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FBI Now Believes Suspect In New Orleans Attack Acted Alone; FBI: 3 Phones, 2 Laptops Linked To Driver Have Been Recovered; FBI: Two Explosive Devices Found In Cooler On Or Near Bourbon Street; FBI: New Orleans Attacker "100 Percent Inspired By ISIS"; Trump Seems To Blame Biden Border Policies For New Orleans Attack; GOP Pushes For Quick Confirmation Of Trump Natl Security Picks; Man Who Rented Exploding Cybertruck Identified, Confirmed Dead. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 02, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: The FBI also says that as of now, there is not a, quote, definitive link between the New Orleans' attack and a Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas just hours later. Now they did caveat, they are still looking into it.

We want to go straight to CNN's Ryan Young, who is on the scene. Ryan, significant developments, a lot of news that we just heard. What stood out to you?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. We were talking to some of our sources, both federal and local, and they were giving us a heads up that they might be signaling in on the fact that there was no one else involved in this. I think something that stood out to me, though, was the fact that people came in contact with those coolers that had those IEDs in them throughout the night. Luckily, those did not go off.

So, I want to take a step back, because there was a lot of focus on Bourbon Street. If you look behind me, there's an active, ongoing situation here where they have moved in a heavy truck here, but they're also moving dividers that are -- look like they're either fill with water or sand into place and they're going down and putting those up near the sidewalks.

Of course, there's been a lot of conversation about why some of these measures were in place before, but this is the stance that we're taking right now. On top of all that, with the extra force they're putting on the street as they get ready to reopen it before the game is the fact that more than a thousand agents and officers have surged into this area over the last 24 hours or so.

We were here overnight as they started to clean up that street. And as we talked to the sanitation workers who worked down that street and you heard the governor and others reflect on this, it was a horrific scene. When we talk to people say, they will never forget the carnage that they witnessed as they tried to get the street back open. What we're told within the next hour or so, they're going to allow vendors to go back in there and start getting the businesses ready to be open for the crowds, the massive crowds that still remain here, that are getting ready for that game.

But let's get back to that one fact there that they believe that this suspect rented a car in Houston, drove it. While he was driving, he was making those videos, talking about his allegiance to ISIS. We know that Ford F-150 lightning, which is an electric truck, also had that ISIS flag on the back of it. And when it made that turn down in Bourbon, it was able to get up on the sidewalk. And the videos that we've seen, especially circulating online, are horrific.

Now we know on top of that, the FBI has been able to go through surveillance and see the attack itself. But one of the things that also stood out was they got three lap -- three cell phones and two laptops. So, they're going through that digital forensic evidence to exactly see how he was connected to ISIS, who else may have been involved, or who was talking to him during this. We know he was an army veteran who served.

So, all these questions are coming into place. And we heard that the fact that they're trying to put this jigsaw puzzle together. So many pieces involved in this, Phil. So many questions. But at the same time, we now know they believe that at least the overall threat is greatly decelerated with the idea that no one else was involved in this.

I want to also talk about, they went to that Airbnb that was somewhere near here. They were doing the investigation to see if those bomb making materials were still inside. So, we know that collection of evidence has been done as well. And then brought bomb squad dogs and units in here to make sure the perimeter around the super dome is safe as well.

So, a lot of new evidence, a lot of new conversations in terms of the leads, but at least we know right now, the FBI believes this area is safe and locked down, Phil.

MATTINGLY: A critical development, Ryan Young for us live on the scene there. Thanks so much. Joining me now here in the studio with much more on these investigations, CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez, and former FBI deputy director Andy McCabe, who is also CNN's law enforcement analyst.

Evan, I want to start with you, because on some level, I appreciate the transparency that we heard there in the sense of how this actually works. Because when you think through the fact that this press conference was happening about 35 -- 33 hours, I guess after the attack. I was watching the evolution of this investigation through you because you were reporting it out in real time. And how much work and progress has gone into this to get to this point. Lay out what's happened over the course of the --

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Look, I mean -- yeah, and I think yesterday there was a lot of chaos going on. And it is New Orleans, which is unusual political atmosphere there at all times. And so, that is part of the factor that happened yesterday.

And one of the things that happened was they had the surveillance video, which showed people dragging coolers into locations that made them believe that there could have been other devices inside those. There's also video where someone appears to be looking into the coolers. Maybe someone was looking for a free beer. It is Bourbon Street, after all.

So, all of those things really factored into what the FBI was thinking and really urgently trying to nail down. They found, they eventually figured out that there was nothing in those devices -- I'm sorry, in those ice coolers. But that's the kind of thing that the FBI spent the last 30 -- 33, or so hours trying to figure out.

And as the FBI official there said at the press conference, you know, they've done hundreds of interviews. Also, they went to Houston. They've gone to anyone who knew him, and this is where they finally arrived with that.

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In the end, Phil, these are the hardest types of attacks to stop by the -- by law enforcement, right? The lone wolf attack. It was always as you and I talked about yesterday, if there were accomplices, it's a lot easier to figure this out and that they're a lot more rare.

But when you have a lone wolf, someone who's just on their own, trying to radicalize and plot something like this, it's very, very difficult unless they tip their hand in perhaps communicating online, on Telegram, with someone who is coordinating ISIS attacks. So, without that -- and in this case, it appears he didn't do any of that. It was a self-radicalization. It was his own thing, and he's been on this path on his own without telling anyone.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. It's a critical point, and it underscores why the chaos existed yesterday as law enforcement officials were trying to get their heads and their investigators around what some of --

PEREZ: Yes. So, that was happening right before the press conference. They were trying to figure out the ice coolers that they saw people looking into on Bourbon Street.

MATTINGLY: Andy, I want to bring you in here. You know, again, I think just probably a level -- there's an implicit sigh of relief in some sense. I know yesterday afternoon there's a lot of concern, particularly given the fact that another major event that had been postponed and will occur this afternoon, the Sugar Bowl -- there's a Super Bowl, you know, by month at this point in time. What are your outstanding questions after what we just listened to?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yeah. It was really fascinating press conference, a very different than yesterday, as I should say, in a positive direction. And I can also tell you that, I mean, I have been in and around many, many of these investigations and the immediate aftermath of an attack, whether it's the Boston bombing or Fort Hood or anything in the last couple of decades. This is what happens every time.

The initial information, the initial leads you get, much of it is inaccurate, but you have no choice but to follow each one of those leads to its logical conclusion. So, the fact that they were somewhat misdirected by this surveillance video of people looking in or moving coolers is totally understandable. That is a part of every one of these big, rushed investigations.

The one thing maybe they could have done slightly differently yesterday was been a little bit more circumspect in their -- in their statement, that they thought that he probably had help with the attack, but that's just a communications issue, and ultimately isn't that important.

Some of the information that came out in the press conference, I thought, was most significant was the timeline. They talked about the video. He gave us some detail about each video that was recorded by the attacker while he was driving from Houston to his very early arrival on New Year's Eve in New Orleans.

He talked about his pledge to ISIS. He talked about -- he saw the world as being a war between believers and non-believers. That is a classic trademark ISIS viewpoint. And then, of course, he talked about his problems with his family, and also recorded his last will and testament.

That is another like key thing that everyone who follows the ISIS, or Islamic extreme, any one of the Islamic extremist terrorist groups that we've been hunting for years. This is a standard part of what you do right before an operation.

And then finally, the information out of the search from the Mandeville location. They have three phones and two laptops. That's going to be a gold mine of information, hopefully, about this subject, his writings, his communications, social media posts, any lists or you know, to do things that he was thinking of buying.

It'll give you an insight, not just into his motivations, but in his potential planning of this attack. So, they'll have a lot to work with going forward. It might be a while before we hear what they're getting in that effort, but they're in a very different place today than they were yesterday.

MATTINGLY: Andy, can I zero in on that real quick? In terms of that, they have these electronics, the devices, they're obviously invaluable. When you talk to law enforcement officials that have done this before. What's the pro -- what happens next? Are they breaking the phones? How does this actually work for them to get that information over time?

MCCABE: Sure. So, they'll likely, in an effort to be absolutely as legally pure as we can be, they'll likely go to court to get search warrants to actually exploit those phones. Then they'll start working on access into the phones and laptops. If it's just a simple password. There are ways and techniques that they have to get around those passwords. Sometimes if it's a more advanced phone that's locked, there can -- there are -- it can be a little bit more challenging, but nevertheless, they will employ whatever capacity they have to get into those devices. Once you're into the devices, you download everything that's in them in a process we call mirroring. It basically create a identical image of the device on your forensic software.

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We have special computer networks that are designed to take this material without corrupting any of our other information. And they'll go through everything on those devices, every piece of data, every writing, every internet search, every time the device located itself against the network, to try to geo locate where the user was, when things were being written or searched online. So, it's a fascinating way to really overlay different kind of cross sections of data that can tell you a lot about the user.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. And it will be critical for investigators. Evan, you know, I keep playing yesterday out through my head and the various pieces which -- much of which we did live on television. Another disparate thread that I think there's a lot of concern may have been connected here was the Tesla vehicle that had exploded outside of a front hotel -- Trump Hotel in Las Vegas.

This press conference also revealing, there's quote, no definitive link, at least they know of at this point. What's the latest on this?

PEREZ: Well, one of the things we know, Phil, is that they've identified the person. I mean, one of the things is he got burned to, you know, beyond recognition. So, they had to do a lot of work to confirm that. He's a special forces soldier, somebody who -- what served in the U.S. military, was active duty, was on leave from Germany, according to our reporting from Haley Britzky.

Now police have not identified that person. The FBI is paying a secondary role there because they still haven't established what the motivation is here. That is going to be key because, you know, obviously there's some coincidences, right? Military background happens on New Year's Day. You know, the fact that this happened right in front of a -- of the Trump Tower.

One of the things that I think both of these incidents are going to be important for the FBI and for everyone to look at is the fact, you know, using Turo, which is basically you can rent me your car using this app, right? What terrorists are doing is trying to figure out ways to avoid being detected.

So, people aren't going to go to U-Haul anymore, which is a favorite way to do this in the past. They're going to avoid rental car companies because somebody might flag something. So, you know, Airbnb is being used because that way, you know, no one at the hotel might see something and say something. So that's one of the challenges for FBI, for the -- for law enforcement.

The other thing that I think is very important for us to talk about real quick is the fact that in New Orleans, I think officials there still have not really held any accountability for what happened, which is how. You know, days after a Christmas Day attack in Germany, where the FBI everyone warned everyone about soft targets, gathering of huge number of people on New Year's Eve, one of the biggest targets in America, right?

How do you allow your bollards to be removed and not have something that they're only now belatedly putting in. New Orleans officials, the governor there, all of them need to answer for that because victims here. There are 15 people who are dead, multiple people who have been injured.

They deserve some kind of accountability, some kind of answer for what has happened because there were failures there that were preventable. And I think that that is an important thing for people to address in the coming days.

MATTINGLY: Critical questions that will most certainly be asked in the days ahead in the near term. Remarkable, the Mayor LaToya Cantrell saying that Bourbon Street will be open today before kickoff of the Sugar Bowl 4 pm eastern time, 3 pm central time. It should be open according to the mayor, about 30, 45 minutes beforehand and just a remarkable 36 hours in terms of how this has all progressed.

Andrew McCabe, Evan Perez, thanks so much. Up next. New Orleans attacker is a U.S. citizen and an army veteran. So why are incoming Trump administration officials trying to pin the blame on Biden immigration policies? That's next.

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MATTINGLY: Well, at this hour, President Biden scheduled to meet with his homeland security team in the Situation Room. President-elect Trump, well, he has been quick to lay the blame at Biden's feet.

Taking to his Truth Social account late this morning, it says, quote, with the Biden open borders policy, I said many times during rallies and elsewhere that radical Islamic state terrorism and other forms of violent crime will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. He also called Biden the worst president in the history of America, a complete and total disaster.

Now the New Orleans attacker will remind you was a U.S. citizen, born in Texas, not totally clear what the connection is here to the border. We're going to discuss. I want to welcome a very smart group of reporters, Tia Mitchell, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, and CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Priscilla, I want to start with you. You focus on immigration. You cover the border as well, better, I think, than anybody else out there. The president-elect attempts to tie this to the border. Is there anything you see that actually makes that connection real here? PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the short answer is no, but if you look at where he gets his media from, then it starts to tie it all together. Because there had been an erroneous report by Fox that there had been a connection to the border. This was in the very early hours when everyone was trying to understand who this suspect was. And there has been an ongoing narrative among Republicans about suspected terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

There is truth to those numbers rising, although suspected terrorist does not necessarily mean they are terrorists so much as they may raise flags and may require additional screening by authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border. So that has been pervasive over the last several years and has been linked to the Biden administration and their handling of the U.S.-Mexico border.

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And so, that is what started to come up in those early hours, and the president-elect has not let go of that. Even though we know now that this is a suspect who is a U.S. citizen, who is from Texas, all of this according to the FBI. So, there isn't a connective tissue here. If, unless you're looking at where he got his media -- where he got his reports the very beginning of this, when they were still trying to collect more information.

MATTINGLY: It's a good reminder for those of us who covered the first administration and are preparing to cover the second. This isn't a rare thing where the president-elect will see something on television and decide to go with it, no matter how fully fleshed out it is. Jeff, what's been almost more interesting to me is that it hasn't just been the president-elect trying to make this connection. There's been others. Listen?

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We here in the House and the Senate have repeatedly asked the DHS under the Biden administration about the correlation, the obvious concern about terrorism and the wide-open border. The idea that dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potentially terror cells around the country. We have been ringing the alarms.

REP. MIKE WALTZ (R-FL): I can't emphasize enough, close the border, secure our sovereignty.

TOM HOMAN, INCOMING TRUMP WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: We have to secure our border that was secure under President Trump and this administration unsecured on purpose. It's open invitation for those around the world that hate this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Jeff, the idea that political actors use a crisis to try and as leverage for policy goals or agenda priorities is not new, it's not specific to these individuals. We've both been around long enough to see this across every administration on some level. I think the thing I don't really understand is they're undercutting, I think, by drawing a false connection here. What is a very real issue and a very real problem that their boss, or soon to be boss, the president-elect was quite literally elected on, and yet?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: For sure. And we're definitely in the waning days of the Trump administration, the former and forth coming to be able to blame this on the Biden administration. Soon, this is going to be his problem.

So, the focus of that is this means there is going to be a sharper focus in the confirmation hearings and conversations coming up in the next few weeks on the Senate side of the Capitol about the very real concern that the FBI and other members of the intelligence community have been sounding the alarm about lone wolf factors and other things.

So, never mind the discussion about the border. Yes, that is an important factor. But in this case, particularly now there is going to be a new central focus and question at some of these confirmation hearings. Is this going to make it more difficult, or sort of change the dynamic of the confirmation hearings for Tulsi Gabbard to lead the DNI, or Kash Patel to lead the FBI. We'll see.

But look the -- it's regardless of who's in the White House. These members of the intel community and the law enforcement unity have this work to do. So, this is going on regardless of who's in the Oval Office. The difference is that Donald Trump obviously acted yesterday. Like you said that Fox report not true. We've seen it before but that does not change the threats facing the U.S.

MATTINGLY: And I think the more kind of logical through line here is for on the nominations issue is like, we are going to see nominations hearings fairly shortly after the 119th Congress convenes, before the president-elect even takes the oath of office. And you look at some of the individuals, it's everybody on the cabinet level, but you've got the attorney general nominee, Pam Bondi, you've got Kash Patel for FBI, you've got --

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Hegseth for defense. Yeah,

MATTINGLY: Hegseth for defense. And these are all people where there are some questions, less for Bondi, but certainly Hegseth and Kash Patel. Does this give them kind of a boost in their efforts? We need to get in now.

MITCHELL: So, I think there are some Republicans who are using what happened in New Orleans to justify getting Trump's people in quickly and with fewer questions. But I'm not sure that the Senate, particularly Senate Republicans are going to feel the same way. I think to Jeff's point, they're going to want to know that there's people who are qualified, who are competent and will approach their jobs with decency, vigor and in a comprehensive way that they can trust because they see how high the stakes are.

We've got 15 people dead in New Orleans. The stakes are very high for our national security. So, we want to make sure there are good people in these roles. Now, whether those Senate Republicans are convinced that people like Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and Hegseth are the right people, we'll see if Trump and his team make that case.

But I think they want to see. They want that case to be made. I don't think they're going to just give Trump a blank check. And I think what happened in New Orleans to a lesser extent, what happened in Vegas. Other events are just going to justify those questions even more.

ALVAREZ: Well, and it's also going to put a spotlight on the Department of Homeland Security secretary nominee Kristi Noem who has been less controversial among all the other names recently, but certainly this is going to fall on her as well. And so those hearings may be more pointed than they would have been -- they were going to be about immigration. There is a border czar, however, in the incoming administration. So, this is really going to spotlight that issue in part.

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MATTINGLY: Yeah. Whether it helps or hurts, it will certainly be a central issue in those hearings, but also in the outgoing administration's final days as well. All right guys, stay with me. Quote, 100 percent inspired by ISIS. That's what the FBI is saying about the New Orleans' attack and we'll dig more into that. Coming up, next.

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MATTINGLY: Welcome back in the breaking news. We now have more details on the individual who is inside the Tesla Cybertruck that blew up in front of a Trump hotel property in Las Vegas. You see the video of the aftermath there. Yesterday, there was some concern that may have been connected to the attack in New Orleans.

Law enforcement officials have now said there is no direct link that they know of, but we now have the name of the individual involved. It was according to our colleagues John Miller and Haley Britzky, the man believed to have rented the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded. His name was Matthew Alan Livelsberger.

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