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Cruz Questions Trump's Judgment; FBI Searching Lake Near Inland Regional Center; U.S. Intel Helps Trigger Geneva Terror Alert. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 11, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Anybody killing a police officer, death penalty.

[05:58:03] SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I like and respect both Donald and Ben. I do not believe either one will be our nominee.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Top GOP officials discussing the possibility of a brokered Republican convention.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The guy is not a serious man. He's good at -- he's a great politician.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fear of domestic terrorism is at all-time high.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The FBI now believes Syed Rizwan Farook had ties to a group of local jihadists.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will leave no stone unturned.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Geneva, Switzerland, on high alert.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Extremists were talking about possibly carrying out attacks in Geneva, Toronto, and even Chicago.

MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, CHICAGO: No citizen is a second-class citizen in the city of Chicago.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No longer are people talking about compromise. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has got to go.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to NEW DAY. It is Friday, December 11, 6 a.m. in the east. I have Poppy Harlow with me this morning. If there were any question who is the most dedicated anchor on NEW DAY, you can see. POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: This one.

CUOMO: Alisyn and Michaela are off today. Poppy is here. Great pleasure to have my friend with us, as always.

And we have big news for you. Donald Trump towering over his rivals and finally taking fire from a close challenger, Senator Ted Cruz. Trump enjoying the 19-point cushion in the latest national poll. Cruz now privately questioning Trump's judgment to be president. But of course, nothing is private in politics. Right? We're going to play you the tapes.

HARLOW: It is all on tape. You'll hear that shortly.

Also is a bigger political storm brewing between the GOP and its undisputed frontrunner, Donald Trump? Party leaders meeting to discuss a real possibility of something we haven't seen in decades. A brokered convention. Will the nominating process drag into the summer?

Let's begin our coverage with CNN's Athena Jones, who joins us this morning from Washington.

Athena, Chris and I were looking at the numbers. It has not been since 1976 that they've gone into a convention without a clear nominee. Will this be the year?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's a big question, Poppy. I mean, Trump's spot at the top of the polls should make him a top target of other GOP contenders. But so far, no one has managed to land any punches on him.

The question now is whether Ted Cruz, who's emerging as one of Trump's main rivals, could soon become the latest candidate to try to knock him from his perch.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRUZ: Both of them -- I like and respect both Donald and Ben. I do not believe either one of them is going to be our nominee. Their campaigns have a natural arc.

JONES (voice-over): Newly-released audio from a private fund- raiser, provided to "The New York Times," reveals Texas Senator Ted Cruz questioning the judgment of frontrunner Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

CRUZ: Who am I comfortable having their finger on the button? I think the people run as who they are. I believe that gravity will bring both of those campaigns down.

JONES: Cruz has avoided public criticism of the billionaire. But now, just four days away from the next CNN Republican debate, Cruz may not be able to avoid him anymore. The senator now polling second in the latest national GOP poll, even though Trump is leading by almost 20 percent. This as Trump continues to outline controversial proposals.

TRUMP: Anybody killing a police officer, death penalty. It's going to happen. OK?

JONES: The latest, Trump says if elected president, he would sign an executive order to mandate the death penalty for convicted cop killers.

TRUMP: Police forces throughout the country have had a hard time. A lot of people killed. A lot of people killed very violently, sitting in a car, waiting, sitting in a car watching, and somebody comes from behind.

JONES: And Trump's plan to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. igniting a firestorm of backlash.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I no longer think he's funny.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I will say I started...

JONES: It doesn't appear to be resonating with voters. More than half saying they oppose his controversial ban in a new national poll. Trump's divisive proposals are making the GOP nervous.

Meanwhile, CNN has learned that a group of Republican leaders met in private to discuss a plan for a contested convention, which would be triggered if no candidate has enough delegates to win the nomination.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Now, this talk of a brokered convention is a sign the GOP race for the nomination could be a fight to the finish. One participant in that meeting said no one is fight sure what will happen. The point here is that given the crowded field and the way the delegates are awarded, they've got to be prepared for anything -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Athena, thank you very much.

Let's break it down. Let's bring in CNN senior political correspondent, Nia-Malika Henderson, and Matt Lewis, senior contributor to "The Daily Caller " and conservative commentator. Happy Friday to you. So we have some good numbers here. We have the CBS News/"New York Times" poll numbers. And we have...

HARLOW: Brand-new numbers this morning.

CUOMO: ... the New Hampshire numbers that Poppy just brought in here.

The big headline seems to be Trump is no joke; he's at the top. Let's end that conversation. And that Chris Christie got a good pop.

Let me start with you, Nia. I guess that's because he got a big endorsement up there. But what's the state of the race in New Hampshire?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's also -- yes, he got that big endorsement there, but he's been on the ground there, right, in the traditional way you're supposed to be on the ground there at town halls, at house parties. He's really, really great at that kind of retail politics. He's really a master of it. And I think it's starting to show in those polls.

The irony is, Donald Trump hasn't done those kinds of things in New Hampshire, but yet, still he's still far and away in the lead in those polls. But you do start to see Donald Trump sort of in one tier and then those other guys, Christie and Rubio, in another tier. And my goodness, Jeb Bush certainly not gaining any traction in this latest poll. I think he might be up maybe like a point or so.

HARLOW: One point.

HENDERSON: But this is after spend -- yes, this is after spending millions and millions of dollars on the air there, trying to introduce and re-introduce himself to those voters. And it's not quite paying off, I think, in the way that they wanted, hoped and expected.

HARLOW: So looking, then, at the same poll, Ted Cruz pops just two points. He's at 10 percent in New Hampshire, still behind Christie and Donald Trump.

But we -- I think that was very telling what we heard last night at that fund-raising dinner, questioning the judgment of both Donald Trump and Ben Carson. We've seen Cruz largely stay away from doing that. All he would say on Trump's Muslim comment was, you know, "That's not my policy. I don't agree with it."

Do you think we're seeing an evolution of Senator Ted Cruz here in terms of how he will take on Donald Trump aggressively, especially heading into Iowa?

MATT LEWIS, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I think that Ted Cruz thought he was speaking to a private group of supporters. And I think what this shows is that he's very Machiavellian and very strategic. He has intentionally not criticized Donald Trump, even though maybe that would have been the right thing to do, for political purposes.

But I think that Ted Cruz has to win Iowa. I think he will win Iowa. I think he's tailor-made for Iowa. He's much more likely to get the evangelical support you need to win Iowa than Donald Trump is. And I think the closer we get to Iowa, it's going to become untenable. I think that Cruz and Trump eventually will duke it out. And I suspect that Ted Cruz ends up prevailing in Iowa.

[06:05:17] CUOMO: Well, it's also about how you do it. I mean, you know, he has had an allegiance with Trump, tacit or not. And it is very risky to go at Trump, because he gets so much media attention.

HARLOW: He wants those voters. CUOMO: Right. And he's so good at it.

But you know, you have a bigger concern there, Matt, which is that this talk about a brokered convention, one, do you buy it at this stage, that this is a real situation going on, being discussed? And two, what do you do to get away from the natural process? How do you justify not allowing the voters to speak?

LEWIS: Well, you know, first of all, every cycle somebody brings up the idea of a brokered convention to get clicks and Drudge links. But -- but this time I actually think it's somewhat plausible.

One idea would be you have a brokered convention to basically rig the game and stop Donald Trump. But that's not the only scenario. It's possible that you could just have a situation where Cruz wins Iowa, Trump wins New Hampshire, Rubio wins South Carolina, and you go on and on like that. And nobody is able to get -- I think it's 1,144 delegates you need to -- to become the nominee. We could just have a scenario where you get to the Republican National Convention, and nobody has the delegates. And then it could descend into chaos.

And I would really worry about the possibility of a Republican winning or beating Hillary Clinton, having gone through that very messy process of arm twisting and vote counting that would have to take place. And you know, to actually -- for somebody to wrest control of the nomination at that point.

HARLOW: Nia, I thought it was telling, the sit-down Alisyn did this week with Trump supporters. One of them told her, quote, "He's speaking our minds."

Let's listen to the latest headline from Donald Trump, talking about an executive order that he says as president he would make for the death penalty for anyone who kills a police officer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: One of the first things I'd do in terms of executive order if I win will be to sign a strong, strong statement that will go out to the country, out to the world, that anybody killing a policeman, policewoman, police officer, anybody killing a police officer, death penalty. It's going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: OK. So legally, that's a challenge, right?

CUOMO: He could do it.

HARLOW: You have 19 states where that can't happen at this point.

CUOMO: He could do it on a federal level, if you were to kill a federal officer.

HARLOW: And here's the bigger question. Outside the legality of it, this is -- talking to Republicans who have consistently criticized this president, President Obama, for overreaching with executive orders. But do you think it will play that way when Donald Trump says it?

HENDERSON: No. I think he is speaking to an audience that has also criticized President Obama for almost fomenting violence against police officers. Scott Walker certainly did that, before he dropped out. This is in an era when we have this Black Lives protest movement, and a lot of people not happy with that movement, a lot of Republicans not happy with that moment.

So I think he is speaking to a real sentiment, a real base of support here when he is standing there and really standing with police officers. And I understand he just got, you know, some support for some police officers. And I think in some ways that statement was part of that. So I think he's on the right track.

Donald Trump is somebody who understands the Republican base, at least the way they're feeling right now. Whether or not that changes going forward when you have these actual contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, we have to see. But so far, I think he's been on the right track.

CUOMO: Now Matt, one of the things I'm hearing from inside the GOP is that what we saw with that voter panel, that there's pushback against who Trump's supporters are.

I've had people from inside the GOP who, like Trump, saying to me, "Why are you panting Trump supporters as, like, these way out there, extreme people who, like, cry when they talk about these? I'm not like that and I like Trump."

Inside the party, is there a reckoning that, you know what? His base is a lot broader than we thought it was. It's not just women and men who cry when they start talking about why they like Donald Trump.

LEWIS: Yes. First of all, I think Nia made a very good point there. The definition of executive overreach is when the other guy does executive overreach. The other team.

But look, I think -- I think you're right. Donald Trump supporters are not monolithic. We saw in that, you know, focus group that CNN did the other day, these were very intelligent, very eloquent people. Much -- not the stereotype.

Having said that, I do think if you look at polling, the one thing that really comes across is that Donald Trump supporters are more moderate and secular than you would think. The perception is they're right-wing Republicans. No. Actually, he does better with more moderates.

[06:10:07] And the other thing would be, of course, non-college graduates. The higher education level you have as a Republican, the less likely you are to support Donald Trump.

But, having said that, it's obviously very dangerous for Republicans, I think, to diminish Donald Trump supporters. Because Republicans are going to need some of them if they're to win the general election in November.

CUOMO: That's the point, is that they keep making it about Donald Trump. But you have to remember, every time you go after Trump, you're going after his supporters.

LEWIS: Yes.

HARLOW: Absolutely.

CUOMO: It's a bigger, more diverse base than the GOP expected early on.

LEWIS: Indeed.

HARLOW: Much bigger. Much broader.

Thank you both. We appreciate it. Have a great weekend.

HENDERSON: Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up in our next hour, we will talk with presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. She will join us live. Stay with us for that.

CUOMO: So the big question is, how will the next president keep this country safe? Right? That issue is getting bigger and bigger after San Bernardino.

Four days from now, Wolf Blitzer is going to moderate the final GOP debate of the year right here on CNN. That issue will be front and center. Coverage begins Tuesday night, 6 Eastern. That's the undercard, followed by the main debate, 8:30 Eastern.

HARLOW: Also, we're following very closely the probe into that deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, turning up new, very disturbing details. "The Los Angeles Times" this morning reporting that investigators say the terrorists were planning an even larger, broader attack as dive teams search a lake digging for evidence. What exactly are they looking for? That's where we find our CNN correspondent, Ana Cabrera.

Good morning to you, Ana.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy.

We're at a lake that's just a couple miles north of where that shooting attack occurred. This is where we're expecting to see those FBI dive teams return at daybreak. They spent several hours here yesterday. We're told their search of this lake could take several days.

They're searching for any evidence that could be connected to their investigation. We're told they received a couple of tips that the shooters, Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook, were seen in this area on the day of the shooting.

Now, investigators say they've scoured the park. They still need to finish looking in the lake. What are they looking for? Investigators aren't saying officially what they're looking for, but we do know that the couple's computer hard drive has been missing. That's a critical piece of this investigation as they're trying to put together the couple's digital footprint. That's something that they're hoping to find here.

Also this morning, we're learning some new information about possible connections being investigated between Farook and a terror cell that was broken up here in California a few years back. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID BOWDICH, FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR IN CHARGE: We did arrest four individuals back in 2012. They have since been convicted of material support to terrorism. Those individuals were not planning to conduct a terrorist attack in the U.S.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now, that group was planning, apparently, to attack a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. And they had intentions of going overseas to fight against U.S. forces. Here's the connection possibly to Farook. Investigators say he was in the same social circle at that time as the recruiter of that terror cell.

Now 2012 is also the year that Marquez, Enrique Marquez, a neighbor of Farook's, has told investigators he and Farook were plotting their own attack back home.

Important to note, Marquez has not been charged with any crime. His mom defending him adamantly yesterday in front of the couple's home, saying that he was her right-hand man around the house and that she does not know anything about this ongoing investigation -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Ana, thank you very much. Part of that investigation also, why they didn't find what was going on with these people sooner. So that's going to be a part of it, as well.

Now we go to Geneva, facing a heightened terror alert, triggered in part by U.S. intelligence from intercepted terrorist chatter. Police there are now looking for five suspects linked to one of the Paris terror attackers.

CNN's international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, is in Geneva with the latest. What do we know, Nic?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, Chris, the threat level here has been raised. Behind me is the U.N. Building, the biggest U.N. complex outside of New York. The security guards on the front there are now carrying heavier weapons than they normally do, because the threat level is assessed to be that serious at the moment. That was intercepted by U.S. Intelligence and passed on to Swiss

authorities were four ISIS members in Syria chatting about a possible attack in Geneva. Those men in Syria at that time are now whereabouts unknown. That's a concern. Some of them speak French. Geneva is a French-speaking part of Switzerland.

So that's one part of the reason the threat has gone up. There are another two reasons, as well. Saleh Abdeslam, one of the men associated with the attack in Paris, went on the run -- went on the run to Belgium right after that attack a month ago. He has had international arrest warrants out for him.

[06:15:04] Well, one of his associates, it appears, drove his van into Switzerland here over the past few days. That van, with Belgian registration plates, has been located by authorities here but not the associate. So the concern there, is Saleh Abdeslam here? Where is that associate? Is he in Switzerland, planning something.

On top of that, as well, you have the third Bataclan attacker, the man that recruited him is from this area. He has another associate from this area, Swiss man, been to Syria, associated with ISIS, now whereabouts unknown. All of this contributing to the increased threat level, Chris.

HARLOW: All right. Thank you very much, Nic. I'll take it from here. Appreciate the reporting live for us today from Geneva.

Also breaking overnight, four people killed after a medical helicopter crashed as it headed for a California hospital. Authorities say the pilot, a nurse, a paramedic, a patient all died in that crash. The helicopter was flying from Fresno to a hospital in Bakersfield when it went down in dense fog. At this point no official word on the cause of the crash.

CUOMO: A former Oklahoma City police officer could spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of rape, among other sex crimes. He did not testify but openly sobbed as the guilty verdicts were read last night.

Prosecutors say he targeted 13 women while on the job and agreed to waive their arrests in exchange for sexual favors. The former cop faces up to 200 years behind bars when he's sentenced next month.

HARLOW: A very scary situation in Boston. Human error may be to blame for a runaway train on Thursday morning. You probably heard about this one. That train, carrying about 50 passengers, traveled five miles, no one at the controls. Officials say the train pulled away after the operator stepped off the handle -- stepped off to handle a signal issue. Now on administrative leave as the MBTA investigates whether proper procedures were followed.

CUOMO: Need to figure that out.

Investigators in San Bernardino now focusing on the bottom of this lake.

HARLOW: Right.

CUOMO: What led them there? What are they looking for? Answers ahead.

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[06:21:05] CUOMO: All right. As soon as they get a little daylight, investigators in San Bernardino are going to start searching a lake, again, for evidence that may have been tossed by that terror couple last week.

CNN also learning about a new connection between the male shooter and a jihadist ring that was busted just a few years ago. We have with us this morning Congressman Chris Stewart. He's on the House Intelligence Committee, and he just took part in a briefing on the investigation, joining us now.

Congressman, thank you for joining us on NEW DAY. The concern is word that there may have been a bigger plot involved, pictures on the male murderer's phone of different local sites. What did you learn?

REP. CHRIS STEWART (R), UTAH: Well, of course, it's difficult for me to describe what we learned, because it was a classified setting. I can tell you that I think in these situations, we always have to be concerned. And obviously, the FBI and Director Comey, I have a great amount of faith in him.

But we always have to be concerned that there are others who may be involved or that there may have been intentions beyond what we know right now. I know they're doing a great job with the investigation, and I think we have much left that we'll learn as the next few days unfold.

CUOMO: Now, you do have an issue of what you learned when. Was anybody in the briefing questioning about why you didn't know more about these two sooner, given all the tentacles they seemed to have laid out in the community?

STEWART: Yes, for sure. I mean, that's one of the primary questions that we have. Is looking back and saying what could we have done better? Did we miss something? Were there things we should have caught? It's easy to -- Monday morning quarterback that. I understand that. But I think there are indications that we've got a real challenge ahead of us. I've been saying that, and many of us have. When it comes to the threat here in the United States, I just don't think we quite understand how deep that threat really is yet.

CUOMO: Now, when you say we don't understand it, is that a way of explaining why we can't catch these people in advance? Or is it a way of saying our system doesn't work?

STEWART: I don't think we can say our system doesn't work. I mean, the reality is, there are literally dozens and dozens of threats that we encounter every day. And by and large, we're able to protect ourselves from those threats. But the system isn't perfect, and people aren't perfect. And the

threat is enormous. So, again, I think it just kind of shows we've got a real challenge ahead of us.

CUOMO: You know, you have people at the top of the polls in your party right now who are campaigning on San Bernardino as proof that we don't know how to stop terrorists. Do you warn people to distinguish political speak from the realities of securing America?

STEWART: Well, it's hard to -- hard to define the difference between them. They're so intermingled. I mean, there is no political issue right now that is as high on people's minds and priorities that is our security. I think it will be the defining issue in 2016.

I think those candidates who are strong on this issue, who can assure the American people as best that they can, that they will take aggressive steps to protect them, I think those candidates are going to distinguish themselves.

And once again, this has taken the place on almost everyone's mind as the primary concern that they're having. We see that expression in the political discussion all the time now.

CUOMO: Right. Either you legitimately expose flaws or risk undermining confidence in the system. If I were to be campaigning saying they should have asked her if she had jihadi tendencies when she went for her fiance visa. And they should have caught these guys, and it shows that we don't know what we're doing, do you think that's fair criticism of the system?

STEWART: Absolutely. Absolutely I do. And for example, the Congress has been talking the last couple weeks about how we could be better with our immigration policy, with some of the Syrian refugees, with visa waiver program as we talked about over the last few days. Those are absolutely legitimate questions, things we can say, can we do better? Do we need to look at our policies, procedures, and say, "These aren't working, we have to do something else:?"

CUOMO: And in terms of the scope of what we understand here now, what can you tell us about the idea of them being connected to another group? Do they believe that there's an active cell out there that they're trying to discover?

[06:25:05] STEWART: Yes. Hard for me to answer that. I want to be careful. But we certainly have to consider that possibility. I will tell you this. Historically, we know that it's a very, very difficult and it's really quite rare for someone to do this type of radicalization, to take these kind of steps, to have this type of planning, to learn how to build pipe bombs, for example, to do that stuff independently.

Not the kind of stuff you pick up and do very effectively from the Internet. Now you can. And certainly ISIS and other terrorist groups hope they can spread that kind of radical theology, those kind of skills, through the Internet. But it's very difficult to do, again, by yourself. And generally

you have to assume that they had some kind of support or that they might have had some others that were involved. I think that's the approach that law enforcement is taking right now.

CUOMO: That's certainly the scariest prospect of who have is still out there. Congressman Chris Stewart, thank you very much for joining us.

STEWART: Thank you so much. Good morning.

CUOMO: Poppy.

HARLOW: All right. Up next, anger boiling over. You've seen it play out this week on the streets of Chicago. Protesters demanding Mayor Rahm Emanuel step down, accusing him of covering up police brutality in his city. What is next for the mayor? What is next for that city? We're live in Chicago, ahead.

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