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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Obama's Oval Office Address on ISIS; Father of San Bernardino Suspect Speaks Out; Focus on Tashfeen Malik's School; Jimmy Carter Cancer Free; London Knife Attack Investigated as Terrorism. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired December 07, 2015 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:15] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama's Oval Office address. How he plans to defeat ISIS. Overnight, new responses from Congress, presidential candidates and from around the world.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: New information this morning on the shooters in the California office party massacre. What we're now learning about their past and their loyalties.

Good morning. And welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. Nice to see you. It is Monday, December 7th. 4:00 a.m. in the East.

This morning President Obama tried to assure the American public that he has a plan to fight ISIS. In a rare Oval Office address that aides say he wrote largely himself, the president sought to calm public jitters over terrorism. This of course in the wake of the attacks in San Bernardino, California. The deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since September 11th.

Let's get the latest now from senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, as expected there were no major policy proposals in the president's Oval Office address. This was more about reassuring the American people that President Obama has the correct strategy for dealing with ISIS. The president described the recent attack in California as a terrorist attack. And here's more of what the president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers. Part of a cult of death. And they account for a tiny fraction of a more than a billion Muslims around the world. Including millions of patriotic Muslim- Americans who reject their hateful ideology. Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim.

If we're to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them way through suspicion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: The president went on to say the violence in California underlines a major threat facing the country from self-radicalized terrorists who draw their inspiration from ISIS. So the president is recommending that law enforcement and social media companies work together more closely to be on the lookout for extremists who are online and talking about potential attacks on the U.S. homeland. As for possible congressional action, the president asked lawmakers to give him a new authorization to use military force against ISIS, something he's done before.

And Mr. Obama also wants to beef up the nation's gun laws. He's demanding that people on the no-fly list be barred from buying firearms, a proposal that's opposed by the NRA. As for what the president can do on his own, the White House is planning to hold a summit later this month on going after the financing of ISIS. He's also vowing to intensify airstrikes targeting ISIS in Syria along with the British who have just joined that part of the anti-ISIS campaign -- John and Christine.

ROMANS: All right, Jim Acosta. Thanks, Jim.

You know, the Republicans running to replace the president swiftly blasted that speech. Senator Marco Rubio saying there was nothing in it to assuage people's fears.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He announced nothing knew other than we need gun control, even though it would have done nothing to prevent the attack in California. We need to prevent people on the no-fly list from buying his weapons even though there are people that work for DHS that are on the no-fly list. And by the way, these individuals that conducted these attack would not have been prevented from accessing their weapons.

And then the cynicism, the cynicism tonight to spend a significant amount of time talking about discrimination against Muslims. Where is there widespread evidence that we have a problem in America with discrimination against Muslims and the refusal to call this for what it is, a war on radical Islam?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: As for Donald Trump, he was on Twitter during the speech. He wrote, "Is that all there is? We need a new president fast." Like Marco Rubio, Donald Trump also wrote, "Obama refused to say, he just can't say it that we are at war with radical Islamic terrorists." Earlier in the day Donald Trump spoke about tracking Muslims in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But you have people that have to be tracked. If they were Muslims, they're Muslims. But you have people that have to be tracked. And we better be -- I use the word vigilance. We have to show vigilance. We have to have it. And if we don't, we're foolish people. You know we're really being led by people that don't know what's happening. When you have President Obama talking about global warming as our biggest problem, we have a president that is just not with it at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Ted Cruz released a statement declaring, "If I'm elected president, I will direct the Department of Defense to destroy ISIS and I will shut down the broken immigration system that is letting jihadists into our country. Nothing President Obama said tonight will assist in either case."

Ben Carson's statement said, "President Obama's declarations tonight that his policies are working was strange. Strange that it took four days from the attack to respond. And even more strange, that somehow the attack on our soil is proof his policies are working."

[04:05:06] Carly Fiorina's response was short and sweet. She tweeted, "Vintage Obama. No strategy. No leadership. Politics as usual."

BERMAN: Jeb Bush released this statement, he said, "We need to remove the self-imposed constraints President Obama has placed on our intelligence community and military. And we need to put in place an aggressive strategy to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism, as I have proposed."

Earlier, Governor Bush also responded to the suggestion that Muslims in the United States should be monitored.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have all of the capabilities to monitor people that are in our country trying to attack us. I'm not suggesting we -- that already exists. And I think that's more than appropriate. The director of the FBI has made it clear that there are hundreds of cases that they are monitoring. And we should redouble our efforts in that regard. We don't have to target the religion. We just have to target those that have co-opted the religion and make sure that we're fully aware of the radicalizations taking place not just here but all around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: No response to the president's speech from Hillary Clinton, but she did put out a statement before the speech was released.

ROMANS: All right. New details about the radicalization of the San Bernardino shooting suspect Syed Farook. Farook's father telling reporters his son had expressed support for ISIS and were fixated on Israel and its destruction. The FBI is now investigating contacts Farook had with other suspected radicals before he and his wife embarked on their bloody rampage.

We have more this morning from CNN's Kyung Lah in San Bernardino.

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John and Christine, the father of Syed Farook has been speaking to reporters on and off. He stopped to speak to reporters from his doorstep saying that his son was growing more conservative.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SYED FAROOK, FATHER OF SYED RIZWAN FAROOK: All Pakistanis coming from the major cities are liberal people. And he was going towards conservative.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He was going towards what?

FAROOK: You know, his views were conservative. Mine was liberal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: The father detailed much more in an interview with Italian newspaper "La Stampa" saying that his son shared the ideology of al- Baghdadi to create an Islamic State and was fixated on Israel. Relatives in Pakistan tell CNN that they were increasingly becoming concerned about the shift in character of Farook. Throughout the weekend, there was no official news from the authorities. We are expecting that to change later today when the FBI holds a news conference. Also, Farook's co-workers who were targeted during the shooting, they will return to work this morning -- John, Christine.

BERMAN: Yes. All county offices in San Bernardino, we're just learning, will reopen except for the Health Office, except for that office.

ROMANS: Right.

BERMAN: That the shooting took place in.

We just heard about the husband. What about the wife? Tashfeen Malik. Those who knew her speaking to CNN about this mother who turned into a killer. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:12:09] ROMANS: OK. We are learning more this morning about Tashfeen Malik, the Pakistani born woman who helped murder 14 people in San Bernardino with her husband at her side, after dropping off her 6-month-old baby to a relative. Now investigators are digging into her past. They're focusing on her days as a pharmacy student at a university in southern Pakistan.

CNN's Sophia Saifi joins us on the phone right now on her way -- she is on her way to Malik's ancestral village in Pakistan.

What are you -- what are you learning about this woman?

SOPHIE SAIFI, CNN PRODUCER (via phone): Christine, we're learning -- I mean, I've spoken to her professor right now just 15 minutes ago. And all that he was able to tell us was that she was nothing out of the ordinary. She's a very good student. She did cover her face but we've been to that university and the majority of the students do cover their faces there already. She used to sit with the female students, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. He condemned the incidence.

The spokesperson of the university also condemned the incident saying that it's unthinkable that one of her alums can commit such an act. The university itself seems like a normal campus. It has students from all sorts of backgrounds, just hanging out, studying on the ground so it seems -- and everyone just seems really astonished that someone from here can go and commit such an act in the United States.

So apart from that, we do know that members of the family have kind of scattered all over this region of south Punjab in Pakistan. We're en route to speaking to one of them. Her uncle where she used to live while -- when she allegedly visited Pakistan has simply vanished. People are scared. People are not willing to speak to the media at the moment.

ROMANS: What do we know?

SAIFI: Christine.

ROMANS: We know she was born in Pakistan, we know she was a pharmacy student. She studied pharmacy and we know that she spent some time in Saudi Arabia as well before meeting online, we think. Meeting online her husband and moving to the United States. What do we know about her -- her movements after she was a pharmacy student in Pakistan?

SAIFI: We know that she was a pharmacy student here in South Punjab, in Pakistan. We know that some villagers saying that she didn't have some distant relatives. We are getting reports that she's trying to confirm that while she was a student in the pharmacy department of this university, she would go and take chronic lessons at an academy which was not affiliated with the university. Those reports we are still trying to confirm.

Apart from that, she doesn't seem to be somebody from what we heard from her professors as well as some university spokesperson, as somebody who was out of the ordinary. She seemed like someone who was quiet. We've been told that she was a good student.

[04:15:04] But from that she still remains as -- we got more information than we did before but we continue to dig and get more information as the day progresses.

ROMANS: Sophia Saifi on her way to the shooter's hometown. We'll talk to you again very, very soon. Hopefully you can find out some more information about just what might have been the kernels of this murder. Thank you so much.

BERMAN: All right. The Justice Department reportedly set to launch an investigation into the Chicago Police Department expending its ongoing civil rights probe into the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. This comes after news that the police report on the McDonald shooting differs starkly from what is seen on the dash cam video. Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke. The federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department will be similar to the ones in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

This is a big deal.

New details in the fatal shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a Cleveland police officer last year. An expert hired by the Rice family alleges the boy's hands were in his pocket and not reaching for the toy gun or the pellet gun he was carrying when he was shot and killed by Officer Timothy Loehmann. An expert study of the enhanced video of the shooting. Now other experts have called it -- I think they called the police shooting clearly objectionably reasonable. A grand jury has been hearings evidence in the Tamir Rice case since October.

ROMANS: All right. Time for an EARLY START on your money this Monday morning. European stocks are climbing. U.S. stock futures are up as well. You know, it was a rally on Friday after a solid jobs growth -- jobs report that's paving the way for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next week. Uncertainty by the Fed's strategy has held markets back for months.

Stocks have moved sideways this year. You know, the Dow was barely higher for the year. The S&P 500 is up just 1.6 percent, the Nasdaq is in a lot better. It's up more than 8 percent. But now as the economy improves, the Fed's plan seems more clear and investors are better on the first rate hike in a decade this month.

BERMAN: Warm weather ahead for the week. Meteorologist Pedram Javaheri has the fair weather forecast.

(WEATHER REPORT)

ROMANS: All right, Pedram. Thank you for that.

Former president Jimmy Carter is low key even when the news is fantastic. Carter revealed to his parishioners at his George church on Sunday his prayers appeared to have been answered.

We get more this morning from CNN's Nick Valencia.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, Jimmy Carter says he is cancer free. The former U.S. president made this stunning announcement at the start of Sunday school church service in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. After hearing the news, parishioners in attendance erupted into applause the unexpected announcement by the 91-year-old.

It was just this summer that President Carter announced that he was diagnosed with cancer and had to go through a procedure in August to remove a small mass from his liver. The doctors did say that the cancer was also found in his brain. That melanoma included four spots about two millimeters in diameter.

President Carter did start to undergo radiation treatment as well as an experimental drug called pembrolizumab. He mentioned that drug in a statement he released to the media, which said, "My most recent MRI brain scan did not reveal any signs of the original cancer spots or any new ones. I will continue to receive regular three-week immunotherapy treatments of pembrolizumab."

We did speak to one of the leaders of the church who said that they had been praying for this announcement but didn't expect it to come. They called it a miracle -- John, Christine.

BERMAN: That's wonderful news. He looks great.

ROMANS: Sure.

BERMAN: Moving around there.

All right, happening now. A London knife attack being investigated as terrorism. Live with overnight developments. What authorities now say happened and some dramatic video and audio. Stay with us.

[04:19:55]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Police in London are treating a weekend knife attack in a tube station as a terrorist incident. Officials say two people were injured in this attack, one seriously. And the suspect is being charged with attempted murder.

CNN's Frederik Pleitgen following developments for us live in London -- Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Christine. And all of this happened at around 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night. Of course, this is a time when the London underground subway system was very, very busy. And there is video that emerged of that incident where this man wielding a knife stabbed one person in the neck and then moderately wounded another person. Also threatened a woman and then apparently at some stage said this is for Syria. He could be heard saying that on the audio and therefore the police is treating this as terrorism.

[04:25:07] Now there were, of course, many, many people who witnessed all of it. I want you to listen in to one person who was on the scene and described what he saw.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another guy told me as soon as I got there, this guy just slit the other guy's throat. I look over, I see a guy huddled on the floor behind the barriers, and the guy brandishing a knife. It's was a small blade at about three inches long. And he's screaming go and run, run.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: And the 56-year-old man who was severely wounded in this attack, the police say that his injuries are not life threatening luckily. The police are also saying that this man, the alleged perpetrator, a 29-year-old man from London, is going to appear in court today. He has already been charged with attempted murder -- Christine.

ROMANS: Terrifying. And one thing this incident really seen around the world on social media because of the remarks of a bystander. Tell us about this bystander's remarks going viral.

PLEITGEN: Yes, absolutely. Yes, you're absolutely right. It's sort of showing the defiance of London in the face of terrorism. There was one man who as this perpetrator was being restrained was saying, "You ain't no Muslim, bruv," which is the sort of London term for bro, for brother. And someone had turned it into a hash tag on Twitter. It's gone viral. Many people are re-tweeting it. And it really shows the defiance of the city in the face of terrorism.

I can tell you, I was actually on that subway line during the time that this incident happened. And people there were of course concerned about the whole thing, but they certainly weren't panicking. London is of course a city where the authorities here say and it's shown in the past that it is in the crosshairs of terrorism. But the response here has really been remarkable to this incident that took place on the weekend -- Christine.

ROMANS: Yes. So interesting. All right. Thanks so much for bringing us up to speed on that -- Fred.

BERMAN: All right. President Obama with dramatic Oval Office address. His plan to defeat ISIS as he tries to reassure a nation after what happened in San Bernardino. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)