Both of them actually practiced, I understand, for the attack, dry runs at a gun range, right, or target practice.

BROWN: That is right. The FBI talking about that today saying that as recently as a few days before the attack, Anderson, they went to the driving range to practice. And from sources I've been speaking with, they were really surprised by what a good shot she had. There is evidence of her taking shots of officers during the chase. And they were saying that clearly she was proficient, clearly she had some level of training. Now, was it just from going to the gun range, it could just be that. They don't know yet. But clearly, both have been planning this.

[20:30:04] Both had been getting some level of training and going to the shooting range. Now these shooting ranges handed over surveillance tapes and logs to the FBI.

COOPER: There is also more information now about her time as a student in Pakistan.

BROWN: That's right. So we know that she got a degree in pharmacy at an all women's university in Pakistan. And the university was in an area where there was a fair amount of extremist activity, extremist ties. In fact, at one point, Pakistani intelligence just a few minutes after she left the university began teaming up with university officials and monitoring the halls, putting surveillance in there because they were concerned that people were being recruited at the universities there.

Anderson?

COOPER: Pam Brown, appreciate the update. Thank you.

Joining us now, CNN intelligence and security analyst and former CIA officer, Bob Baer, and also former FBI special agent, Tim Clemente.

Tim, this new information on the female member of this terror team, the fact that she may have been radicalized years before coming to the U.S. How hard does that make it for the U.S. to pinpoint someone like her?