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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Trump: Ban All Muslim Travel to U.S.; New CNN Iowa Poll: Trump Holds 13-Point Lead, Cruz Second; Sources: Female Shooter Radicalized For At Least Two Years; Obama's Plan to Fight ISIS; Chicago Officer Not Charged In Fatal Shooting; Father Remembered; Song of Strength

Aired December 07, 2015 - 21:00   ET

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

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[21:01:22] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Just after 9:00 p.m. here as well as outside Charleston, South Carolina, that's where Donald Trump at a campaign rally on the World War II carrier Yorktown, talked about his new plan to block any and every Muslim from entering the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, what's happened is we're out of control. We have no idea who's coming into our country. We have no idea if they love us or if they hate us. We have no idea if they want to bomb us. We have no idea what's going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Tonight, Donald Trump justifying the plan that would apply to immigrants, refugees, even tourists and it's drawing fire from across the political spectrum including Former Vice President Dick Cheney who told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt that a "goes against everything we stand for and believe in." CNN Senior Washington Correspondent Jeff Zeleny is traveling with the Trump campaign joins us now. So, I know Trump wrapped up the rally a short time ago. How is the new proposal being received by his supporters?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, in a word it's being received very well by most of his supporters. When he talked about it tonight, he got cheers and applause of this and when you talk to these voters, people are afraid and frightened by what's happened in the country, particularly in the wake of San Bernardino.

Donald Trump knows this. He knows that he is tapping into something that's very real particularly among his base so he knows exactly what he's doing here politically speaking at least but I was struck by some of the shadowy language, the dark language. You know, he said at one point it's only going to get worse and worse, folks. We're going to have a lot more World Trade Centers. He left that language hanging in the room but take a listen to how he actually announced his Muslim plan. He actually read his paper statement. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shut down 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 choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That was getting a lot of pushback here from Former Vice President Cheney, also obviously the folks who are running against him from the GOP, also I understand that South Carolina and some early -- some other early states.

ZELENY: No question, Anderson. Across the board, condemnation and at least disagreement with this. The state party chairs and all the three early states all condemn this. The Iowa GOP chair said it betrays the constitution. The South Carolina Republican Party chairman said it sends shivers down my back. The New Hampshire chair called it unrepublican, unconstitutional and un-American. But to all of that insight, Donald Trump had three words. He said there's too much political correctness out there. He says, "I don't care."

COOPER: Jeff Zeleny, Jeff thanks very much.

The raw politics of this now, especially when coupled with the new CNN polling out of Iowa nationally. Joining us, senior political analyst David Gergen, CNN political commentator Ryan Lizza, Washington correspondent to the New Yorker magazine and senior political correspondent Dana Bash. David, what's your reaction about Trump saying no Muslims in America?

DAVID GERGEN, SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Anderson, it's striking that he said this on the 74th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and as you'll recall shortly after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt rounded up all the Japanese American citizens in the country and herded them into camps, the interment camps as I recall. And that later became a dark stain on Americans, America's history of freedom and welcoming people like that. It was long seen as a disgrace, but...

COOPER: Ronald Reagan later apologized for that, in fact.

GERGEN: Yes, exactly.

[21:05:00] And what's striking now also is if you go back and try to find out how Americans responded, the one poll that our team could find came out of Southern California after Roosevelt was acting on the Japanese Americans and 75% of people in Southern California approved of the interment camps. They did not trust the Japanese Americans on our own soil. And so we had this history then, of a blithe on our history, a blithe on our reputation and yet there's also something in the electorate that gets very, very anxious and scared and we got to address their anxieties in order to get through this period.

COOPER: Dana, what are you hearing from sources in the republican party itself?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, similar to what David said. When you talk to sources in the so-called establishment, which is pretty much at this point anybody who's not Donald Trump who thinks that this is a terrible idea, they think it's not just -- at this point, it's not just about politics. It's not just about the fact that he is clearly trying to tap into a very real anxiety out there that David was talking about, but it's also about Americans' safety.

And I genuinely have talked to people who aren't necessarily anti- Trump but are just kind of looking at this from a strictly foreign policy point of view who say that they're worried that this is something that could hurt Americans abroad, could hurt the American effort to combat ISIS abroad with, you know, interpreters for example. That's something that Lindsey Graham who's one of Trump's competitors actually told me on the phone earlier tonight, he said, you know, we've got these people who are working hand and hand with Americans on the battlefield. This is a death sentence to them. So that -- it's gone beyond politics, which everybody acknowledges is potentially beneficial to Trump to a real fear for safety.

COOPER: Ryan, I mean, it's interesting we just had General Hertling on in the last hour who said, look, this is as bad I think he said as Abu Ghraib in terms of the damage it can do to America's you know, strategically to the fight overseas in Iraq, in Afghanistan to what America is trying to do there to our fighting men and women, you know, to advocate foreign people entering the U.S. on the base of religion, putting aside a constitutional questions or even the capabilities of how one would go about that, is there any reason to believe you think this would hurt Trump politically despite all these folks in the GOP lining up against it?

RYAN LIZZA, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORKER: You know, I don't know. I think that for it to hurt him politically, republicans, the republican elites need to get off the sidelines and, you know, there is some encouraging signs tonight with the early state GOP chairman that's very rare for the head of a party in an early state like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to come out and criticize one of the candidates who are running and so I think that's an encouraging sign.

But I think a lot of republican elites who have been watching this primary and just sort of crossing their fingers hoping that Trump goes away and that he, you know, doesn't damage the party's brand, they need to put skin in the game. If they believe, as most republicans will privately tell you, that he is destroying the brand of the Republican Party, is single handedly doing it, they need to actually get out and say it because frankly, people who are supporting Trump don't trust those of us in the mainstream media. There is a serious divide and it's got -- the information has to come from conservative voices and people that are a little bit more trusted in those constituencies.

COOPER: Well, David I mean, to Ryan's point, they also don't trust and by the way, Trump is calling reporters like 70% of them scum tonight, which I guess is nothing new in his speech, but you know, Ryan was talking about republican elites, conservative elites, there's a lot of distrust of those elites among Trump supporters.

ZELENY: There is an enormous amount of distrust among all elites, among Trump supporters and to some extent I think I have to say people in the elites I think are looking upon the Trump supporters as yahoos or in fact, we ought to be understanding they've got some real frustrations and we have to address those.

I think it is a question, I think Ryan is right about the republican elite, the republican establishment such as this standing up and taking on this question, but in this case, Anderson, they have to go beyond standing up to Trump. They have to have a plan for keeping America safe and I think the president's speech last night unfortunately as much as I thought much of it on gun control was right, I think fell short in reassuring people that he's on top of this and republicans have to come up with a plan that is persuasive.

Look, Hillary Clinton has got a more persuasive plan than the president right now. Surely, the republicans can put their mind to this and come up with a plan that protects people at home. That's our interest over seas and doesn't violate our basic values as the Trump effort is doing.

[21:10:07] COOPER: Dana, there's two new polls out of Iowa. What do they show?

BASH: Well, one is our poll, CNN ORC's poll which came out which shows Trump way, way ahead of everybody else, thirteen-point lead you see there of the person who's behind him which is Ted Cruz.

But another poll from Mamouth University has a little bit of a different result, actually a lot different. Cruz is ahead in that one and Trump is behind. Now, there are a couple reasons for this discrepancy. The most important is that Mamouth, when they did the sample, they just looked at past primary voters and what CNN did was look at people who say they're going to vote and the whole idea if you're Trump is that they're going to bring in some new voters.

But I think that the most important thing to button up this conversation is that in this new poll, it's not that he's ahead. He's ahead on fighting ISIS, he's ahead on foreign policy, he's ahead among these voters in the first caucus state on the very issues that he's making waves with tonight.

COOPER: Interesting. Ryan Lizza great to have you on, David Gergen, Dana Bash.

ZELENY: Thank you.

A quick program note. Donald Trump will be Chris Cuomo's guest on New Day morning, no doubt answering questions about his plan. Tune in for that. it should be interesting.

Coming up next, the San Bernardino killers and how the deep -- how deep their roots of radicalization went. A new estimate of how long these two may have been planning to wage a violent jihad.

Also, our panel of experts on a larger threat beyond these two of radicalization and how to confront it.

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COOPER: New developments throughout the day and well into the evening in the San Bernardino investigation. A new photo of the husband and wife killers as well as new estimate of how long they'd been radicalized, how much farther back investigators believe their road began that ended with them taking 14 lives at an office gathering last week. Sources telling CNN's Pamela Brown that it may have gone back at least two years in the case of the wife and that's far from the only development. Tonight, CNN's Anna Cabrera joins us now with the latest. So the FBI holding a press conference, what did you learn?

[21:15:11] ANNA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're learning a lot more about the killers in this massacre, Anderson. We understand that while they don't know exactly who may have radicalized who, they do believe both had been radicalized and in fact had been for quite some time is what they said.

They also told us that both Tashfeen Malik and her husband Syed Farook had gone to shooting ranges here locally and had practiced target shooting, in fact, most recently just days before the shooting. Investigators confiscated five guns we know, two of them were pistols, three were rifles, three guns did belong to Syed Farook and the other two guns we now know were purchased by a man named Enrique Marquez, who apparently has been talking to investigators. He's not facing any charges at this time, but we know investigators say they don't know exactly how those weapons ended up in the hands of these two killers.

They are calling this a massive investigation and say they're working extremely methodically. They've collected more than 320 pieces of evidence, many of those sent to the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Virginia. They've also interviewed more than 400 people including Farook's parents. They were both interviewed for several hours we know and the authorities here locally are reaching out to their counterparts overseas trying to track the movements of Farook and Malik in Pakistan, in Saudi Arabia and perhaps elsewhere if they had contacts with other individuals abroad, Anderson so they are really working this case and sharing bits and pieces as they go.

COOPER: And the father of Farook apparently spoke to an Italian newspaper. What did he say?

CABRERA: Well, this is interesting because what he said if true is just chilling. This is an account that was published La Stampa. This was just yesterday, in fact and it's called La Stampa, an Italian newspaper. And the father said, when asked whether his son had talked about terrorism or ISIS, he said, "And who does not talk about it these days? He said he shared the ideology of al-Baghdadi to create an Islamic state and he was fixated on Israel."

Now, he also asked if the son had contacts with terrorists in which he responded, "I do not know, but these days who can say with the internet and all these technology." Now since this report was published again on La Stampa, we now have heard from the lawyer of the Farook family who says that the father was on several medications and he does not recall making any of these statements but the FBI has said they're going to get to the bottom of it, of course the digital footprint is something they are track right now Anderson.

COOPER: There's also that new photo which surfaced today. We showed it of these two entering the U.S. a while back, right?