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Is GOP Ready To Unite Against Donald Trump?; How Do Trump's Muslim Comments Impact 2016 Race?; Neighbor Who Bought Guns Used In Attack Under Scrutiny. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 09, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): I have no doubt that we have no choice but to do exactly what I said until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on because we have a problem in this country.

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That was Donald Trump defending his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States and once leaving the Republican Party grappling with how to handle Donald Trump.

Is it possible for the party to unite against him? Let's ask Christine Todd Whitman. She is the former New Jersey governor, former EPA administrator under George W. Bush, and she is the president of Whitman's Strategy Group.

Governor, great to have you in here. So Donald Trump has a point. We're not perfectly vetting people. Obviously one of the terrorists in San Bernardino came in on a fiancee visa. So what do you make of his suggestion to temporarily ban Muslims from coming into the U.S.?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: I think it's counterproductive. Right now we still make mistakes, people still come through with all the best intelligence we have. I still don't think we're sharing with the rest of the world the way we need to.

CAMEROTA: So why not shut it down?

WHITMANN: That's not going to solve the problem. We are a country of immigrants. You have people coming in. We want them here. We want them here because we want what they can provide and give to our country.

And they come here for good and positive reasons. Donald Trump keeps citing the -- what FDR did during the second world war in tearing the Japanese. We saw that as a huge mistake, one of the best of the units that fought for the United States and Europe was a Japanese unit that they finally allowed in toward the end.

People are not defined solely by their religion. If you start on this jihad of its own, identifying Muslim, if you're Muslim, you're automatically bad, you'll drive other people into the campus saying this is just wrong and we're going to take it out on you because language shapes behavior. That's what scares me about his language.

CAMEROTA: So this has left the Republicans in a pickle trying to figure out what to do about him. Donald Trump has pointed out that what they usually do is follow his lead. That's what we've seen so far in this race.

WHITMANN: I don't know that we can say they follow his lead. He is not the Republican Party. Right now he is defining it. That is the issue for the Republicans. He is who people think of when they say Republican and that to me is -- I worry about it. It's a tragedy.

[07:35:10]It shouldn't be because he is on an ego trip and the language he's using is extremely dangerous. I'm very worried that we'll see people take action. I think he is giving them approval to act out against.

The head of the college in Virginia, who encourage his students, everyone go out and buy a gun, and then if they saw Muslims to do something about it. That is just -- that's just wrong. It's against what this country stands for and it's certainly against what the Republican Party stands for.

CAMEROTA: When I say that people are following his lead, his Republican rivals have sometimes taken a page out of his playbook and he recognizes that. Let me play for you what Donald Trump told Barbara Walters about this last night.

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TRUMP: The worst thing that's ever happened to ISIS, the people in my party fully understands that. They're running against me. For the most part they have no poll numbers. I'm leading by a lot. They get it. They're trying to get publicity for themselves.

When I came out against illegal immigration, everybody thought the same thing. Two weeks later everybody was on my side including the members of my own party.

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CAMEROTA: To his point, he starts the conversation and often his Republican rivals then pick up the conversation and follow his lead. Something feels different about these Muslim comments. What do you think the party is going to do with Donald Trump?

WHITMANN: Well, you've seen it already. You've had people who have stayed out, the head of the Republican National Committee, the leader in the House, who haven't been commenting on the presidential race finally saying this is too far.

This is the kind of language that's extremely damaging. Not just to the party. We have to think beyond party. Think about this country and care about this country, and this kind of language is enormously eroding and very, very dangerous.

CAMEROTA: I don't know if you just saw this little clip. I sat down with a bunch of Donald Trump supporters yesterday and they are passionate.

WHITMANN: They are. He's tapped a vein. There is no question. First of all, if you look at your history and read your history in the lead-up to the Second World War, this is the kind of rhetoric that allowed Hitler to move forward.

You had people who were scared. The economy was bad. They want someone to blame. We're in a different situation because we have seen that there is a -- we're in a radical -- we have a war going on in a sense, a different kind of war than we've ever faced before.

There's a group of people out there, they're not all Muslims. It's not just Muslims. It's radicalized Muslims, terrorists, they're different than the average Muslim shall we say, because they have a passion.

They're not going to be satisfied until they see Sharia law all across the world. Look at Russia. Putin now is having to do rethink. I hope the president is quietly, but we need a more visible effort to sit down with our all lies, including the Arab countries, including Russia, saying look, guys, they're after all of us.

We need to share intelligence. We need to have a policy where we're working together to try to address this. Mr. Putin if you are just going to continue to try to do away with only those who oppose Assad, we're going to double down on the sanctions which are already causing him problems.

I think you can get him to the table. If it were me, I'd want to see us create safe zone on the border of Turkey in Syria, saying we're going to protect you. We're working with the other allies on a no-fly zone. We can't just impose one on an independent country. You can't do that.

Do it with others. Then keep those people safe but train the men that are there and the women who want to go back and take back their countries. They're the only ones who can do it. We can't do it.

But to just say we're beginning to stop all Muslims is not addressing the problem and is, I this I, driving people into their camp because it is an attack on a religion.

CAMEROTA: Christine Todd Whitman, great to have you on NEW DAY.

WHITMANN: Pleasure.

CAMEROTA: Thank you so much for being here. Let's get over to Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Of course, all of this theoretical discussion is balanced by the practical in what we just saw in San Bernardino. We have new information that the male terrorist was planning an attack as early as 2012. How did he slip under the radar? Who should have known? Next.

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[07:43:14]

CUOMO: The Republican attacks on Democrats suddenly coming to a halt because the party's focusing on one of its own. Donald Trump is taking heat from top state and national party officials. His other candidates in that field, they're all going after him because they say suggesting a ban of all Muslims is wrong.

Key timing here, we got the debate coming up in just six days to discuss it. Let's bring back senior political commentator and former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod.

Ax, the problem for them is this. You can go after Donald Trump, but you cannot invalidate the fear that motivates his base and as Alisyn brilliantly pointed out with her voter panel, that's how they see anything you say about Trump. How do you get around it?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's a very awkward two-step they're trying to perform. Jeb Bush is calling him unhinged. You have the chairman of the party saying it's un-American what he's saying, and then they ask would you support him if he were the nominee, of course, because they don't want to alienate the base of voters who support him, sort of the old Palin base on steroids is what it is.

CUOMO: When they hear you saying they're wrong to be afraid.

AXELROD: I think fear is not just limited to them. I've said to my own party and to others that you can't go after fear mongers if you're not going after the fear. You have to address the fear. And I think that's good advice for both parties.

But you know, the irony of what he said, I heard Senator King on your air earlier and Christie Whitman just said it here. What his doing has real consequences globally. I mean, he may not be the president, but he is a propaganda bonanza for ISIS. That transcends presidential politics.

[07:45:07]CAMEROTA: But there's this crazy paradox happening right now, which is the more controversial things that he says, the more provocative, they may be calculated by him but his numbers go up. We've never seen -- you tell me if we've seen something like this, somebody who gets in trouble even with his party, the numbers keep rising.

AXELROD: The people who are supporting him are sick of conventional politics. The more outrageous he is, the more he looks, as he says, not politically correct. They say this guy is different. This guy is not going to play the same --

CAMEROTA: It's working.

AXELROD: Alisyn, the question is, really, how much it will grow. I have some -- there's no doubt in my view, you know, people said after Paris, this is going to really kill Trump because people are going to want experience, they want hands on, not at all.

They're gravitating to a strong figure. That's why he's gotten a bump from it. He's still operating within certain parameters and his ability to grow, I think, is the question. Is he driving away the others in the party?

CAMEROTA: David, the thing is, we heard that when he was at 20 percent. Then we heard that at 25 percent, then 28 percent, now 32 percent, he's now at 36 percent. The ceiling keeps climbing.

AXELROD: Not in any way question the gospel of the CNN poll. There was a poll out yesterday that had him at 27 percent. It's not clear to me how much he's grown. What is clear is that he's not losing support.

CUOMO: The foundational argument isn't changing. I would submit it's not a paradox. He's the face of disaffection. So when he pronounces on that disaffection, when he says whatever he says, it is going to feed his numbers because that's why he is attractive.

The trick for the people running against him is how do you own that energy? How do you own that feeling without invalidating it and insulting it? I would suggest it's the same for the Democrats.

Bernie is doing what he's doing. They have that similar feeling within their own base. Hillary Clinton puts out a tweet and she said a speech last night.

The question is, what will be enough for people to come out and say I get why we're afraid, I'm afraid too. Here's what I offer that is better than what you're hearing from Trump. That's what will affect his numbers. I would argue we're not seeing that.

AXELROD: Yes. I think the point of the president's speech the other night was to try and calm people. I know there's been debate about whether he achieved that. You know, it's tough to be a rational man in the midst of irrational --

CUOMO: When somebody comes to you and you're afraid of something, and they say, let's discuss why you're afraid. Not helping in that moment.

AXELROD: I hear you. I hear you. I understand that critique. It's also different when you're president of the United States. You actually have to do stuff. Candidates have latitude to say things that have no relationship to reality.

I'm not trying to make a partisan point. This is true of Democrats as well. There aren't that many variations as to how we should approach that. We should do more of this or a little more of that. There's no other paradigm, this Trump I'll take care of it thing is not real.

CAMEROTA: Here's what I hear his supporters saying. I just spoke to the most passionate ones yesterday. They're not going anywhere. They're not going to abandon him. There is no other candidate.

AXELROD: Alisyn, the question isn't whether they abandon him. The question is whether the field whittles down and there's a coming together around another candidate in opposition to Trump. The rule of the party is such that after March 15th, 55 percent of the delegates will be chosen in many large northern states, including New York, California.

It's winner take all after March 15th. There's an opportunity if the field whittles down for someone to come and take this away from Trump. In a field of 14, 30 percent looks pretty awesome.

CAMEROTA: David Axelrod, great to get your analysis. Thanks so much for being here.

CUOMO: Look, you can look at it a thousand different ways, but you come back to the same big question, who is going to make Americans feel that they will be safe? It comes at a critical time.

We're just six days away from the last Republican debate of the year, right here on CNN. Coverage begins next Tuesday, 6:00 p.m. Eastern for the undercard, 8:30 for the main event Eastern -- Mich.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, there's word now that the male San Bernardino terrorist was planning an attack some three years ago. How exactly did he slip through the cracks?

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[07:53:23]

PEREIRA: Could the man, the male shooter behind the 14 deaths in California been planning an attack since 2012? U.S. officials now say he may have been plotting as long as three years ago. If he was a terrorist in waiting this long, was there an intelligence failure?

I want to discuss this with Juliette Kayyem. She is CNN national security analyst and former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security.

Interesting that we are learning more details, Juliet, as each day and hour goes by about what happened there in San Bernardino. Investigators are focusing now or have been, taking a second look, third look even at this neighbor.

This young man, Enrique Marquez, lived next door to Syed Farook as boys. He's the one who purchased the guns that were used. He gave the guns to him, but they didn't transfer the ownership. So that wasn't sort of legally done.

But interestingly he checked into some sort of mental facility after the attack. This is the challenge, right? For in terms of following the guns and also gun possession in the United States, that somebody might get a gun legally, Juliette. But what happens after that?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's not known. And let's just go through the list. Everything Farook did as far as I can tell was pretty legal until the moment he killed a lot of people. The marriage, the acquisition of the guns, the money loan that we've been talking about that ends that being benign.

His presence in the United States and potential gun training if that's actually what occurred. None of these are going to trigger "this is a bad person." Maybe combined in hindsight you can say we're putting the pieces together.

[07:55:05]And I want to make something clear about how these investigations unfold, I often remind people about the Columbine case. We all had a notion of the two killers that ended up actually years later not being true.

They are not Goth. They were not dark. They were actually well integrated kids. These narratives about these mass killers tend to change on a daily if not monthly basis. I think we'll learn more about Farook.

The idea that the wife was the animator may actually end up not being true, but, you know, this is the challenge. I can't name a single unlawful thing he did until the moment he walks --

PEREIRA: But it makes sense, right? Because when we're trying to struggle to understand this, so that we can sleep at night, right? And figure out what category of fear we put this into? We like to divide simple into to white hat/black hat, good guy/bad buy.

And I like that you are telling us to be cautious about this because this is an investigation that takes time. I want to look at one of the other things and this is a good point.

It's something that comes to your point. Yesterday, there was a lot of reporting that made quite a bit about the money because that is one of the things investigators will trace, where the money to fund something like will come from.

There was this loan that Farook took out in November. Apparently, now this is not considered significant. I want you to hear what one counterterrorism official told CNN yesterday though.

He says what it indicates is he was financing this operation or his life or his afterlife for his child and mother using what is now wire fraud and bank fraud. What are your thoughts on that?

KAYYEM: I think that's probably because there is nothing -- from what we understand the loan itself was lawful. It didn't trigger any of the financial policies or protocols that might have covered international money coming over to see where it was going.

And that he was planning, maybe as early as November, maybe a few years earlier to maybe leave something for his child or his family. But, you know, getting to this point that he was planning something for a period of time.

What I can tell so far is there is a mother, there is a neighbor and there is a father who all felt that something was off and did nothing, and so this idea of engaging people in coming forward notifying officials.

In the absence of unlawful behavior, that is what we have to depend on. It is why people like me, outside of politics say all of this anti-Muslim talk is actually very dangerous. We need to engage communities.

PEREIRA: Right.

KAYYEM: Because otherwise this stuff is in the going to trigger investigations.

PEREIRA: You make a very good point. It takes that, it is sort of a nuance to see something, say something, right?

KAYYEM: Right.

PEREIRA: I want to ask something about this couple. It is believed the female is long radicalized before she came on a fiancee visa in 2014 and they essentially tried to find a group to attach themselves to. This is again a variation on the lone wolf idea. It is sort of a freelance lone wolf in a way, no?

KAYYEM: It absolutely is. An inspired but nothing else aspect of how successful ISIS has been. I am very curious and I know that investigators are looking at this, what brought the two of them together and at what stage.

PEREIRA: Yes.

KAYYEM: This is too good of a coincidence that two people with potentially radical ideas then come together in a marriage. And whether our fiance visa rules ought to not be, sort of, you know, as easy as they are and I know the Department of Homeland Security is looking to tighten them up.

But whether those people, the fiances need to go through the normal clearances, we used to view it as the bi. If someone found someone to love then it must be benign. That is no longer true. So I would tighten up that surveillance.

PEREIRA: Juliette Kayyem, we always rely on you for these conversations. We appreciate it as always. Thanks so much. We're following a lot of news. So let's get right to it.

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CUOMO: What tears at America's fabric more than rejecting an entire race?

TRUMP: Until we figure this out, we should have a ban, it's very simple.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not what this party stands for. It disqualifies him from serving as president.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A shameless and a dangerous idea.

CAMEROTA: What do you think about Donald Trump's latest comments?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Immigration is not a right. It's a privilege.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A bank loan for more than $28,000 just days before the massacre.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The two conspired back in 2012, plotting an earlier attack in California. It does appear she was radicalized before she entered the U.S.

PEREIRA: The third attacker who blew himself up at the Bataclan concert hall has now been identified.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of a group of about eight or nine young people who went to Syria.

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