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Don Lemon Tonight

Truck Plows Into Crowd at Bastille Day Celebration, Killing Dozens. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired July 14, 2016 - 22:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:00:00] DON LEMON, CNN TONIGHT SHOW HOST: The breaking news tonight. At least 77 people dead in an attack on a crowd watching fireworks of fireworks display.

This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon.

A Bastille Day celebration in the French City of Nice turns deadly when a truck driver ploughed into the crowd. Hundreds have run for their lives. The American witness describing the driver accelerating as victims are hit.

The attack all caught on camera in graphic video. The death toll rising tonight. At least 77 people killed, 100 injured according to French President Francois Hollande.

Now the driver shot dead by police. Authorities are trying to determine whether the identity card of a 31-year-old French-Tunisian found in the truck's cab matches the body of the driver. That's according to a police source who are citing the AFP.

And officials say this has all the hallmark of terror. Again, all the hallmarks of a terror attack. The attack in Nice tonight comes on the French equivalent of the Fourth of July. The streets crowded with people enjoying a fireworks display, then in a moment the scene turns to pure horror captured on cell phone cameras and posted for the world to see.

I must warn you, though, that these images are extremely graphic. We have edited them down to a series of stills turning them black and white and blurring the identifying detail.

So, let's go down on this and get as many details as possible. I want to bring in now Becky Anderson. Becky is in Paris, Jim Sciutto will join us from Washington. There they are both. So, Becky, I'm going to start with you. So many people dead, so many more injured. Take us through what happened, Becky.

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, what we do know that the state of emergency in this country will now be extended. It was supposed to be lifted just next week after what is being such an awful time. But the state of emergency will be extended will be extended now for three months. This is what we know at this point, Don. At least 77 people dead, as many as 100 injured. The president said as many as 20 of those in intensive care. A driver of a large white truck, drove along what is known as the Promenade des Anglais, which is the beach front road in the southern resort city of Nice, and shut out of that truck into crowds of thousands of people who are gathered to witness the celebrations for Bastille Day, a day of fraternity and legality.

They were watching the fireworks. It was 10 o'clock, local time. That is six hours ago when this incident happened. After that, the truck simply carried on driving along that street some two kilometers or more than a while. We are told mowing people down.

The truck, police say, was full of guns and explosives. They discovered after having shot and killed the driver. They say this is a resort town, there were have been many, many French there and many, many international tourists who were there to celebrate what is supposed to be a day July the 14th.

LEMON: Yes.

ANDERSON: This is effectively Independence Day, or the national holiday here in France, a day of trauma for the French and those who are there.

LEMON: Effectively the 4th of July equivalent here in the United States.

ANDERSON: Correct.

LEMON: Becky, this is now a formal terror investigation. Is there any more information about the perpetrator or the motivation here?

ANDERSON: Yes. What we are getting from French media here is that the identity card in this truck was found to be one of a French-Tunisian citizen, possibly a resident of Nice.

But we can't stand that up at present but that is being widely reported in the French press here. As you rightly point out, this is now a counterterror operation, an operation that is investigating mass murder on.

Well, I mean, mass murder is a huge scale anyway, but we are talking murder on an incredible scale, talking possibly the worst attack by a single assailant, a lone wolf, ever if this were to be the case. Don?

LEMON: All right. Becky, stand by. I want to bring Jim in, Jim Sciutto. Jim, you have been speaking to eyewitnesses. What have you been hearing?

[22:05:00] JIM SCIUTTO, CNN'S CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Don, just the pure brutality of it. I spoke to an American pilot who was there in Nice, who was 15 feet away as that plowed through the crowd, he described to me how it was mowing bodies over, accelerating as it hit bodies there. And then what's particularly incredible is the driver managed to

careen along that waterfront street there which have been blocked for traffic, it was meant to be a pedestrian avenue, careen along it for more than a mile, a mile driving through those crowds there before, as we see in those pictures on the air.

Now he was finally confronted and killed by police. And then, tonight, that mile strewn with ambulances treating the wounded, and sadly, taking away the dead. You know, you and I, Don, and all of us sadly have covered so many attacks like this in so many places over the course of the last year or more, they tend to blend together.

Of course, the victims are unique in each one. This one in terms of method is unique as well. And that is using a vehicle as a weapon of mass murder, right? We've seen it on small scales in Canada, we've seen it in Israel deadly but not this deadly.

And that is -- that is something shocking and new and it is of, I can tell you it's of concern to counterterror officials because that's a very easy attack to copy.

LEMON: Yes.

SCIUTTO: You don't have to buy a gun, you don't have to make an explosive with a recipe over the internet. You just have to drive a car somewhere where there are crowds.

LEMON: Yes.

SCIUTTO: That's difficult to defend against.

LEMON: And, Jim, as you were saying that and we were watching, you know, this truck drive down, you know, the street in its, I mean, this beach town, it's really unbelievable when you look at it.

We know there's some new information on the investigation, Jim. I'm wondering what your sources are telling you. Because we're hearing information about guns and explosives being found in that truck, as well as the papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian possibly?

SCIUTTO: That's right. First on the weapons, there are indications that this attacker planned to use more than this vehicle to carry out death and destruction, weapons, explosives, possibly grenades found inside that cab, as well as witness reports saying that at the beginning of this drive-through in effect, this through drive-through mass murder, that he left his cab and fired from the cab as well before getting back in and then continuing to drive along.

So, that in effect he had multiple weapons, right, although it seemed that most of the death and destruction caused by the vehicle itself. Now the latest information is that there was an identity card found inside of a French-Tunisian, a French-Tunisian background.

Authorities trying to determine now whether the I.D. card matches the body of the killer who they -- who they now have. Of course, they're trying to direct that. But what they do say is a resident of Nice but with Tunisian background. They are trying to determine if that is indeed the person who carried out this attack.

LEMON: Hey, Jim, I have a question for you which people are going to ask, you know, we covered so many of these in France lately over the last couple of years, why does this keep happening in France?

SCIUTTO: Well, here's the thing. The fact is we're seeing it in a lot of places, right. Just think of the couple of weeks. You saw something in Orlando, you saw in Dhaka Bangladesh, you saw something in Istanbul, you saw it in France. But France on a scale, you have Charlie Hebdo, you have the Paris the attacks in November and you have this.

The fact is France has hundreds, perhaps even thousands of terrorist suspects at any given time. That's an order of magnitude bigger than what we have here in the U.S. Why is that? One is proximity to Syria. They can get there, they get on the battlefield. They can come out, the results will be very large.

One-tenth of the French population is Muslim. So, there is an issue this is not by any means to impugn the religion as a whole. But there are more in a small percentage of that population has chosen this path.

And the fact is the authorities don't have the resources that the U.S has in terms of manpower, technology, that they're bringing it up but they don't have it.

And there's been an impression from U.S. counterterror officials for sometime that Europeans have been a bit slow to get on top of this, to do what they need to do, to be aggressive enough. That's certainly changing in France, but the fact is they have a bigger problem than we do.

LEMON: Jim Sciutto, Becky Anderson, thank you. Please, stand by. We'll get back to you as you get more information on this.

I want to bring in Congressman Peter King, he's a chairman of the counterterrorism and intelligence subcommittee. Congressman, good to have you here. I wish it was for a different circumstances. A phase of these terror attacks has becoming almost overwhelming. What's your reaction to tonight's events?

PETER KING, NEW YORK REPRESENTATIVE: Well, obviously it's totally horrific and our hearts and prayers. I have to be with the people of France having gone through this horrible, horrible ordeal.

Having said that, you know, we've known for at least the last several months that ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates are planning attacks throughout Europe, specifically in France. We thought that it would aimed primarily at the soccer tournament that was being carried on France.

[22:10:02] But there is a, as Jim is saying, there is a larger hostile Muslim population in France. And I have issues with certain people in the Muslim community in this country but it's isolated. For the most part Muslims in all country have assimilated which wanted to society.

In France they're much more segregated and they've been there for many years. They had the bad experience in Algeria. So, and also it's so close to Syria and there's been many, many French citizens have gone to Syria to be trained by ISIS then come back into France.

So, putting all that together, I heard the French government was talking about reducing the state of emergency or ending the state of emergency tomorrow or the next day before this happened.

Again, I don't want to be second guessing from, you know, 3,000 miles away, but I've known just what I've seen about the intelligence in Europe, why they would be when -- it's well known, it's almost on a public record that Islamists want to attack Europe and they are planning to attack Europe and they try to do it on ceremonial days.

So, it's not the soccer championship but it is Bastille Day. And that's why we were so alert ourselves here in the United States on the 4th of July.

LEMON: Congressman, Hillary Clinton reacting to tonight's event. She spoke earlier on CNN to Anderson and was asked about Donald Trump. He told Fox News tonight that he'd go to Congress to ask for a declaration of war.

I want to get your reaction to this. Listen to this.

KING: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think it's clear we are at war with these terrorist groups and what they represent. It's a different kind of war. And we need to be smart about how we wage it and win it.

So, I think we have to look at all possible approaches to doing just that. We're at war against radical Jihadists who use Islam to recruit and radicalize others in order to pursue their evil agenda. It's not so important what we call these people as to what we do about them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: What's your reaction to what she said?

KING: Well, legally I don't think we have to have a declaration of war but I believe it may be important to do it to mobilize the American people and make them realize is this. And we are at war not just for the Al Qaeda per se, but with the Islamist terrorism.

I disagree with Hillary Clinton that it's not important what we call it. It is important we call it radical Jihadism that we call it radical Islam, you know, that's what it is. And she seemed to have a little half-hearted. I really don't want to be making politics tonight. I mean, this is so serious and I would just hope whether it's

President Trump or President Clinton, whoever it is that they realize this is a war that's going to go on for many years. We have to be fully mobilize, we have to be ready to defend ourselves and go on after this both here in the United States and also overseas.

And it's not just in the Middle East, it's in Europe. And there are obviously elements in our own country. And that's why I think we do need more surveillance. We have to stop apologizing whether taking action overseas.

And I wish that the next president when we do go after ISIS, we do go after Al Qaeda, we don't tell them what we're not going to do. Let them think we're going to do everything.

LEMON: Yes.

KING: And then we can decide where we pull back and where we don't. Let them think it's a total offense against them because this is a vicious, terrible ideology and it's something that they're going to keep going.

I can tell you, 24/7 there are threats that are being analyzed and looked at possible threats. They will never let -- they will never stop coming at us and we can never let our guard down.

LEMON: The question wasn't really want to make politics. But what I want to add -- what I was trying to ask is what she said that we need to be smart because these groups are trying to draws us into a ground war. Do you agree with that, what's your reaction to that?

KING: No. Again, I don't know why she's saying that. The fact is, I don't think you're trying to draw us into. We have to do whatever we have to do to win. If it does have to use ground troops then yes.

But better than that would be to have the Sunni Arab nations fight with us. And they won't do that unless they are convinced that the president of the United States is committed to doing everything as possible.

If we have to use ground troops. Yes, never let the enemy know we're not going to use ground troops. Let the president commit or chief decide or whether or not they have to be done. But I wouldn't rule it out.

But again, ultimately, to win on the ground you have to have Sunni Arab nations carrying the fight. We can provide assistance but they're not going to do it. After what they saw what the president do in Syria where he drew a red line and then backed away from a commitment he made. They are very reluctant to follow what they think is very uncertain.

LEMON: Yes. Congressman Peter King, thank you. We appreciate your time.

KING: Yes. Thank you. LEMON: When we come right back, much more on our breaking news. Eyewitnesses to this deadly truck attack in Nice, France leaving at least 77 people dead.

[22:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We're calling breaking news tonight on CNN. A truck driver plows into Bastille Day crowds in Nice, France killing at least 77 people.

One the phone with me now is Inga, she is an eyewitness to the attack who are asking that we only use her first name for safety and we'll abide that. Inga, glad you're OK. You're walking up and down the Promenade when all this happened, all of this happened, what did you see and what did you hear?

INGA, EYEWITNESS: Well, Don, and thank you for having me. Yes, indeed, I went to see, I actually went just to walk around the Promenade and enjoy Nice and its beauty. And then right after the fireworks basically when the terrible event happened.

LEMON: So, what happened?

INGA: I was actually just walking of the scuffled dancing and enjoying themselves. As I turn around and I walking towards back to the hotel it was exactly right on this truck (Inaudible) reported the truck is driving through.

And I was in a walk walking straight towards the truck when I heard gunshots and immediately, this is probably one of those experiences when within split seconds you realized you're in danger. Immediately without even seeing the truck just yet I run away from the crowd, away from the promenade, across the street.

[22:20:07] It was complete chaos. People were running away. People were falling on the ground. One lady fell on the ground and everybody was running right over her. I was trying to get her back up, help her and it was just -- I don't know. It was -- people were running in all the different directions.

As I was actually running away from the promenade, I looked back and saw the truck, the white truck, running through people, people that were walking around. It was such a big crowd; it was right after the fireworks for the big holiday. And the Promenade was full of people and the truck was running right through everybody.

LEMON: We-- the scenes are so horrific, the pictures that we are not showing much of it just because it is too graphic. The pictures we are showing, Inga, where we put them black and white we blurred some of the specifics because it's just too hard to show on television. And you actually saw this truck just driving people and bodies on the ground there?

INGA: I was pretty much walking straight toward the truck. And it's not the gunshot that immediately sent me to action, I probably would have been right there. It was a matter of split seconds and a decision where I'm like run away from the -- run away from this place, run away from the crowd.

I couldn't quite tell what was happening where the -- where the offender was and what was happening. I just ran away from there. So, in a way I'm saying I was probably split seconds away from being right in the path of the truck.

LEMON: And you live there. You're a resident of Nice or were you vacationing?

INGA: I'm a resident of New York. I'm here on a holiday. And it was one of those moments actually as I was walking around and watching people, I was thinking how much it reminded me of New York. There's not very many places in the world where people come from all kinds of walks and place and geographies where we're just there to share an experience.

I was just in New York for July 4th fireworks and, you know, this is one of those special places and times. I was thinking about how human we are in that moment. You know, you've seen people enjoying in that same thing live music.

Nice reminded me so much of New York. No, I'm not a resident here but (AUDIO GAP) describe these feelings going through me just at how human we can be sharing this little moment and going from that to the image that you cannot even show.

LEMON: Well, Inga, we know that it is been a very traumatic moment for you right now, something that you are experiencing. A lot of people are. We thank you for joining us, and we're glad that you're OK. Thanks again.

So, I want to bring in now Tony Molina on the phone, an eyewitness to the attack as well.

Tony, I'm so glad that you and your family are OK. Tell me what you saw.

TONY MOLINA, EYEWITNESS: Thank you for that. Yes, so like Inga was saying, the fireworks went off at about 10 p.m., local time here and so there was lots of crowds on the streets. They had -- throughout the day they had all sorts of things set up along the Promenade des Anglais there, the big boardwalk area.

And so just to give you an idea where we're at. We're just west at Negresco, which is somewhat central to where these fireworks are taking place. Our apartment overlooked the beach and this boardwalk area. So, when the fireworks ended, we walk, we saw the crowd just starting to go out into the streets from the beach heading home.

We watched for a couple of minutes and then we stepped inside, closed the balcony door and within about two minutes, my son and I heard something outside. I actually thought there more fireworks went off because at the same time you start hearing the crowd roar. So, I thought maybe they're launching some more fireworks.

We hurried quickly back outside and just could not believe it. And I'm imagining this truck that we now see coming in front of us had already been going probably for about a half mile, being that it took us a second to recognize a sound, and step outside.

And all we see is this truck along the boardwalk, which is the sidewalk area, just plowing through people, we see just bodies getting hit and people running in all sorts of direction because this truck is zigzagging as it's going down this boardwalk at about 25, 30 miles an hour.

So, we watched just in, you know, disbelief, disbelief as if gets to a point on this board walk where's a big pergola that it has to go back on the street and it continues out of our view.

[22:25:01] Several seconds later we hear just the barge of gunfire and just from watching the news afterwards we're able to see, you know, that's probably where it ended.

LEMON: How long -- how long of a distance do you think that this truck traveled down this Promenade? Because you said you started hearing the roar and by the time you got to the window, it took a moment before you saw the truck, right?

MOLINA: Well, when we walk out to the balcony we immediately saw the truck coming to view that it was just in front of us. So, I estimate it had already gone a distance of about half a mile just based on its speed and plus, afterwards kind of looking at the path of the emergency light down the way.

So, I'd estimate about a half a mile just to reach our point and then it probably continued for about another half a mile from there.

LEMON: My goodness.

MOLINA: So, maybe about a mile.

LEMON: Are you -- you're still in view of the Promenade, right? You're in your apartment?

MOLINA: Yes. And we step out every now and then to see what's the latest is.

LEMON: What's going on?

MOLINA: They just probably about an hour ago started actually processing the scene, meaning that up until now, you know, these bodies have been of that, they marked them. It was sad because right afterwards there were some families, I'm imagining families that were just laying down, crying next to a couple of these bodies.

You know, then had had to clear this whole area out and so, these bodies were just there covered up. They set up somewhat of a like medical triage area kind of in front of our apartment and really more -- centered more on the building next to us.

I think just based on what I saw, they turned this building into a makeshift hospital. So, right now there's hundreds of emergency vehicles just back on the streets in front of us. But it looks like they're now beginning to do actual processing. Cameras out, it looks like investigators arrived.

LEMON: Yes. Tony Molina, he was a witness to this in Nice, France. Tony, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Coming up, much more on our breaking news tonight. The deadly truck attack in France tonight. The French interior minister now says 80 people are dead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:30:00] LEMON: This is our breaking news tonight on CNN. The French interior minister said at least 80 people are dead in the truck attack in Nice, France.

I want to bring in now Ambassador R. James Woolsey, the former director of the Center Intelligence who is a chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Thank you.

Why France so much? I'm looking at headlines here. Four years, 12 attacks, a timeline of terror in France. There have been so many, what's going on?

R. JAMES WOOLSEY, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES CHAIRMAN: They're a close ally to the United States, they're near the Middle East and easy to reach. They have a really substantial Muslim population, some members of whom are not focused first and foremost on France's interests but with some of the terrorist groups.

It is -- and France has a secular history since the French Revolution, they really don't -- they really want people to be integrated and become Frenchmen and they've done away with veils, for example, for Muslim women. And whereas we're more relaxed about that sort of things and it works pretty well in the United States integrating groups that come here.

French kind of show work hard at it. And some of the things they do I think create controversy, but basically they're close to the Middle East, they're close to the United States and they're ideologically standard of freedom in the world, just like we are.

LEMON: Yes.

WOOLSEY: And that's the -- that's the big enemy of ISIS and its affiliated organizations.

LEMON: You were here when -- you were listening when I interviewed Inga, the eyewitness. She said she's from -- she's a New Yorker but she's there on holiday. And then we're sitting in New York City right now. What is the lesson? Is there a lesson in it for us? Or is there some sort of should we be concerned obviously?

WOOLSEY: Absolutely. And we're not going to just by getting more and more vigilant or even improving our intelligence. And so, we've got to destroy ISIS.

Bin Laden said it very well and sadly in that. He said people see a strong horse and a weak horse and he like the strong horse better. We've got to be the strong horse. We've got to win not only in Syria and Iraq, we've got to crush ISIS in the west.

LEMON: Just being we keep saying be vigilant you got to watch out, when you see something say something. That's all well and good. But when you're out on a holiday, is that really realistic when you think about.

WOOLSEY: Well, it's only a little bit realistic. And the main thing is we're in a war. The president never will say that. And he never will even say who it's with. He won't talk about radical Islamists or radical Islamic...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: But Hillary Clinton tonight said to Anderson Cooper that it didn't matter what we called them. She did say that, you know, it was radical Jihadists but said it doesn't matter. We have to be careful because they want us -- they want to draw us, meaning the U.S., into a ground war.

WOOLSEY: I disagree that it doesn't matter. It sounds cowardly if we are not willing to say we're fighting radical Islamists or radical Islamic terrorist or Jihadists. Call them what they call themselves.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Why does it sound cowardly?

WOOLSEY: Because we keep saying on background or somebody in the government keep saying on the background that they don't really want to offend by mentioning Islam.

And it's not more the purpose of Islam overall than it was a purpose of all puritans to in the 1600s in Massachusetts to kill women they called witches. It was a subgroup. It was a small -- the same thing with a Spanish inquisition.

It wasn't all Spaniards or all Catholics who were running the Spanish inquisition. It was a small group, but it was a powerful group. And we have a similar thing here with Islam. We have to admit that these are Islamic groups but at the same time make clear that certainly not all Muslims or even a majority support what they're doing.

LEMON: Radical Jihad is not enough to say that term?

WOOLSEY: I'd be perfectly happy if the administration would just call them Jihadist. That's what they call themselves and it's a perfectly accurate term.

LEMON: Let's talk about how these weapons, all of these weapons, these exclusives because reportedly they found, you know, these explosives and guns. [22:35:03] WOOLSEY: Right.

LEMON: They were shooting people as they were driving, whoever, you know, the perpetrators were. Grenades, explosives, and guns. How are they weapons getting into Europe?

WOOLSEY: That's a good question. I don't know they're certainly not as prevalent and easily obtained there as they are in the United States. France cracks down on that. I think that they're probably moved by ISIS itself from places in the Middle East and they have a number of friends and supporters in places like France and can get them in. I can't think of a better way for them to do it than that.

LEMON: We keep hearing, you know, they taking back territories from ISIS.

WOOLSEY: Yes.

LEMON: A coalition forces, the Iraqi forces, that, you know, ISIS is on the move and so far we're gaining some sort of, you know -- we're corralling them in some way in a certain sense. But what does this say? Because this appears to be happening more.

WOOLSEY: We're making some progress in the Mideast, but we haven't seriously gone after them yet. When we in the Clinton administration, when we attack the Serbs for trying to massacre the Kosovars, we were using hundreds of sorties a day, air sorties and that's not happening in Iraq and Syria. It's much smaller than that.

We've got to pull things together and fight. And fight and win and destroy the enemy not fiddle around.

LEMON: Master R. James Woolsey, thank you very much. I appreciate you joining us here in CNN.

All right, everyone, please stay with me. Much more to come on our breaking news tonight. The truck attack in Nice, France that killed at least 80 people. No claim of responsibility yet.

[22:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We're back now with our breaking news. A truck driver ploughs into Bastille Day crowds in Nice, France, killing at least 80 people.

I want to bring in now, Tom Fuentes. Tom is a former assistant director of the FBI, Professor Mia Bloom of the Georgia State University is here as well, and Bob Baer, former CIA operative will join the conversation as well.

Tom, I'm going to start with you. It's Bastille Day in France, eyewitnesses were reporting that they thought the driver of the truck before realizing he was -- it not an accident, what is your initial thoughts here? They thought the driver was drunk before, I should say, realizing that it was not an accident. What do you think?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think, Don, an event like that would catch you by surprise and you may come to that immediate conclusion that it's some deranged person or a drunk person, and we've seen that here in our country.

But once he picked up speed and just kept on going and deliberately running people over, I think then realize this was an attack of some kind. And then of course, later, you know, the police stopped the attack by shooting at him.

You know, I might add that when I saw that truck and the bullets in it, police handguns are not going to penetrate the windshield of that truck. They're going to ricochet off of it.

But France has been using their military on the streets since they've created the state of emergency and, you know, I'm betting that it was military weaponry that was used to shoot through the windshield and stop that driver.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: It didn't penetrate though, right? But it looked like initially it didn't penetrate. Was that bullet-proof glass, like was that...

FUENTES: It's not bullet-proof glass that a safety glass and the angle of the bullet often it will ricochet. So, they teach you in police training and FBI training that don't shoot at a windshield, it's probably going to bounce off unless you're at exactly at 90- degree angle from that windshield.

And if a police officer is down on the street shooting up at it it's not going to be a perfect shot. So, that was my impression. And I think also something we have to wonder is the amount of equipment, explosives, firearms, grenades in the back of that truck, was the intention for him to continue down that Promenade.

And at the end of it after killing all the people that he did, then have people waiting for him that could have gotten through security checkpoints unarmed and then take those weapons and further the attack on the ground.

LEMON: My goodness.

FUENTES: We don't know that. But why would he take more weaponry than he could personally use?

LEMON: Yes. Mia, according to a police source that side of AFP, authorities are attempting to determine whether the identity card -- they found an identity card of the 31-year-old French-Tunisian man in the truck cab, whether it matches the body of the driver. What are you learning tonight?

MIA BLOOM, "DYING TO KILL" AUTHOR: So, according to Nice-Matin, which is the local paper in France said it did match the body. They didn't release the name. But AFP, Nice-Matin, and in French, they are confirming that the I.D. papers match the body. And I think Tom Fuentes is absolutely right. The sheer amount of

weapons that was in the cab to me says they have to be smuggled in, but it means that he's probably not the completely alone actor, he had some help.

And in fact, (Inaudible) FW program on extremism has observed this as well, that he couldn't possibly be getting all this weaponry in by himself. And if he had people who are helping him we have to worry about what's going to happen tomorrow.

LEMON: Bob, I want to take a look at this truck as it was driving down the street. And we'll play the video. The driver was able to drive for about two kilometers, about a mile and a quarter, killing at least 77 people. It's up to 80 now. It is really a diabolically simple plot in a way, isn't it?

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Exactly, Don. And we have to keep in mind, we don't know this as the Islamic state but they have using a lot of trucks and they've been going to a point in Syria and Iraq and armoring the cabins or backing them up into a target. And they know the lethality of these trucks they're really hard to stop. You need a rocket launcher especially if they're backing up.

You know, and this is a well-planned attack. And if indeed there were grenades, you know, I served in France, worked with the police there and you just don't buy this stuff on the black market.

[22:45:06] Impossible. You know, you have to have an organization, you have to be in touch with organized crime or simply smuggle them in from North Africa, one of the two. So, I think as the investigation continues, we'll see there's broader connections. You don't really see these connections until after the attack occurs. It's hard to understand them before.

LEMON: Yes. And then quickly before I have to get to a break, Bob, everyone keeps asking the same question or answering the same question for me and I think it's an important one. Why France? France has had so many of these attacks just over the last year or two.

BAER: You have a very large disaffected North African community. They're French citizens now but they've been excluded from French society. I went to school in France, I worked there, worked with the Belgium police and they are really totally excluded.

And they -- and it's getting worse since attacks in Paris because they are using profiling and they are stopping people who look like Arabs on trains and buses, searching and checking their I.D.s, which we don't even do in this country.

The French have been very aggressive, which has made it much more of the tension there and radicalization of people of North African origin is actually picking up rather than lessening.

LEMON: Yes. All right. Thank you.

FUENTES: Don, can I make a quick comment about that?

LEMON: I will when I have you come back. Can you please wait to do that for me, Tom?

FUENTES: OK.

LEMON: I got to get to a break but you guys will be back a little bit later on and I'll get your response. Thank you so much. Thank you for understanding.

When we come right back, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton reacting tonight's deadly attack in France.

[22:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Breaking news tonight. At least 80 people killed in a Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, France. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both reacting tonight.

I want to discuss this now with CNN's David Gregory, also the host of the David Gregory Show. So, David, let's start with the horrible mass killing in Nice. Only minutes after we learned of it, Donald Trump tweeted this. He said, "Another horrific attack, this time in Nice, France. Many dead and injured. When will we learn? It is only getting worse."

I mean, he's been criticized in the past for jumping the gun in the wake of these events, what about this time?

DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, I think there's a pattern, the idea that it's getting worse. That when are we going to learn. In other words, when will the U.S. government somehow do something different or treat it differently, and yet, when he speaks, his sole remedy is that the president should refer to radical Islamic terrorists.

It's not much of a battle plan per se. And I think that in the back and forth of a presidential race there is a rush to be relevant, to be compassionate but to also have a sense of resolve about this. To be a strong man or strong leader.

And I think Hillary Clinton represents that as well, talking about the fact that we need to be at war. This is a very complex situation from how to harden U.S. targets, how to do better with regard to intelligence and how to take the fight to the enemy, especially from a policy point of view determining exactly who and where the enemy is and what's the best way to try to attack them.

LEMON: You just mentioned Hillary Clinton. She spoke to Anderson earlier. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think back to, you know, our success in getting Bin Laden. It was important that we built the case, we got the information and that the president ordered the raid.

Well, here, we have an ideology. It's not a nation state, and when people draw comparisons with World War, I don't even call this World War III, it a very different kind of war and we could be easily misled.

And I would point people to read more about what the hopes and ambitions of ISIS happened to be, they would love to draw the United States into a ground war in Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: How do you compare the two statements here. What do you mean the difference between the two, Trump and Hillary Clinton?

GREGORY: Well, I mean, there are actually some similarities when she talks about the need for strength, you know, talking about this is a different kind of war. I mean, it's the same kind of language that George W. Bush used, President Bush used after 9/11.

But I think what Secretary Clinton is referring to there, is that even in the days of Al Qaeda, post-9/11, there was a command and control structure that was more centralized, that you could go after initially in Afghanistan and then that prove not to be accurate in terms of Iraq.

But here it's much more diffuse in terms of how you identify who the enemy is. But I think that's prejudging, you know, what a presidential candidate is going to do in terms of a policy to fight terrorism.

We're seeing a lot of lone wolf terrorism. We don't know the particulars of this plot. We'll learn more as time goes on about what kind of -- what kind of strategy was actually in place here, but whether there is a particular fidelity to ISIS or merely being sympathetic to a world view, a kind of nihilistic ideology, the threat is the same.

That affects free society, it includes threats to our own society, where going to attack some country isn't necessarily the remedy. But there is a kind of war footing that I think Donald Trump and others are talking about that they think is not the appropriate war footing that this government under President Obama is on.

And I think that's going to be the nature of the debate now over these many months with this kind of violence as the backdrop.

LEMON: Yes. We're heading into the republican convention. Our coverage starts on Sunday. You're going to be there, I'll be there and Donald Trump will be there. And it looks like he's going to have his, you know, running mate then.

[22:55:01] He's going to pick Mike Pence as his V.P. The official announcement set for 11 o'clock tomorrow, but Trump cancelled it because of this attack in France. Was that the right decision?

GREGORY: Well, I think he probably wants to give space to be appropriate and to allow mourning and to allow sympathies to be expressed. And I think it's also a practical decision that there's going to be so much coverage as this story continue to develop that he doesn't want to have his announcement get lost.

He was, you know, was pretty close to the beginning of his convention as it was, but I think he wants to get the maximum, as any candidate would, the maximum impact from announcing his running mate and get as much bounce from that as he can, and now it looks like he'll delay that.

LEMON: David Gregory, thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

GREGORY: Thanks, Don. Yes.

LEMON: When we come right back, much more on our breaking news tonight, the truck attack in France that has killed at least 80 people. President Francois Hollande saying, quote, "We cannot deny that it was a terrorist attack."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: For everyone. We're getting close to the top of the hour. And our breaking news tonight. A deadly attack in a crowd watching fireworks that kills at least 80 people.

This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon.

A truck driver ploughs into a Bastille Day crowd in the French City of Nice. Scattering bodies were about a mile. At least 80 people are dead including several children, and at least 20 are injured according to President Francois Hollande.

[23:00:11] It is being investigated as a terrorist attack. The driver shot dead by police...

END