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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Suspect's Fingerprints Match Prints Found Near Scene; Manhattan DA On Unite Healthcare CEO Murder Case: "Celebrating This Conduct Is Abhorrent To Me"; FBI Director Wray To Resign, Clears Way For Trump Pick; Senate Committee Holds Hearing On U.S. Capitol Police Ahead Of January 6; U.S. Scrambles To Prevent Return Of ISIS In Syria; Unexplained Drones Spotted Over New Jersey For Weeks. Aired: 8-9p ET
Aired December 11, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Governor Noem's office did not respond to our repeated requests for comment. But as you mentioned, Erin, she was on Capitol Hill today.
Our story posted this morning, and she was asked about our story as she met with senators in the hallway by reporters. She said it was, "absolutely not true" that she had neglected the state, the flood victims after that disaster, and I quote, "... We're continuing to work through the FEMA process to bring them all the resources that they need." She did not address other aspects of our reporting -- Erin.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right, Kyung, thank you very much for that extensive reporting. And thanks so much all of you for being with us. AC360 starts now.
[20:00:42]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, police say they have evidence tying the suspect in custody to UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson's murder. And new details about the suspect's disappearance not long before the killing.
Also tonight, a seismic development in the president-elect's efforts to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray with a Trump yes-man. Director Wray announces he will step down.
And what do a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee makes of that move?
Plus, a mystery in the night skies over New Jersey. Swarms of drones with no clear answer where they're coming from or why they're here.
Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
New York police now say they can directly tie Luigi Mangione to the sidewalk execution in Midtown Manhattan exactly one week ago this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JESSICA TISCH, NYPD COMMISSIONER: First, we got the gun in question back from Pennsylvania. It's now at the NYPD crime lab. We were able to match that gun to the three shell casings that we found in Midtown at the scene of the homicide.
Also, able at our crime lab to match the person of interest's fingerprints with fingerprints that we found on both the water bottle and the kind bar near the scene of --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That's New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch acknowledging what CNN was first to report today, that the fingerprints matched those of the suspect Luigi Mangione.
Now, additionally, "The New York Times" today revealed a key detail from the notebook he had when he was arrested, in which CNN first reported on last night, "The Times" citing a passage that reads, "What do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It's targeted, precise and doesn't risk innocents."
We also learned more today about the suspect's movements in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he was caught. A local hotel clerk told ABC's "Good Morning America" this about his encounter with police, who questioned them about a guest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOTEL CLERK: There was somebody that checked in and the officer goes, did he have a mask on? Did he ever take a mask off? I was like, no, he never did take his mask off. He says, I'll be down in five minutes and talk to you. We pulled it up on surveillance and sure and stuff, they go, yes, that's him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Also tonight, new reporting from CNN's John Miller on how the suspect seemed to drop off the radar in the months prior to the killing. A law enforcement official tells John that when the suspect's mother reported him missing to San Francisco Police on the 18th of November, she told them she'd been trying to reach him repeatedly, and the last time she'd actually talked to him was on July 1st.
When asked by police, according to this official, she said she had no reason to believe that her son was a danger to himself or others and that San Francisco was the last location she had for him.
Again tonight, a lot to cover. Joining us, CNN senior crime and justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz, former federal prosecutor and bestselling author, Jeffrey Toobin; also, CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller.
John, what's the latest you're hearing from sources about where things -- where the investigation stands?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the breakthroughs, of course, today where the fingerprint and the gun matched, because the gun is with him in Pennsylvania. So that puts his fingerprints in that gun, both in Pennsylvania and at the scene of the murder, according to police.
The next piece that has to come on the forensic side would be the DNA matches. They extracted DNA from the phone. Does it match? They extracted DNA from the water bottle, which, presumably he drank from, does it match? DNA is very strong evidence.
The third piece is they're making a movie. I mean, they're really retracing his every step during his time in New York City and beyond. So that they can get to a place where a jury will see first he went there, then he did this, then he went there and a lot of it is going to be on video.
When you consider the combination of forensic evidence, scientific evidence and video evidence, they are preparing what they feel is a very strong case.
COOPER: Shimon, what do you think? What are the biggest questions still to be answered?
SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: I think his electronics, can they get into his phone? They found a phone at the scene.
COOPER: You saw him talking on a phone before the shooting as well, but he was actually talking to somebody.
PROKUPECZ: It appears, right, exactly, so there's that -- are they able to get into his laptop? They recovered a laptop at the McDonald's.
You know, he indicated that everything was locked up in his manifesto, in his writings, that everything was locked up. So can authorities actually get into those?
And I think a lot of questions about the time he was here for those ten-plus days, his time in Altoona, where he was going. I still think those questions need to be answered by authorities.
COOPER: Jeff?
[20:05:04]
JEFFREY TOOBIN, AUTHOR AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: This is open and shut. I mean, you know, this is not a whodunit. I mean, look at the volume of evidence.
COOPER: His lawyer last night was saying there's zero evidence.
MILLER: That he's seen.
COOPER: That he's seen. Right, exactly.
TOOBIN: You know, lawyers say a lot of things, but, I mean, just look at the assembly of different, you know, evidence both in Pennsylvania and in New York. Plus, what he said, I mean, he has said the motive for this crime.
So, you know, I think his lawyers are going to be looking at a serious mental examination for him to try to raise some sort of issue about diminished capacity, perhaps even insanity, because whether he did it or not strikes me as something that is not going to be in dispute.
COOPER: I mean, it's interesting his mom, according to reporting, had not been in touch with him since -- I think it was July of the summer, and then finally put in this missing person's report.
MILLER: I think you're seeing the beginning of the family getting concerned because he's taken a turn, injured in Hawaii, now with back pain constantly, according to his own online writings, presumably on medication, you can see the intersection of some things here.
Is that where he begins to lose faith and then grow anger at healthcare and the processes. Do the drugs that he's on to abate the pain? Are they affecting the chemical balance in his head? A lot of these things we don't know and may never know, but we know he ends up in San Francisco and staying at a youth hostel, which also may have planted the seeds in his thinking as that anger grew, that here's a place where you can go with minimal ID and pay with cash and not cause a record.
So, they're really trying to take that blank spot in his life and get a richer picture.
COOPER: I mean, you read this thing he wrote, you know, according to "The Times," "What do you do? You whack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. Its targeted, precise and doesn't risk innocents"
I mean, we still don't know, Shimon, any connection between him and this particular CEO. I mean, this particular company.
PROKUPECZ: No, all we have really is a mention of United in the notebooks, in his notes. But that's basically it. There's no other connection. He seems to have a pretty good idea. He knew he was going to be here, that Brian Thompson was going to be here based on what was available online. But he seemed to just have more precise information, and maybe he just got lucky in that he was able to encounter the victim here. But it's just, it's really --
COOPER: Yes, because there are all those questions like, you know --
PROKUPECZ:: How does he know --
COOPER: The victim was staying at another hotel? He wasn't staying at the Hilton.
MILLER: He gives us a clue. He gives us a clue when he addresses the letter, he basically, you know, says, "Dear Feds," assuming that he may have committed suicide or gotten killed during the capture or fled. But the three-page letter starts off, "Dear Feds." And he says, you know, this wasn't so difficult. All it required was a little social engineering.
Now, flag that, you know, a false call or a fake e-mail pretending to be from the office or something to get that information. What hotel is he staying in? We don't know what that social engineering is, but as Shimon posited, maybe when they get into the computer, get through the e-mails or the phone, and the other was CAD, Computer Aided Design, which is an engineer's thing about making this plan in a systematic way.
So, he seems to be hinting to us that he used the normal things that people do to trick people, to give you information.
TOOBIN: But that e-mail, that passage you just read is a very serious and thoughtful, if evil description of why he did what he did. So, I think something like that is going to make any sort of mental defense very difficult.
Insanity defenses are talked a lot about on TV, very, very rarely successful. And someone who can write something like that is generally, is very hard to prove.
COOPER: Even if he's having mental health issues, it's still not enough for an insanity.
TOOBIN: You know, our prisons are full of people with mental health issues. In order to have an insanity defense, the best explanation I've ever heard is that you have to think you're actually shooting a watermelon, not a human being. Then maybe you're insane, but someone who could write something like that knows exactly what he's doing. It's evil, it's awful, it's wrong, but it's not insane.
MILLER: And I think the other element is in the insanity defense world is did the defendant have the ability to understand right from wrong, when you go to this much trouble and put this much work into evading being recognized, setting up the murder, evading capture, it's pretty clear that you understand this is wrong and you're trying to get away with it.
COOPER: Well, also, if you're writing about not killing innocents, you do understand the idea of what an innocent person is. What a what a, you know, whether you believe, you know, I mean, obviously he's got a warped perception.
[20:10:09]
Shimon, thank you, Jeff Toobin, as well. John Miller is going to be back shortly on the Christopher Wray announcement that he's stepping down as director of the FBI.
Next, how the public's anger at the American healthcare system has made this alleged assassin a hero to some. We're joined by best- selling author and podcaster, Scott Galloway.
Also tonight, remarkable reporting from CNN's Clarissa Ward in Syria. This is incredible. She was at a prison. She made a stunning discovery, a man locked away in a forgotten cell. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: After three months in a windowless cell, he can finally see the sky.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:15:04]
COOPER: The Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, weighed in tonight on those who would make a hero out of the alleged killer. Here's what he said to ABC News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALVIN BRAGG, MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Celebrating this conduct is abhorrent to me. It's deeply disturbing and what I would say to members of the public, people who, as you described are celebrating this and maybe contemplating other action that we will be vigilant and we will hold people accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It's unknowable, who, if anyone else, might be contemplating the kind of action DA Bragg is referring to for the celebration of the crime and veneration of the suspect, that much is plain to see. More from our Randi Kaye.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): He is accused of cold blooded murder on a New York City street. Yet support for Luigi Mangione is exploding online.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If we let O.J. off the hook, why can't we let Luigi off the hook?
KAYE (voice over): On TikTok, the #FreeLuigi is inspiring videos like these.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to go ahead and get down to business and figure out how we're going to help my boy, Luigi. We need to put some money on the man's books. Make sure he can have honey buns for days. Okay, while he's in there.
KAYE (voice over): This TikToker echoed frustrations, writing: "People are tired of being treated like a number."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People get into these jobs and positions and forget that these numbers that they're interacting with affects actual people's lives.
KAYE (voice over): Others offering themselves up as alibis. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Listen, Luigi Mangione could not have killed that CEO that morning. I know, because he was on a Zoom call with me organizing a fundraiser for kids and canines with cancer, free Luigi.
KAYE (voice over): The propping up of Mangione is so outsized, one TikToker even suggested time magazine should make him their person of the year.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Free my boy. He didn't even do it.
KAYE (voice over): Mangione has inspired merchandise too. Online retailers are selling free Luigi Christmas ornaments, sweatshirts and coffee mugs. One emblazoned with the words, "I'm in love with a criminal."
Mangione's lawyer told CNN that people have been reaching out to his office offering to pay Mangione's legal bills. He's not sure he'd accept the money.
THOMAS DICKEY, LAWYER OF LUIGI MANGIONE: Obviously, my client appreciates the support that he has, but it just doesn't sit right with me.
KAYE (voice over): A legal defense fund has also been set up on behalf of Mangione. By Wednesday afternoon, the fund had reached over $30,000.00.
Some of the anonymous donors included the words "deny, defend, depose" in their message, at least one referred to Mangione as an American hero.
In Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Mangione was arrested at a McDonald's after an employee called police, support for him has given rise to threats in the community.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have received some threats against our officers in the building here. We've started investigating some threats against some citizens in our community. We're taking all those threats seriously.
KAYE (voice over): The McDonald's is being targeted, too. Fake reviewers online writing: "Never eating at this McDonald's again. Imagine going to grab a Big Mac and witnessing Officer Snitchy McSnitch, Employee of the Month calling the Feds on a hero," referring to Mangione.
Another fake review reads: "Why go here when Taco Bell is just across the way and knows how to keep their mouths shut?"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo, good morning to everyone other than the person that snitched on my dog, Luigi, like you -- didn't your mother teach you snitches get stitches.
KAYE (voice over): Back in New York City, so-called wanted posters have turned up, possibly suggesting some sort of rallying cry. The posters show faces of executives and CEOs, including Brian Thompson, who Mangione allegedly gunned down. His is marked with a red-x. It's unclear who is behind the posters.
Randi Kaye, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: So with that as a backdrop, some perspective now from Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business and host of " The Prof G Podcast."
Scott, I mean, were you surprised by the kind of rage and vitriol that we saw online after this murder? I mean, the idea that a McDonald's employee or police officers who arrested this guy are getting threatened is crazy.
SCOTT GALLOWAY, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Yes, an initial blush. Anytime you see the murder of a -- and this was an innocent man and the kind of despair that his family and anguish is going to feel, yes, it's incredibly upsetting and shocking. I think that's the story.
The story is, what is going through or what was going through the murderer's mind at the time. The story was, it is really about the response. But when you think about it, when you go on or think about it kind of a second level effects, I think it all reverse engineers to one thing, Anderson. And that is, quite frankly, is income inequality.
And that is, when we get to the levels of income inequality we have in the United States throughout history, they've always self-corrected that's the good news. The bad news is the means of self-correction are usually one of three things either war, famine or revolution.
And I would argue that this, along with some other movements, whether its Black Lives Matter or the #MeToo Movement, are really going after the one percent and I just think there's a lot of rage out there.
Two-thirds of medical debt or two-thirds of bankruptcies, medical debt plays some role in. So the rage, as you think about it, I don't want to say what the way it manifested is understood, but you can understand the rage, if you will.
[20:20:19]
COOPER: I mean, do you think healthcare -- I mean, you talk about the rage of income and inequality, it focuses on healthcare, has the level of anger been rising do you think -- or has the story just become kind of a vessel for outrage that has been out there for a while?
GALLOWAY: I think the answer is yes. I mean, healthcare in America costs $13,000.00 per individual. In most western nations, it's $6,500.00. It's literally double. American consumers pay triple for pharmaceuticals, on average, $1,500.00 per consumer versus $500.00 in other developed nations.
Despite the fact many of these pharmaceuticals were developed and manufactured here, and also despite the fact paying almost double what other countries pay for our healthcare, we have worse outcomes. We have lower health expectancy. Infant mortality is a much greater, greater obesity rates. So, I mean, in some, healthcare is bad but expensive, and it results in a lot of despair and anguish across American households.
What I would argue is the rage is targeted at the wrong people. It shouldn't be targeted at the CEOs. For profit companies are doing what they're supposed to do. It should be targeted on our legislators, who, despite 70 percent of America wanting universal healthcare and price caps, consistently block them. Why? The biggest lobbyists by dollar volume in DC is not the defense industry or big tech, it is the healthcare industry. Three quarters of a billion dollars and two- thirds of those lobbyists, Anderson, were former government officials.
COOPER: You said in the past you actually don't have health insurance. Why did you make that decision?
GALLOWAY: Because my health insurance for my family, because I'm a narcissist and I wanted the best healthcare was about 50,000 bucks a year. And I'm at a point now, I'm blessed. I have the economic security where I can absorb any healthcare costs, and 45 percent of insurance costs go to go to profits and administration.
Meaning for every dollar you pay for health insurance, you're only getting $0.55 back and they have $0.55 back. And they have a vested interest in blocking and making it difficult for you to get claims.
So I'm in the fortunate position where I don't need health insurance. And I went naked about seven years ago. I've saved about $350,000.00 in health insurance costs, which will buy a lot of health care. But the unfortunate thing here is that really insurance, Anderson, like so much in our society, is nothing but a transfer of wealth from the lower middle class to the households like mine that are wealthy because we can absorb a big hit.
It's again another transfer of wealth from lower and middle, middle, lower and middle income households to wealthy households.
COOPER: How does it get better?
GALLOWAY: We elect individuals that have the backbone to do their damn job and prevent a tragedy of the commons, and think long term and maybe lower Medicare a year age down to 21 for the next 44 years, and figure out a system or an ecosystem where instead of being to hoarse to the industry and being victims of regulatory capture and then going to work for lobbyists in the industry that they stand up to the medical industrial complex and start getting -- stop getting us addicted to terrible sugary food and then handing us over to the medical industrial diabetes complex where they can make more money.
In other words, our elected officials need to do their job and start thinking about the long term health and welfare of the people who vote. And also, election reform laws such that democracy is again about people voting, not about dollars voting. Three quarters of a billion dollars spent by the healthcare lobby last year.
COOPER: Scott Galloway, thank you. GALLOWAY: Thank you, Anderson.
COOPER: Well, coming up next, more breaking news from John Miller, who's followed FBI Director Christopher Wray throughout his seven years in office on Wray's decision to step down in the face of Donald Trump's effort to force him out and replace him with a loyalist bent on upending the Bureau.
Also, would a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee has to say about Trump's pick?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:28:20]
COOPER: FBI Director Christopher Wray has announced plans to resign at the end of the Biden administration next month, after President-elect Trump made it clear he would be forced out. Here's what Wray told Bureau employees this afternoon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important in how we do our work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: President-elect Trump wants to replace Wray with a loyalist, Kash Patel. Now, back in September. Patel, a former federal prosecutor and House Republican aide, said he would shut down FBI headquarters on day one and reopen it as a "Museum of the Deep State."
Patel was on Capitol Hill today meeting with senators after Wray's announcement. Here's what he told our Manu Raju.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR NOMINEE: We look forward to a very smooth transition, and I'll be ready to go on day one. The senators have been wonderful, and I look forward to earning their trust and confidence with the advice and consent process and restoring law and order and integrity of the FBI.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Back with us, CNN's John Miller. You know, Chris Wray, what do you make of his decision?
MILLER: I was surprised at it and that is because Chris Wray and I saw him on November 21st. He made a speech, you know, to the packed ballroom of retired FBI agents. And it had a tinge of sadness because it felt like a farewell speech by then, President-elect Trump had announced he would be replacing him with Kash Patel.
But the FBI director is appointed to a ten-year term for a reason. It is literally meant to limit the kind of power J. Edgar Hoover had being the FBI director for 48 years. Too much power in office, too long, but also to keep it apolitical by being able to cross over more than one presidential administration and maintain that independence.
[20:30:10]
Trump fired the FBI director before him, James Comey, and is preparing to remove him. So, he's kind of end run that. But I thought he would stay to protect the integrity of the tenure term and say, I won't fail unless removed. I think what you're seeing is a tortured decision by a man who didn't want to put the people of the FBI through that though.
COOPER: Why do you -- what do you think his legacy is at the FBI?
MILLER: Well, I think his legacy is one of success in that -- and in the time he has been there, even at a time when people talk about the FBI has lost trust, he managed to triple the number of applicants, people, regular Americans coming and applying to work in the FBI, increased the task forces to 9,000, almost 10,000 agents and police officers, and make important partnerships in the areas where the FBI figured out we can't do this without help, cyber and espionage and AI, all these things on the forefront.
But the tango there is that he ended up being the leader of the agency that was the lead investigator on the documents case at Mar-a-Lago, targeting Donald Trump, the January 6th prosecution and so on. And from Donald Trump's point of view, that's not just a guy doing his job. He takes that personally and considers it disloyal.
COOPER: You think about though the time Chris Wray became FBI Director, I mean, it was, after Comey was fired, Wray seemed to have kind of stabilized it and was not out in front of cameras trying to get attention. He was trying to kind of, seemed to me, save the FBI and kind of get -- bring morale back.
MILLER: I mean, the FBI was very much in the sights of angry politicians at that point, including the president of the United States when he was appointed. What he did is he took the submarine below the surface. I have been in field offices, particularly here in New York with Chris Wray, but I've been in other places where he has addressed large groups of agents in all-hands meetings saying, listen, I know what you see. I know what you hear.
Your job is to block out the noise, what you read, what you hear on the news, what the politicians say. Your job is to focus on the mission, focus on the case, and go wherever the facts lead you. As far as the flack, we'll handle that.
COOPER: John Miller, thank you. Appreciate it. Perspective now from Minnesota Democratic Senator and Judiciary Committee member, Amy Klobuchar.
Senator, do you agree with FBI Director Wray's decision to resign before President-elect Trump had a chance to fire him?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, (D-MN) JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: You know, I would've loved to see him stay on for his full term. Christopher Wray is someone that was appointed first by George Bush to be Head of Criminal after 9/11. He then went on to serve with great distinction, appointed by Donald Trump himself, FBI, served through President Biden's turn. He exemplifies the motto of the FBI -- Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity.
So of course, I'd like to have seen him stay on, but I understand his decision. He wants to leave on his own terms. And there was no sign out there that President-elect Trump was going to keep him on. And this way, he gives a month to say goodbye to his frontline workers. He supervises over 30,000 people across the country and also, to put his affairs in order. And I think it was the right thing to do, given the remarks that the president-elect has made about not wanting to keep him on.
COOPER: Kash Patel, who President-elect Trump has nominated to take over the agency, I mean, he has spoken about decentralizing the FBI, essentially, literally turning the headquarters of the FBI in Washington into a museum for the -- about the deep state. Do you think he can get confirmed?
KLOBUCHAR: I think that Kash Patel's nomination is a reason that we're going to have background checks on these nominees. It's one of the reasons, when you look at some of the nominees, why we have to have an open hearing. I just don't think that should be the mission of the FBI. It shouldn't be a revenge mission. Of course, you're going to put people in jobs that presidents trust. That's true around the board.
But I just saw your CNN poll pop up on the screen, that 75 percent of Americans value experience. And when I look at what the FBI does on a day in, day out basis, yes, the field officers are incredibly important. They're important in Minnesota. But as I just explained, the work that they do at headquarters, when it comes to coordinating a major manhunt or when it comes to coordinating what has to be done, when it comes to cyber threats and terrorism threats, that is traditionally and in -- now and in the future, will be done by people who are dealing with these threats all over the nation and not just in field offices across the country, as important as that work is as well.
COOPER: Do you think Kash Patel could pass a security check?
[20:35:00]
KLOBUCHAR: I have no idea. Anderson, I have no idea. As you and I have noted before, President Trump has been putting up some interesting nominees. I think I remember suggesting that maybe you are going to be the next one put up because he has put up so many television people.
(LAUGH)
KLOBUCHAR: I was thinking though that you better watch it on New Year's Eve if you want to get that alcohol, tobacco, and firearms job.
(LAUGH)
COOPER: OK.
KLOBUCHAR: But the point is we have these open hearings. These people are going to be managing frontline workers that put their lives on the line. So they better pass an FBI background check. We better feel comfortable in the U.S. Senate. It's our job to advise and consent under the Constitution, and our job to support and defend the Constitution when we take our oath. And that is what we have to do our jobs, and it's not just Democrats, it's Republicans because they are ultimately going to make the decision if they want this man heading up the FBI.
COOPER: You're also the Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, which held a hearing today on the U.S. Capitol Police ahead of Congress certifying the election results on January 6th. What more can you tell us about it?
KLOBUCHAR: So, this is a culmination of a lot of work that I did along with former Senator Blunt, Senator Fischer now, and then of course Senator Portman and Peters, where we came to together and we did a major security review of what went wrong on January 6th. There was the obvious hearing in the House later, but this was purely on security. We found out that our officers didn't even have riot gear. 75 percent of them didn't have riot gear. Some of them had their riot gear that were locked on a bus.
There were the haunting words of the officer over the police radio that day, does anyone have a plan? Does anyone have a plan? So today, we reviewed the fact that Chief Manger and his incredible line officers have met 103 of 103 recommendations from the Inspector General in the changes that had to be made with equipment, intelligence gathering, officer retention. But it was a moment where we could look back at our work and tell the chief, job well done.
COOPER: Senator Klobuchar, appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.
COOPER: Well, coming up in Syria, families still desperately searching for loved ones in the notorious prisons, in torture chambers operated by the Assad regime. Critics were sent to these secret prisons in brutal conditions throughout the Civil War. CNN went inside one of those newly liberated facilities and our Clarissa Ward made an incredible discovery behind a cell door that was still locked, a forgotten prisoner. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:41:50]
COOPER: A new reality is gradually taking shape in Syria, days after the collapse of the Assad regime, major players in the region, including the United States, Turkey and Israel, are stepping up their activity in the country, launching strikes on military targets, hoping to prevent terror organizations from making gains. Now, the Israeli military claims to have confiscated several Syrian tanks in the buffer zone that separates the two countries. For his part, the leader of the rebel group now in control of the country said his team is working to secure potential chemical weapon sites and promised to shut down the notorious prisons operated by Assad. Thousands of people deemed enemies of the previous regime were held, tortured in those prisons, many disappeared. CNN's Clarissa Ward visited one facility and made an incredible discovery. Here's her report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WARD (voice-over): Deep in the belly of the regime's Air Force Intelligence headquarters --
WARD: These are English letters.
WARD (voice-over): -- we are hoping to find traces of Austin Tice, an American journalist held captive in Syria since 2012. It's one of many secret prisons across the city. This specific branch was tasked with surveillance, arrest, and killing of all regime critics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are all cleaned out.
WARD (voice-over): We don't find any hints of Tice, but come across something extraordinary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't tell though. It might just be a blanket, but it's the only cell that's locked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is he going to shoot it?
WARD (voice-over): The guard makes us turn the camera off while he shoots the lock off the cell door. We go in to get a closer look. It's still not clear if there is something under the blanket.
WARD: Oh, it moved. Is there someone there? I thought I saw it move. Is someone there? Or is it just a blanket? I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) someone. Hello?
WARD: OK, (inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Oh, that's OK. It's OK. It's OK.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): I'm a civilian, he says. I'm a civilian.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's OK. It's OK.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): He tells the fighter he is from the city of Homs and has been in the cell for three months.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
WARD: OK. You're OK. You're OK. You're OK. You're OK.
WARD (voice-over): Clutches my arm tightly with both hands.
WARD: OK.
[Foreign Language]
WARD: Does anyone have any water? Water?
[Foreign Language]
WARD: OK. It's water. It's water. OK. OK. OK. You're OK. You're OK. You're OK.
WARD (voice-over): We start to walk him outside. Thank God you are safe. Don't be afraid, the fighter says. You are free.
[20:45:00]
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): This is the third prison they brought me to, he says, the third prison. After three months in a windowless cell, you can finally see the sky.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): Oh God, the light, he says. Oh God, there is light. My God, there is light.
WARD: OK. OK.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): You're OK. Stay with me. Stay with me, he repeats again and again. For three months. I didn't know anything about my family, he says. I didn't hear anything about my children.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): The fighter hands him something to eat. He barely lift it to his mouth.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): His body can't handle it. OK, you are OK. His captors fled during the fall of Damascus, leaving him with no food or water. That was at least four days ago.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): I'm shaking. My face is shaking, he says. The rebel tells him there's no more army, no more prisons, no more checkpoints.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): Are you serious, he says.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): Syria is free, he tells him. It's the first time he has heard those words.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): He tells us his name is Adul Hurbav (ph) and that officers from the much feared Mukhabarat Intelligence Services took him from his home and began interrogating him about his phone. They brought me here to Damascus. They asked me about names of terrorists, he says.
Did they hit you, the fighter asks? Yes. Yes, he says. As a paramedic arrives, the shock sets in. There's nothing, everything's OK. The Red Crescent is coming to help you, this man as assures him. You are safe. Don't be afraid anymore. Everything you are afraid of is gone.
Tens of thousands of Syrians have disappeared in Assad's prisons. Up until 15 minutes ago, Adul Hurbav (ph) was one of them. He's still petrified.
[Foreign Language]
WARD (voice-over): Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, the ambulance worker reassures him.
Every car I got into, they blindfolded me, he says. It is the end of a very dark chapter for him and for all of Syria, but so many ghosts remain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Clarissa, that's just an extraordinary report. What more do you know about this man and how he ended up in a prison?
WARD (on camera): Well, we don't know that much because you can see from the report, Anderson, that he's in a deep state of shock. And honestly, I don't think he understands why he was taken. And this is something that's really important for our viewers to understand about the way the regime operated with impunity, plucking people off the streets for any number of different reasons or possible offenses.
You didn't have to be an activist. You didn't have to be outspoken against Bashar al-Assad to fall afoul of his regime and to end up in one of these dungeons. He says that they accused him of making phone calls to people who they called terrorists. Again, important to remember that terrorists for them could refer to anyone who essentially was critical of Bashar al-Assad or who was supportive of this uprising.
And I think what it really speaks to, Anderson, is this broader issue that we see in Syria whereby tens of thousands of ordinary people have just disappeared into these dungeons. Adul (ph) was one of the lucky ones. He was found. He hopefully, right now, is back at home with his family. But for so many others, we don't know if they're alive and we don't know if we will ever even know with certainty whether they're alive or not, where they were held, why they were held. This is a country that is grappling with question after question. Anderson?
COOPER: Yeah. And the look on his face, it's just -- it's incredible. Clarissa Ward, thank you so much.
Coming up next, a mystery in the skies of New Jersey. Clusters of drones have been spotted flying there for weeks.
[20:50:00]
You can barely see them there in the night sky. The question is, who's responsible? What the Pentagon is saying about it, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: For weeks now, New Jersey residents have been plagued by unexplained drones flying overhead. You can see tiny lights behind the trees there in the dark sky, very hard to see. Officials don't know where the aircraft came from or what they're doing.
[20:55:00]
Their proximity to military facilities has been raising some concerns. New Jersey state lawmakers met with Homeland Security and FBI officials today for an update on the investigation. Gary Tuchman has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Questions abound about what these moving lights in the sky are, but there seems to be certainty about what they are not.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It definitely wasn't a plane because it was too low and it was also going back and forth, and then forwards and backwards.
Mark Taylor is the Mayor of Florham Park, New Jersey.
MAYOR MARK TAYLOR, FLORHAM PARK, NEW JERSEY: They look like a small car to me. Their wingspans are probably six feet across.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): What they appear to be are drones, clusters of unidentified drones, flying much lower than a plane would.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the creepy part is not that it's just a drone, that they're so large.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): In New Jersey's Ocean County, Sheriff's deputies took their own video of the drones.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw something flying a little low. So, we took some video of it, not really sure what it was. Definitely something flying low and fast. TUCHMAN (voice-over): Lower, faster and larger than a recreational drones, says the deputy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was coming in our direction. It spun around 180 degrees, went back out the other way, then it kind of looped around and then took off past us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Planes, they have a white tail like coming from them and each wing has a different color, whether it be red or green. Whatever it is, it's different.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Understandably, there is concern. The drones are occasionally flying near military facilities, but the Pentagon knocked down this social media post. New Jersey Republican Congressman Jeff Van Drew, who claimed an X that the drones are "Possibly linked to a missing Iranian mothership".
SABRINA SINGH, DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: There is not any truth to that. There is no Iranian ship off the coast of the United States and there's no so-called mothership launching drones towards the United States.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): But it's all still a mystery. Homeland Security and FBI officials in New Jersey have just met with state and local lawmakers. They and the state's governor have stressed the drones do not appear to threaten public safety. Nevertheless --
TAYLOR: People are calling myself, my home. It's just -- it's one of those things where they are alarmed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's definitely something and we are just going to be looking into it a little bit more to see if we can figure it out.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: And Gary Tuchman joins me now. So I understand the New Jersey State Police have made an announcement about the drones.
TUCHMAN (on camera): Right. The State Police are saying they're about to receive some new technology from the federal government, drone- specific radar, that should help in the detection. Right now, Anderson, we're in Hoboken, New Jersey, outside the train station. People coming home from a day of work in New York City back to Jersey, some of the people we're talking to are concerned. Most of the people though are just very curious. And if there are drones in the sky tonight, it will be virtually impossible to see them because here in most of the state of New Jersey, it is raining and visibility is very limited. Anderson?
COOPER: Gary Tuchman, thanks so much. Our Senior Data Reporter, Harry Enten joins me now with more on the mysterious drones. You're usually the data guy. But now, you're the drone guy.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I have never been looking more forward to a story in my entire life. Let me tell you why. Because the bottom line is, when I get into trouble, the first person I call is my girlfriend. OK?
COOPER: OK.
ENTEN: She's the first person I call. And in this particular case, I wanted to do some original reporting. And it turns out that my --
COOPER: Did you call her?
ENTEN: I called her. Turns out her mother has actually been filming some of the drones.
COOPER: Really?
ENTEN: Yes. Going over Morris County. I think we have some of the image -- there it is.
COOPER: Wow.
ENTEN: We have some original video right there that was taken by my girlfriend's mother, Nancy.
COOPER: OK.
ENTEN: I think it's going to zoom in and you'll be able to see some of the drones that come in. She's zooming in.
COOPER: OK.
ENTEN: And let's see it come across the screen.
COOPER: All right.
ENTEN: And what is so amazing to me about this was Nancy was just -- when I went over for Thanksgiving --
COOPER: Right.
ENTEN: -- she just could not stop talking about these drones, these drones in the sky.
COOPER: Right.
ENTEN: She was so amazed by them.
COOPER: Yeah.
ENTEN: And so, she was sending a ton of video to her daughter, my girlfriend. And what's so interesting is that Morris County, which is where Nancy lives and where my girlfriend grew up, it was one of the first sites where the drones were actually seen.
COOPER: OK.
ENTEN: And what's so interesting --
COOPER: How long has this been going on for? ENTEN: Yeah. This is what's so incredible, right? So you start off in Morris, then you go all the way and it's been expanding, including Staten Island, reports of Philadelphia. And how long has it been going on for? Look at this, we have been seeing drones in the sky now for four-plus weeks the first reports came out and we're talking about the amount of drones per night, upwards of 49-plus drone sightings.
So this is crazy. It's happening all over New Jersey and there are a ton of drones. It's amazing.
COOPER: But nobody knows what there are.
ENTEN: We have no freaking idea what these are. And that's what makes it amazing.
COOPER: Do we know how many drones there are?
ENTEN: Well, as I mentioned, you know, we're talking about --
COOPER: Are these all the same drones?
ENTEN: No, we have no idea. It's all a great mystery. And that's what's so amazing about this.
COOPER: We don't even have pictures of them. We're just showing a black screen here.
ENTEN: Well, we're -- I think what we're going to see is some of them coming across the sky there. I think that we see some of them. Let's see if we can see.
COOPER: So Harry, you just ate up a three-minute segment and you actually really said nothing.
ENTEN: No, no, I would never do that.
(LAUGH)
ENTEN: I just wanted to be with you. I haven't been with you for a while, but you know --
COOPER: Yeah, I know, appreciate it.
ENTEN: What's so --
COOPER: I like the personal connection to the drones.
ENTEN: Thank you so much.
COOPER: And I appreciate Nancy's video.
ENTEN: Thank you. And what I will note here, because I have to bring it back to some math. The Google searches in New Jersey for drones --
COOPER: You got 20 seconds to eat out (ph).
ENTEN: I can -- I can -- I can do it.
(LAUGH)
ENTEN: Look at the Google searches for drones this month, up -- get this, over 6,000 percent from the 10-year average. So people are really interested.
