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New Day

Is Obama's ISIS Strategy Working?; More Trouble for Chicago; Investigators Looking at Role of Female Terrorist; Chicago to Release Video of Second Police Shooting. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 07, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: how to destroy the terror group, but a new intelligence report finds ISIS is not contained.

[06:30:05] Joining us now is Nicholas Burns. He's a former undersecretary for political affairs, also a former State Department official and former U.S. ambassador to Greece.

Good morning, Mr. Ambassador. Thanks so much for being here.

Good morning. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: OK. Critics say that this speech was short on specifics in terms of how to truly destroy ISIS.

Did you hear anything new or different in what the president said?

NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER U.S. UNDERSECRETARY FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS: I didn't hear much new. I think it was a speech designed to reassure the American people, but also to explain to them the complexity of this fight. And the president has put in face, and he deserves -- in place, he deserves credit for this, a big coalition to defeat ISIS.

The problem is that some major members of that coalition -- Turkey not doing enough because it's too focused on the Kurdish problem; the Russians, more intent on focusing on Assad and protecting President Assad in Syria than fighting the Islamic State. And the Arab state -- the Sunni-Arab state, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait -- kind of sitting this out. They're focused more on Yemen. So it's a big coalition, but it's barely containing ISIS. It's not on the road to defeat it right now.

CAMEROTA: In fact, there's this new intelligence assessment. It was commissioned by the White House, but the White House, in fact, got it right before San Bernardino. And what it found is that ISIS is not contained.

In fact, staying the course would allow ISIS to spread through countries that it currently is not even in.

So that's not reassuring to Americans. Did you hear anything the president say that was reassuring?

BURNS: Well, I heard a lot that was reassuring. I thought the president spoke very, very well in making sure that we don't turn this into a war against Muslims in general and Islam, that we understand that Muslims are patriotic Americans, those in the United States. I thought that was a very important point, given some of the rhetoric that we're hearing from some of the presidential candidates, the divisive rhetoric.

I also thought that the president said he would intensify airstrikes, continue to deploy special forces into Syria. I think all of that is good. It needs to be more intensely applied.

We need a stronger coalition, not just a big coalition. A coalition that can actually arm Syrian rebel groups, Sunni groups on the ground, as well as the Syrian Kurds, because without a ground component, and they have to be that ground component as well as the Iraqi army fighting ISIS in Iraq, we're not going to be able to defeat this group.

ISIS has now spread into Libya. And, of course, as you see, unfortunately, ISIS is able to inspire people like the San Bernardino couple who decided to kill their co-workers. So this is a big fight. It's very complicated. The president was right to give his speech.

CAMEROTA: Last night, President Obama also called on Congress to deal with the AUMF, in other words, authorizing officially this war. But strategically or even tactically speaking, how would that change what the administration is doing to fight ISIS?

BURNS: You know, I think that is sensible for the president to suggest that, because what it might do is help to unite the Congress with the executive branch, with our military in establishing what we're trying to do and get the country united behind that.

The president is relying on authorities that are well more than a decade old. It's stemmed from the post-9/11 era, after the attacks on the United States then, we clearly need a new definition of how to defeat the Islamic State and the other terrorist groups, how to develop a comprehensive policy to do that and to have Congress and the administration on board together makes perfect sense to me. I thought the president was right to call for that.

CAMEROTA: It sounds like what you're saying is that it would be very hard to do this without a true coalition of really willing partners. You are a diplomat. What is the problem? Why hasn't the U.S. been able to put that really together?

BURNS: I think Russia has completely different interests than the United States. Russia is acting hypocritically. They're saying they want to destroy the Islamic State, but doing very little.

The key country will be Turkey. If we can get the Turks to close down the border over which many of these fighters are going to fight for the Islamic State and over which the Islamic State is exporting oil into the black market in Turkey, that will be a considerable achievement. I think the administration is focused on Turkey. President Obama met with President Erdogan just ten days ago. I think also, we've got to put pressure on the Arab world. Their future is at stake, especially the Sunni Arabs. I mentioned the Gulf Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia. They're not in this fight, not through the air and certainly not on the ground. They should be supplying ground troops into Syria and northern Iraq to help the Iraqi government, especially, to cope with the Islamic State threat.

CAMEROTA: Former Ambassador Nicholas Burns, thanks so much.

Thanks for being on NEW DAY.

BURNS: Thank you. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn, tensions are rising in Chicago after that video emerged of the police shooting death of a black teenager. Now a video of another police shooting is about to be released.

[06:35:07] Is Chicago on the verge of unrest again? We're going to discuss it all, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: The Justice Department is poised to launch a probe into the Chicago Police Department following uproar over the fatal shooting of young Laquan McDonald. The city is set to release video from another controversial police shooting.

CNN's Ryan Young live in Chicago with the latest.

Ryan, this shooting happened around the same time as Laquan McDonald died.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Michaela. This shooting happened eight days beforehand. We talked to the attorney involved in this case. He says this one is going to make people in Chicago really upset when they see the details and find out that nothing has happened to this officer as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do we want?

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Justice!

YOUNG (voice-over): As the Justice Department plans to announce a probe into the Chicago Police Department, another city official out of a job. Overnight, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announcing Chicago's police review authority leader resigned effective immediately.

Meanwhile, the DOJ plans to launched a Civil Rights investigation into the department's patterns and practices expanding the probe into the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke in October of 2014. [06:40:12] UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: 16 shots and a coverup--

YOUNG: Over weekend, newly released police reports sparking renewed outrage. Reports from the night of the shooting contradict what actually plays out in this police dashcam video.

According to Van Dyke's account, quote, "McDonald raised a knife across his chest and over his shoulder pointing the knife at Van Dyke and attempting to kill Van Dyke."

In the video we see McDonald walking with a knife in his right hand. Authorities say he had just punctured the tire of a police cruiser. Six seconds after, getting out of his car, Van Dyke opens fire as the teen is seen walking away from police.

Van Dyke's hand-written report says, quote, "In defense of his life, Van Dyke back-pedalled and fired his handgun at McDonald to stop the attack."

At least five officers corroborate Van Dyke's version of events, a stark contrast to the video.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: No justice, no peace.

YOUNG: This as Chicago prepares for the release of dashcam video from yet another fatal police shooting.

The family of 25-year-old Ronald Johnson suspicious of the police account that Johnson was shot dead after pointing a weapon at officers.

DOROTHY HOLMES, RONALD JOHNSON'S MOTHER: It's been over a year now that my son been murdered and you all still haven't did you all jobs to convict this cop of murder.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG: Now, Michaela, something that stands out to us, something we wanted to point out as well, in this second case, there will be no audio in the video as well. And people are pointing to that as another way they believe the Chicago Police Department is trying to cover things up. Talking to community members this weekend, they said their time -- it's time for change and they want to see some serious action over the next few weeks.

Michaela?

PEREIRA: All right, we're going to talk about this more in our upcoming hour. Thank you so much.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks, Mick.

We have new details emerging from the San Bernardino terror attack. The early word was that the family was blindsided. Remember? Were they? We have new information on that.

And, also, whether it really were the wife behind the extreme Islamism radicalization.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:46:11] CUOMO: Question, are women the new tool for terrorists? We had the elusive so-called Black Widow, you'll remember, who helped in the Kosher Market attack in Paris. We had others involved in the recent massacre there, and now this murderer wife in San Bernardino.

Let's bring in Sasha Havlicek. She's the CEO of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Sasha, it's good to have you on. What is your analysis of the role of women, increasing, static, different?

SASHA HAVLICEK, CEO OF INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC DIALOGUE: Well, increasing. I think the first thing to note about this terrible attack is that we shouldn't be surprised. For a long time now, my organization has been following the online lives of women from the west who have joined ISIS. Of course, women in extremist groups are nothing new. But this is happening now in unprecedented numbers from all around the world and, of course, from western countries.

We should also note that there have been cases of men being taken off of watch lists because they've been deemed less troublesome, less potentially harmful because they're in long-term relationships with women. Low and behold, women can radicalize just as much as men. They are the targets of a very specific recruitment drive by ISIS. ISIS sees the value of recruiting women very specifically. And so we shouldn't be ignoring this phenomenon.

CUOMO: What do you make of this suggestion that maybe what happened here was that this woman was a plant on a dating site, that she had been radicalized or radicalized herself and was now out there looking almost trolling for a man to turn in the U.S. and do exactly what happened in San Bernardino.

Is there anything to that? Or is that just a scary theory?

HAVLICEK: We don't know, of course, what happened here. But we shouldn't be surprised, again, that a woman could be the primary radicalizer in this relationship. We have seen in the past couples radicalizing and plotting together. This isn't something new.

We, again, through the analysis that we've done of the narratives of women who have joined ISIS, their narratives are extremely violent. Of course, ISIS prohibits women joining battle on the battlefield, but the narratives that they project through their social media accounts, where they're extremely active or extremely violent and desirous of violence, insightful of violence. So, again, I wouldn't say it was impossible at all.

CUOMO: So the question is what to do. If you look at the woman here in San Bernardino, people saw her as modernized, as coming into this country by marriage. But supposedly because she wanted a better way of life and she winds up pledging allegiance to Al Baghdadi if you believe the reporting on it.

What is the new challenge? What needs to be done?

HAVLICEK: Well, I think in part this case and of course we're talking now about the women. But this case underscores the challenge of domestic radicalization. I think for a long time, policymakers in the United States have thought that because of the superior track record in the U.S. in terms of integration, socioeconomic integration of specific communities that this simply wasn't going to affect the United States as it has Europe for instance.

I think it's really important to understand that radicalization is happening in every single part of the world and that understanding it purely from a socioeconomic perspective is simply wrong-headed.

We know that people are being recruited across socio-economic classes and groups, across educational attainment, for instance, can be very high among recruits. And so it's important to understand, it isn't just young men. It is professionals. It is people with families. It is women.

And the domestic radicalization challenge requires us to take on the ideological underpinnings to these organizations. ISIS is just one manifestation of this broader problem which is this extremist ideology, which we have allowed to take hold unchallenged for 30 years. This is just the fact that social media has hypercharge it in the way that it has just means that it's a bigger challenge than ever.

[06:50:23] CUOMO: It's just about more, not different. Understood.

Sasha Havlicek, thank you very much for the perspective. Appreciate it.

Mick?

PEREIRA: All right, allegations of a cover-up after police reports and dashcam video paint vastly different pictures of a deadly police shooting. We're going to take a look at the trouble the embattled police department of Chicago could face -- next

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: The Justice Department expected to open a civil rights investigation into the Chicago Police Department in the wake of dashcam video of the controversial shooting death of a black teen, Laquan McDonald. It comes as police reports from that night emerge. They paint a vastly different picture from the video -- what the video captures, fueling allegations of a cover-up.

Joining us now is CNN contributor Bakari Sellers.

Bakari, a lot of things to get through with you. So we know the BOJ announcing they are going to investigate. We know Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is expected to have another press conference today addressing police accountability. You wrote a very interesting op-ed. You say he has lost his faith and trust to the public. Tell us more.

[06:55:12] BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, yes. I think during this process, one thing that we saw was that Rahm Emanuel never looked at Laquan McDonald as a tragic consequence to a broken system. Instead, he just looked at him as another political opportunity. And he didn't look at him as someone, as an African-American male who didn't get the benefit of their humanity. He was nothing more than a political calculation.

He withheld that tape for 400 days. And though he didn't protect him from harm while he was alive, he had a duty to make sure Mr. McDonald received justice. And he failed at that.

Mr. Emanuel also failed at the basic tenets of transparency. I think that this system in Chicago, it rots from the top. And I know that we're very loyal to our own respective parties, but even as a Democrat, I can't stand by him and say that Rahm Emanuel needs to be mayor of Chicago.

PEREIRA: Rahm Emanuel also wrote an op-ed of his own for some of the Chicago newspapers defending the delay and sort of bristling at the fact that it had something to do with his re-election process.

He says, quote, "What I strongly reject is the suggestion that the videotape of McDonald shooting was withheld from the public because of the election."

You actually say that political considerations trump transparency and accountability.

SELLERS: Well, that's pretty obvious. I mean, one of the things that you see is we had 400 days. And it took one lone journalist to keep his fight up, and props to him, for continuing this fight so that we would actually see this video.

Rahm Emanuel withheld this video. He either knew or should have known what was on this video. He settled this case with the family, only announced the settlement after his re-election. You know, I understand political gainsmanship probably better than most. But right now, my loyalty is not to a party. My loyalty is not to a man. My loyalty is to justice. And I think many people see that and many people are troubled by Rahm Emanuel's actions.

PEREIRA: Right. A couple more things we want to get to. We know that over the weekend, hundreds of documents were released, including the police reports from that night.

Now it's very interesting, Bakari, they paint a vastly different story than what the videotape released. Officer Van Dyke felt that McDonald was acting aggressively toward him and that's why he opened fire even after the teen had fallen to the ground.

I'm curious what you think the reaction in Chicago is going to be like this week after the release of these documents.

SELLERS: Well, what it does is just feeds the distrust that many people already have for these broken systems that are in our country.

Look, this is not just something we've seen here with the Chicago shooting. We've seen it throughout the country where police reports simply don't match up to the actions that occurred. Whether or not it's Walter Scott or anyone else, we've seen where we literally have a system, a criminal justice system in our country that needs to be remedied from top down. And what we're seeing right now is not just one instance but two incidents in Chicago.

PEREIRA: Right.

SELLERS: And I hope that that city remains together and finds peace and justice.

PEREIRA: Well, that second incident you're talking about, Ryan Young reporting about a 25-year-old Ronald Johnson, also killed by police in October of 2014. He was shot in the back. The family say he was unarmed. Police say he had a gun, though, and threatened officers. The family believes that gun was planted on him after.

This is also another delay in getting that tape released. 13 months for Laquan McDonald. For Ronald Johnson it will be a little bit more than that.

The mayor says these tapes are only held while the course of the investigation is run. Do you think there's any cause for these tapes to not be -- to be withheld for so long? And do you think this is something the DOJ is going to have to address?

SELLERS: Well, I mean, I don't want to say that it's a lie, but let me just say that it doesn't smell of the truth. Because the Department of Justice has already stated that it didn't ask for these tapes to be withheld.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, there are way too many inconsistencies in this. And my frustration is that we keep coming back and, Michaela, you and I have these conversations we might as well mark our calendar every other month, because there is a new African-American male who didn't get the benefit of their humanity.

And, yes, this young man was carrying a knife in the street. But we also know that that is a crime that the sentence is not death. And that is what these young African-American males, they see.

And in Chicago, we have a leader who happens to a Democrat who just cannot get their head out of the clouds and see that we have a real problem in this country. And right now he's a part of it.

PEREIRA: Bakari, it's going to be interesting to see what happens this week. We'll be watching it. Likely, we'll be talking to you again. Thank you for joining us with your perspective.

A lot of news for us to get to this morning, so let's do it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The American people do not think the president is handling this the right way.

OBAMA: We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war. That's what groups like ISIL want.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a stay the course speech.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will that convince the American public that we're safer?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R-FL) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The same strategy that has brought us to this point is the strategy he is going to continue with.