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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Complaint: Journal Warned 'Bombs Will Be Heard In The Streets'; Feds File Four Charges Against Bombing Suspect; Sources: Bush Says He'll Vote For Clinton; Trump: African-Communities In Worst Shape Ever; Bridgegate Trial Prosecutor: Gov. Christie Knew Of Closures; White Working Voters On Terror, Religion. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired September 20, 2016 - 21:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:03:05] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, thanks for joining us for this hour of "360".

"The sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets, gunshots to your police, death to your oppression." This was among the writings found in the New York and New Jersey bomb suspect's journal, according to a criminal complaint.

Four federal charges have now been filed against him. We're also learning some disturbing new information tonight about the suspect's somewhat violent past and his family members. We'll have more on that in a moment.

But first, Deborah Feyerick has the latest on the investigation. Deborah?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the terror suspect has now been charged with four counts. They include use of a weapon of mass destruction, bombing a public place, also, destruction of public property, and use of explosives in commission of a criminal act.

Now, Rahami took cell phone video, just two days before he launched this attack on New York City and New Jersey. He actually lit some bomb material in or around his backyard. That was filmed on a relative's cell phone. That now in the possession of the FBI.

And we can tell you, Anderson, that bomb that was detonated here on West 23rd Street, it was so powerful that it propelled a 100-pound dumpster clear across the street, 120 feet to where I'm standing, scattering debris basically in all directions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Two years before allegedly denoting a bomb in Manhattan, Ahmad Khan Rahami came to the attention of the FBI in New Jersey. In 2014, agents interviewed Rahami's father, Mohammad, following a domestic dispute in which he allegedly called his son a terrorist. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did you call the FBI two years ago? What happened?

MOHAMMAD RAHAMI, SUSPECT'S FATHER: Because he's doing bad.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's doing bad. Why would he do bad?

MOHAMMAD RAHAMI: He's not my son. He hit my wife. And I put him to jail four years ago.

FEYERICK: At the time, Rahami had just returned from a year-long trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

[21:04:59] Officials tell CNN that FBI agents did not interview Rahami, yet after conducting internal database reviews, interagency checks and multiple interviews, the FBI ultimately concluded it was a family dispute.

WILLIAM SWEENEY JR. ASST. DIRECTOR IN CHARGE, FBI NEW YORK: We had a report of a domestic incident some time ago. That was the allegations were recanted and I don't have any other information. We'll keep digging.

FEYERICK: However, because of his repeated trips to areas associated with terrorists, when Rahami returned to the U.S. in 2014, Customs and Border Patrol agents pulled him aside for extra screening. A law enforcement official telling CNN, that information was sent to the FBI before the family dispute.

While the FBI, so far, does not believe Rahami was part of a terror cell in the New York/New Jersey area, investigators are digging on Rahami's connections in the U.S. and overseas, to determine if he had any help.

COMMISSIONER JAMES O'NEILL, NEW YORK POLICE: Moving forward, we have to identify everybody involved, and see what their backgrounds are, see where they've been, see what they've been up to.

FEYERICK: Rahami allegedly built at least 10 bombs, eight pipe bombs and two pressure cooker bombs. A federal law enforcement source tells CNN, Rahami used a highly volatile chemical explosive, easy to make at home. The material is so powerful, it could create an even bigger blast than the one caused by the Boston bombers.

Tonight, investigators are learning more about what could have inspired Rahami. After a shootout with police, investigators discovered he had a notebook on him with a bullet hole. According to a law enforcement official, it referenced to Boston marathon bombers and American-born al-Qaeda cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, killed in Yemen by a U.S. drone strike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And Deborah, he also got some components for the bomb or bombs on eBay. Is that right? FEYERICK: Yeah, that's what's so surprising. I mean, investigators really put this case together very, very quickly. And apparently, they allege that the components were bought on eBay. They include citric acid, detonation systems, as well as ball bearings. All of these are known bomb components.

And, you know, this suspect really wanted to die a martyr. And he writes that in his journal. And it was a multi-pronged attack. He had two pressure cooker bombs. But he also planned to engage police in a shootout if it came down to that. So, he was ready, he was prepared, and it looks like he built these devices over the summer, Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Deborah Feyerick. Deborah, thanks.

As details emerge about the suspect's family life, it's a story of a lot of trauma and tumultuous, sometimes violent scenes. Drew Griffin tonight has more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Friends of Ahmad Khan Rahami point to a lifelong feud between the elder son and his strict father. He brought his family here seeking asylum, but also try to hold on to his strict family tradition of their home country, Afghanistan.

EHSAN, FAMILY FRIEND: For him, it was his father. And it was just -- it was just tension. It was his part, too. He should have listened more to his father. Maybe, you know, stayed in school.

GRIFFIN: This longtime friend of the accused bomber says in his teens, Rahami was outgoing, funny, and looking forward to a future in law enforcement, but in high school, he got his girlfriend pregnant and Ahmad struggled to make child support payments.

There was more stress, and this family friend says it led to one of the most dramatic events in Ahmad Rahami's life, the time his father literally abandoned him in Pakistan.

It was your impression that he thought his father, I assume, wanted him to stay in Pakistan, wanted to abandon him in Pakistan, so he would not come back to the U.S.

EHSAN: He told me, himself, that he was basically left there. And then that he had to find his own way back. Which I'm sure traumatized him for life. That, I'm sure, scarred him.

GRIFFI: The friend, who doesn't want to be identified, says it was a shock when Ahmad actually came back.

EHSAN: He was left and he had -- they took away his way of coming back, and that was about it. And he had to go -- and it hurt him a lot. And that night, like, when he told me, he -- he said it in a very devastated way. GRIFFIN: During multiple trips back and forth to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ahmad and his brother married Pakistani cousins. He asked a congressman to step in when his wife had visa issues.

REP. ALBIO SIRES, (D) NEW JERSEY: ... a new passport. Then after they got a new passport, they found out that she was 35-week pregnant and they would not give her the entry visa and they said that they would give her the visa once she had the baby.

GRIFFIN: After she was allowed into the U.S., Rahami and his wife tried to get away from the troubled family life, moving into this apartment, but a friend says they couldn't afford it, were evicted, and ended up back in the family apartment above the chicken shop.

EHSAN: It was not good what happened. That was just a violent night. There was blood.

GRIFFIN: Court documents show a family in turmoil, lawsuits over big debts incurred by the father, and allegation of child abuse by the mother. The tight quarters led to family fights. In 2014, the violence escalated.

[21:10:00] Ahmad pulled a knife, and according to this arrest warrant, attacked his brother, stabbing him in his left leg. Today, Rahami's father briefly told reporters, he is the one who called police.

EHSAN: It was a very bad situation for Ahmad. Because, he was trying to live with his parents and his wife and kids, but just -- I guess drama just unfolded that night between them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And Drew joins me now. That arrest in 2014 and the claims by the father that he told the FBI his son was a terrorist or had radical leanings, which I guess the FBI says was later retracted, do we know how much of an investigation there actually was on this guy?

GRIFFIN: He spent three months in jail. So there was an investigation ensuing, along police lines to see if this case was going to move forward in a domestic violence case. The family dropped the charges, the grand jury refused to indict. So after three months, he was basically let go. It was during that time that the father said, "My son is a terrorist." The FBI apparently came in and believed this was all the result of a dysfunctional family. We're just going to let it go. There doesn't seem to be any terrorism here.

COOPER: The bomber's brother or the alleged bomber's brother, who also traveled to Pakistan with him and I guess married a cousin of his wife, apparently was also posting radical Islamic material on Facebook, is that true?

GRIFFIN: Yeah, on his Facebook. Now, this is Mohammad, he is the brother who did go to Pakistan, he has a Pakistani wife as well. Many benign posts on his Facebook, but among them were links to Anwar al- Awlaki's preachings and also to a link that is a conspiracy video about 9/11 being an actual hoax. So this brother as well as we believed now Ahmad Rahami both shared this kind of literature.

COOPER: And do we know where the brother is now?

GRIFFIN: The brother is here. The brother is in the United States. We're not sure if he's cooperating or not.

COOPER: All right. Drew is going to stay with us. I want to bring in CNN terrorism analyst, Paul Cruickshank, also CNN contributor and Daily Beast senior editor Michael Weiss, and CNN intelligence and security analyst, former CIA officer, Robert Baer.

Phil, the more we learn about these charges -- well, actually, Michael, I mean the -- what stands out to you about this? I mean it sounds in many ways like so many of these other cases that we've heard of, somebody who actually grew up here, I guess he was here from the time he was 6 or 7 years old. You know, we've seen this before.

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, and it's almost out of central casting, right? He was charming, he was funny, he did well in school, and then something changes. You know, this dissent into dysfunctional and this dissent into financial difficulties, violent crime, not Islamist related or terrorist related.

But, you know, whatever was the radicalizing agents here, you know. The analog that strikes me is Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a guy who became -- was enrolled in University College London, was the president of the Islamic society, started posting very much provocative things about 9/11, al-Awlaki videos, may have even attended sermons by Anwar al-Awlaki that were beamed into East London mosque. His father was a Nigerian minister, dropped a dime on the kid and said, I think my son is becoming a terrorist, very much like this incident here. Well, that guy, we now know, tried to blow up an airliner above the skies of Detroit in Christmas of 2009.

So, you know, it's often a kind of a misconception that nobody sees this process unfolding in real time. Now, the father retracted or recanted his statement, but he did say at one point that my son traveled to the AfPak region and was congregating with some, "bad people."

Well, I'm keen as to hear about that. I mean, this is sort of similar, also, to Tamerlan Tsarnaev ...

COOPER: Right.

WEISS: ... who spent months in Dagestan. And the position is, well, who is he hanging out with in Dagestan? This is one of the sort of hornets' nest of an Islamist insurgency that's been fighting the Russian government for years.

COOPER: Yeah. Bob, the more we learned, though, from these federal charges, the fact there's apparently video evidence of explosives, apparently being tested, what does it tell you about the suspects?

One of the things you have long talked about is, with these kind of bombs, you do have to test them out, or you have to have some sort of training or instruction?

ROBERT BAER, FORMER CIA OFFICER: Anderson, you do. I mean, I've been trained in these things by ATF, by London police, they showed me how to do it, but I always had somebody around me. I mean, this is not the kind of thing you just do on your own, especially, you know, with the peroxide, distilling it, and the rest of it, something you would need to practice and clearly he was doing it.

I don't think he's much of a chemist, so I think he probably learned this abroad. You know, if he went to the Taliban or another group in Quetta and picked this up and carried it back and knew the ingredients and the rest of it, it's undoubtedly what happened. He's not the type of person to be experimenting with stuff, learning on his own. Same way with the Boston bombers. They had some sort of guidance, maybe in Dagestan, when it first started, when they were in the caucuses.

So, no, I think this guy was prepared and he was radicalized and he is from central casting.

[21:15:02] You have a patriarchal family that falls apart, you have a father that, you know, barely speaks English, he calls him a terrorist, the word in Pashto is someone who scares the family. So I can see why the FBI didn't pursue this. It was just a family dispute. And he was, you know, he was going to end upon where he did. I think the lucky thing is that he decided not to become martyr and take this bomb into a restaurant or some place that or nightclub and he really would have killed a lot of people.

COOPER: Paul, I mean, you look even at his -- and we're talking about this last night, his tradecraft, his, you know -- besides the bomb making itself, ,everything else, I mean, he was caught on multiple surveillance cameras, you know, he sort of has random placement of the device. He's not the most highly trained -- if there was some sort of training, he's not the most highly trained -- you know, he's no Jason Bourne.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, I mean, he's succeed in making powerful devices ...

COOPER: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: ... and exploding them, at least one of them, on the streets of Manhattan. So from that degree, he was successful. If he did get training, they tend not to train people in how to get away. I mean what they're interested in is getting the guy to the position where he can actually launch a bomb attack. He got to that position without any of the U.S. Intelligence or law enforcement ...

COOPER: Right, that's true.

CRUICKSHANK: ... agencies getting on to him. So from his point of view, you know, this was partially successful.

COOPER: Do you agree that he -- I mean, in the journal I talked about, wanting to be a martyr. You know, he was found asleep, you know, by a bar in Linden, New Jersey. If he had wanted to die in some way, that's ...

CRUICKSHANK: I mean, he may just have been weary and he had to sort of catch up with some rest before going into a sort of future phase of this operation. He may very clear in his notebook that he was yearning for martyrdom for paradise, that the thing he feared the most was that he would be discovered before he was able to perhaps become a suicide bomber or launch some kind of suicidal gun attack. Fortunately, there was this tip-off ...

COOPER: Right.

CRUICKSHANK: ... after a resident there actually saw his picture on CNN.

COOPER: The guy that has a shop across the away, outside his bar.

CRUICKSHANKL: And if that hadn't happened when happened, there could very well have been further bombings.

COOPER: Drew Griffin, Paul Cruickshank, thank you. Michael Weiss, Bob Baer, thanks.

Coming up, the suspect is a naturalized U.S. citizen, not the first citizen to be accused of an attack on his fellow Americans in the recent past. We'll take a look at what we have seen up to date.

And later, more breaking news. Multiple sources say George H.W. Bush says he is voting for Hillary Clinton. Details on that, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:21:11] COOPER: Our breaking news tonight, federal authorities have filed four charges against the terror suspect in the New York and New Jersey bombs.

There has been some chatter about whether he should be tried as an enemy combatant rather than receive due process. The suspect is a naturalized U.S. citizen, meaning under current law, he's entitled to that due process.

He wouldn't be the first U.S. citizen involved in attack, not certainly by a long shot. Randi Kaye tonight reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: June, 2016, Orlando's Pulse Nightclub under attack. 49 people are killed. But the shooter isn't a foreigner connected to al-Qaeda or ISIS. He's an American citizen.

MIGUEL LEIVA, ORLANDO SHOOTING SURVIVOR: I just remember like you can smell like the blood. There was so much blood, that was a -- you could just smell it.

KAYE: The nightclub shooter's parents moved to the U.S. from Afghanistan. He was born in New York.

As a child, he went to slumber parties and basketball games. He was 29, married, and living in Ft. Pierce at the time of the attack.

After 9/11, U.S. Intelligence mainly focused on foreign-born threats, but it turns out in the last 15 years, every deadly terrorist attack in this country was carried out by an American citizen or a legal permanent resident. The terrorist was either a lone wolf or worked in pairs, but never part of a larger cell.

December, 2015, San Bernardino, California. 14 shot dead. Dozens more injured during a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center.

CHIEF JARROD BURGUAN, SAN BERNARDINO POLICE: The suspects, when they entered, fired somewhere between 65 and 75 rounds from their rifles, at the scene.

KAYE: The attackers were a husband and wife. He brought her to the U.S. in 2014 on a fiancee visa.

At the time of the attack, she had a temporary green card. The husband was born in Chicago, to Pakistani immigrants. He attended Cal State San Bernardino before taking a job with the county. Investigators believe the couple was self-radicalized.

April, 2013, bombs explode at the Boston Marathon, killing three, injuring more than 260. The attackers, in this case, two brothers, one a naturalized citizen, and his older brother had a green card.

The family immigrated to Boston in 2002, from a region of Russia. While the older brother grew up more troubled, his younger brother was a sophomore at U Mass Dartmouth, where he spent his time skateboarding, smoking Marijuana, and chasing girls, hardly the profile of a terrorist.

November, 2009, Ft. Hood, Texas, a shooting rampage kills 13. The gunman, an army psychiatrist, who was born and raised in Virginia earning a degree in biochemistry from Virginia Tech in 1995.

Despite the fact he exchanged messages with an American radical cleric in Yemen, the shooter was not officially linked to any terrorist group.

IMAM FAIZUL KHAN, FORMER IMAM OF THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY CENTER OF SILVER SPRING, MD: He was an ordinary, peace-loving American citizen.

KAYE: He, along with the Orlando shooter and one of the Boston bombers, had all been on the FBI's radar. But in the end, no action was taken against any of them.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And with me again, CNN counterterrorism analyst and former FBI and CIA senior official, Phillip Mudd.

It's always strikes me when someone says, oh no, he was a peace-loving person and then, obviously, it's something ... PHILLIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST AND FORMER FBI AND CIA SENIOR OFFICIAL: I guess not.

COOPER: What is the FBI up against when the fact that so many of these individuals who have carried out attacks or plotted attacks in the United States are second generation, or people who came here as children, grew up here, spent most of their lives?

MUDD: You're up against a couple of things. Number one is a social issue and the second is an investigative issue.

[21:24:58] Socially, if you look at the parents emigrating here, any parent, they're connected into the home country. They have a connection culturally, food, religion, family. And they also have a dream that to live in America is to live the American dream.

You look at that second generation, they are not connected to the home country. They might be connected by internet, but they didn't grow up there. They don't have direct connections to the culture there. And they're not connected to culture in the United States. They might not fit in at a school. Somebody might make fun of them for being Muslim, so that disassociation, if you will, in some cases, drives people to say, what do I do to object to this?

The investigative piece is tougher. You've got to look for a vulnerability that is, talk to the wrong person. Talk to an FBI informant, e-mail somebody, follow an ISIS individual on Twitter. If you have somebody to close this conversation, Anderson, in New Jersey, who is not talking to anybody, not talking to somebody on Twitter, not radicalizing with somebody who is a preacher overseas, how do you find them? I don't see a vulnerability.

COOPER: Until they pop up at the radar somehow ...

MUDD: Correct, yeah.

COOPER: ... and even then, they have to pop up in a way that's significant enough to warrant an investigation.

MUDD: That's right. Radicalization is not significant enough. Our founding fathers were radicals. That is protected under the constitution. Typically, I'm looking for a trigger that suggests violence. You're talking about exploding a device, you're telling a family friend or telling a family member, I want to commit an act of violence. Then that person has to call the feds and say, I know somebody who might blow something up. You cannot look at internet activity, travel, that's all protected activity, Anderson.

COOPER: Phil Mudd, appreciate you being on. Thank you.

MUDD: Thank you.

COOPER: Just ahead, Donald Trump saying African-American communities are in the worst shape they have ever been before, ever, ever, ever, in a country that has a history of slavery. A bold statement to say the least. Is this any way to win the support of African-American voters? We started talking about this the last hour with our political panel. We'll continue that conversation, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:30:45] COOPER: Donald Trump is still running in single digit support among African-American voters, but his outreach tactic hasn't changed if anything, it seems to have increased. Listen to what he said at a rally in North Carolina today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to rebuild our inner cities because our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they've ever been in before, ever, ever, ever.

You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street. The worst -- I mean, honestly, places like Afghanistan are safer than some of our inner cities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, we start a conversation on this with our panel the last hour. There were some statements made agreeing that this is the worst or the deadliest era in African-American communities. Detroit was brought up as an example. We just looked up the stats, according to data generator from the Detroit Police Department. Violent crime actually fell 7 percent from 2014 to 2015. It's actually down 11 percent since 2013. When it comes to Chicago that was also brought up. There were 468 murders there in 2015, a high number, but well below the 925 which were recorded in 1991, according to Wall Street Journal. FBI crime stats in general show the violent crime rate in the largest cities in 2014 significantly declined since 2006.

The panel is with me again. Joining the conversation is CNN political analyst, Alex Burns.

Donald Trump, I mean, received criticism or, you know, weeks ago for saying to African-Americans, what have you got to lose? He seems to be doubling down on that, if anything, saying, your communities are worse off than ever, ever, ever. I assume that means also in the time of slavery, segregation, boycotts, you know lunchroom sit-ins.

ALEX BURNS, NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: It's pretty remarkable -- especially remarkable statement to make in a place like North Carolina, where so much of that history does hang over the politics of the state. And where the black community and the black voting electorate there actually bears very little resemblance to the just total picture of destitution that Trump is laying out here.

COOPER: Actually a large middle class among African-Americans in some communities.

BURNS: Right. I would say this is -- I think this is particularly striking as an -- a supposed outreach tactic to black voters, but it is similar actually to a lot of what Trump says to his core working class white supporters that I was in a rally in Pennsylvania, actually, Jeff was there last month, near Harrisburg, and Trump gets up at this rally and basically says, the place where you live is a disaster. I saw it on the way in from the airport. And the people -- he's not used to people taking exception to that kind of language. But when you go into, you know, try to speak to a community that is not among your core supporters, and where you really have not spent meaningful amounts of time in this campaign, I think it comes off very, very differently.

ANGELA RYE, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: I think, one of the challenges here is his rhetoric often comes across as very tone deaf. So just as an example, several hours ago today, also in North Carolina, where he held this rally, but in Charlotte, there was a black man by the name of Keith Lamont Scott, who was shot and killed by a police officer in his car, reading a book. A disabled map, waiting for his kid to come off the school bus.

So you have the challenges of -- there's real fear, too in black communities, but that fear is rooted in the fact that community policing tactics don't work or they're not in place. There are people who are literally broken and fragile. I, for one am broken and fragile about the constant onslaught of police violence in these communities and the fact that we just can't really solve for them.

He seems to be tone deaf because what happens is, when Donald Trump tells you that the black community can be more violent than Afghanistan, that puts on the mind-set for many people that black people are inherently violent and criminal, which only further exacerbates the problem. He's not solving for a problem, he's making it worse.

ANDRE BAUER, TRUMP SUPPORTER: Engaging in the discussion, whether the panel likes it or not, the numbers are moving. Los Angeles Times did a poll with Southern Cal where his numbers went from 3 percent to 19.6 percent in the last week.

RYE: What poll was that?

BAUER: Hillary Clinton's polls went from 90 percent to 71 percent. He is making inroads. They see hope. They see change.

RYE: What poll is that?

BAUER: That was the Los Angeles Times and Southern Cal did a poll together.

JEFFREY LORD, TRUMP SUPPORTER: But the point is -- the point is ...

RYE: What was the sample size?

LORD: It's time for Republicans -- I mean I used to work for Jack Kemp. You have got to go into this community and I understand ...

[21:35:03] COOPER: But Jack Kemp did it. I mean Jack Kemp did go into these communities.

LORD: Right, right, right. COOPER: Donald Trump, I mean has not, you know.

LORD: Well, he's been meeting with all kinds of black leaders. The problem is -- here's the problem, is that liberals are very good at this, they can play -- they play the identity politics, not just with blacks, with Hispanics ...

RYE: What does that mean, Jeff?

LORD: Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. What it mean -- they can flake (ph) identifying by race or gender with being liberal.

RYE: That's not what I'm doing.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: What we're focusing on here is Donald Trump who has said, I'm never going to lie to you, I'm never going to say anything that's not true, has said that life for African-Americans is worse than it has ever, ever, ever been.

BURNS: In his opinion it is. He's been ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I mean if I say, in my opinion, I can fly, it doesn't mean I can fly. Some things are actually true ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But some things are true and some things are not true. And if you say even its true and it's not ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But he's not saying a lot of people don't feel like they're better off. He is saying your life -- life for African-Americans -- African-American communities are worse off than they have ever, ever, ever ...

(CROSSTALK)

LORD: Anderson, all I'm asking you, if he is wrong, why is Al Sharpton in the streets, why did Ferguson explode, why did Baltimore ...

(CROSSTALK)

RYE: I can answer all of those questions.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: That's like a college political union argument. That what you're saying essentially, of course there are still problems, of course African-American people have a right to not be happy about as we all have a right to not be happy in our communities about how things are. But to say that your life is worse than it has ever been for African-Americans in this country ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: It's because I actually -- I'm fixating because I think facts actually matter. And if a guy who's going to be president of the United States ...

(CROSSTALK)

LORD: Well, all facts matter, Anderson.

RYE: Yes.

COOPER: Right.

LORD: All facts, right?

RYE: Yes.

LORD: Who is responsible? How did we get here? What can we do to ...

RYE: Please answer that. No, no, no.

LORD: ... that matters.

RYE: Anderson, make him answer that question. How did we get here? Answer that.

LORD: Answer?

RYE: How did we get here? Answer that?

LORD: Because slaves were brought to this country in 16-something or other by white guys from the -- who were Dutch, I believe, in Virginia ...

RYE: OK.

LORD: OK, great.

RYE: This is -- we're breaking ground. This is perfect.

LORD: This is great. This is great.

RYE: Yes.

LORD: And when we morphed into the United States of America ...

RYE: OK.

LORD: ... and had political parties ...

RYE: No, Jeffrey, that's where you go wrong.

COOPER: Let him finish. LORD: The Democratic Party was founded by Thomas Jefferson, who made a political alliance with slave owners.

RYE: OK.

LORD: And after that, it went to segregation ...

RYE: OK.

RYE: ... and here we are today ...

(CROSSTALK)

MARIA CARDONA, 2008 SENIOR CLINTO CAMPAIGN ADVISER: You skipped over a hug piece of history which was it was then the Democrats who were actually the ones who were fighting for voting rights, after the whole slavery and Jim Crow who were fighting for people -- for these people to actually vote, who were fighting for fair housing.

LORD: They got 80 percent of the ...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: When you're talking over each other, no one's listening ...

CARDONA: We were talking about this in our earlier panel. This is what Donald Trump does. Let's be very clear. He doesn't go into these communities. By the way, he didn't go into these communities. Did you see the audience? It was a majorly white audience that he was talking to.

He is doing this to try to shore up support among his white voters. And to try to get college-educated whites who can then say, oh, look, he's talking about black people, maybe he's not so racist. Let's be very clear about that.

BURNS: Look, I think the (inaudible) of this campaign, the meaningful test right now is between Hillary Clinton and her just own ability to generate enthusiasm among black voters. Donald Trump is not really making a concerted play for the black vote day in, day out in black communities. The question is can she match the enthusiasm and the turnout that Barack Obama did in his two campaigns?

COOPER: And that is an open question right now.

Just ahead, we have more breaking news. According to sources close to former President George H.W. Bush, Hillary Clinton will get his vote in November. A new twist in the complicated history, the Bushes and Clintons certainly have shared in a high-profile review of his own party's nominee. The question is, does it really matter? We'll take a look at that.

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[21:42:59] COOPER: With more breaking news, the 41st president of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush plans to vote for Hillary Clinton. That's according to sources close to him. Shakespearean is one word that comes to mind.

Joining me now with the details, CNN special correspondent, Jamie Gangel.

This all started, I guess, as a Facebook post, saying that George H.W. Bush will be voting for Clinton. That was in November. You reached out to sources. What are they telling you?

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So what happened was, the Points of Life Foundation is now a bipartisan group.

COOPER: Right.

GANGEL: And Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is one of the people on that, and she was at the meeting yesterday. And all of a sudden, she post on Facebook that former President Bush has told me he is voting for Hillary. This came as quite a shock to everybody because they had thought it was a private conversation.

So, for the record, they have an official statement that I would say is a dodge or a deflection from their spokesman. He's saying, "The vote President Bush will cast as a private citizen in some 50 days will be just that a private vote cast in 50 days. He's not commenting on the presidential race in the interim." That said, our sources have told us, multiple sources that in fact, they confirm that he did say it to her and also that this is not a surprise to people who know him. He has told other people that he was going to vote for Hillary Clinton.

COOPER: You interviewed the former First Lady, and I mean, I remember, it was a very distinctive interview. And she didn't mince words in what she was saying about Donald Trump.

GANGEL: Right. That was the last interview she's done. That was the one where she so eloquently said when I asked her what she thought of Donald Trump, I'm sick of Donald Trump. And we're going to play a little bit more of it and we'll talk on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY: He doesn't give many answers to how he would solve problems. He sort of makes faces and says insulting things. I mean he's said terrible things about women, terrible things about military.

[21:45:00] I don't understand why people are for him, for that reason. I'm a woman. I'm not crazy about what he says about women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GANGEL: So, vintage Barbara Bush. She has not publicly said who she's voting for.

COOPER: Right.

GANGEL: I guess it's not Donald Trump. COOPER: There is a photo that I remember seeing of President George W. Bush with Hillary Clinton at, I think, it was at Nancy Reagan's funeral.

GANGEL: Funeral. And this is all over social media. And this should not be taken as that former President Bush 43 is voting for Hillary Clinton. But, you can't miss that there is a warm relationship here that people might not expect. We reached out to him today.

He is sticking by he is saying he is staying out of this race. He is not going to do anything, except he's raising a lot of money to try to make sure Republicans get re-elected in Congress.

And we should say the Bushes are not a block on this. So we now know what 41 thinks, we know 43 is sitting out.

Jeb has told me, he is not voting for Trump or Hillary. His son, George P. says he is voting for Trump. So, all different sides.

COOPER: Jamie Gangel, thanks very much.

GANGER: Thank you.

COOPER: Appreciate it. It's always good to have you on. We're going to obviously have to wait to see how or even if this affects Donald Trump's campaign or Hillary Clinton's campaign for that matter.

In the meantime, one of Trump's top surrogates, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, is facing another brush fire of sorts sparked by a fraud trial that got underway this week with a surprising allegation by prosecutors. Phil Mattingly has that.

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN NEW YORK-BASED CORRESPONDENT: As far as Chris Christie has fallen politically, there has always been one saving grace.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, 2-11, Fort Lee traffic is a nightmare.

MATTINGLY: No evidence existed to tie to the deliberate September 2013 closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge. Until now, prosecutors say.

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) NEW JERSEY: I've been investigated by three different entities. Two of them led by partisan Democrats, who, you know, have all found that I had no knowledge of this incident and no involvement in it.

MATTINGLY: During opening statements of the fraud trial involving top Christie administration officials, prosecutors told jurors they would prove Christie was aware of their activities as the closures were happening.

For Christie, it's the scandal that helped turn a leading presidential contender into an early primary dropout. CHRISTIE: It's both the magic and the mystery of politics that you never quite know when which is going to happen. Even when you think you do.

MATTINGLY: Even as he maintained from the very beginning that he had no knowledge of the alleged political retribution carried out by his aids.

CHRISTIE: Well, let me tell you everybody, I was blindsided yesterday morning. That was the first time I knew about this, it's the first time I had seen any of the documents that were revealed yesterday.

MATTINGLY: But questions about whether that's actually the case have long simmered, as charges against his allies had moved through the court, including the revelation uncovered in court documents in August of a December 2013 text from a campaign aide, saying Christie, "Flat- out lied about what he knew."

Yet even as his own presidential campaign fizzled and the trial loomed, Christie's role with the man he endorsed, Donald Trump, continued to grow.

CHRISTIE: There is no one who is better prepared to provide America with a strong leadership that it needs.

MATTINGLY: Even though Trump in December took the same position prosecutors are taking now.

TRUMP: Here's the story. The George Washington Bridge, he knew about it.

MATTINGLY: But even there, the scandal known as "Bridgegate" helped cost Christie what aides say he desperately wanted to be Trump's running mate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much of a factor do you believe the trouble with the "Bridgegate" was a factor in you not getting picked for vice president?

CHRISTIE: I'm sure it was a factor.

MATTINGLY: Phil Mattingly, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, coming out, Trump's core supporters, white working- class voters. Among other things, they are worried their Christian values are under threat. How that could play on Election Day, coming up next.

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[21:52:12] COOPER: Welcome back. The American white working-class makes up the core of Donald Trump's support. But what's driving their decision to support him over Hillary Clinton? We teamed up with the Kaiser Family Foundation for an in-depth survey. One issue that sharply divides Trump supporters from the rest of white working-class is whether they believe immigrants from Muslim countries increase the terror risk here at home. 82 percent said they do, 37 percent who aren't considering Trump said the same.

Many of the white working-class, especially evangelical voters also believed their religion is under attack. Gary Tuchman tonight takes a look at that.

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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN ATLANTA-BASED CORRESPONDENT: In Oklahoma Christian evangelical church, hundreds of congregants worshipping together at the Guts Church in Tulsa. Many of them telling us they believe their Christian values are under attack.

BRIAN LLOYD, GUTS CHURCH MEMBER: I think it's funny that we call ourselves a Christian nation, but actual evangelical Christians are the ones that have to explain ourselves a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many of you guys have truly you could say, irrefutably, undoubtedly, that you've experienced the life of God? Is there anybody in here? Have you experienced the life of God?

TUCHMAN: Do you think there's an attack on Christian values and sculptures?

CARL KERSER, GUTS CHURCH MEMBER: There has been since the devil became the devil.

TUCHMAN: A polling indicates 65 percent of working class white people believe Christian values are under attack. But among working-class Christian evangelical white people, that number jumps to 89 percent.

Do you believe Christian values are under attack?

GEORGE GHESQUINE, GUTS CHURCH MEMBER: I think the objective morality is under attack.

TUCHMAN: Among the other reasons cited by those who feel that way is this.

Do you think immigrants from Muslim countries threaten Christian beliefs and values in this country?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think they test them.

TUCHMAN: This is Jinkx, Oklahoma, where three Syrian refugees have resettled since the conflict began in their country. Three of only a total of 16 in the entire State of Oklahoma.

This woman lives in Jinkx. Do you think Christian values are under attack in America today?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I really do. TUCHMAN: So, do you think that Muslim refugees coming to this country, coming to this state and this town, have led to that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I do. I believe that we're supposed to be quiet because, you know, it offends other people and I think that that's not America.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One, two, three.

TUCHMAN: Four year old Mona, (ph), and a Syrian refugee, along with his three brothers and his parents are now living in Oklahoma.

Are you at all concerned for the safety of your children, your family, because there are some people who would prefer that you'd not be here?

EBTESAM ALKOWAYFL, SYRIAN REFUGEE LIVING IN OKLAHOMA (Through Translation): No one bothers my children when they go to school. Nothing hurts us. They respect us and they don't bother us. They treat you as you treat them.

[21:55:07] TUCHMAN: And that answer gratifies the people at Catholic charities of Tulsa who have worked to resettle Syrians in Oklahoma.

The executive director disagreeing with the belief that Christian values are being threatened?

DEACON KEVIN SARTORIUS, CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF TULSA: This is a country that for its entire history has celebrated the diversity of religions. And we need to hold that value dear to our hearts and protect it.

TUCHMAN: Back at the evangelical church, the pastor does think there was an attack on Christian values, but he says it isn't necessarily a bad thing.

PASTOR BILL SCHEER, GUTS CHURCH PASTOR: Honestly, I love the whole idea that we're set apart.

I love the whole idea that it's like, wait a second, I've got to stand for something. And if you're going to stand for something that means there's going to be some, maybe, a little persecution, maybe there's going to be some resistance to it.

TUCHMAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: We're going to have much more from our in-depth survey of white working-class voters in partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation through out the week on "360". You can also find more details on the results at cnn.com. We'll have more ahead.

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