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President Obama Gives Speech on Lack of Current Credible Terrorist Threats to U.S.; Interview with Senator Angus King; Interview with John Sununu. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 18, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:05] JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- here at the White House, at least it is expected to be that. And after that he does fly off to San Bernardino, California, for private meetings with the families of the victims in the attacks out there. On Thursday the president visiting the National Counterterrorism Center right outside of Washington D.C., once again reiterating that his experts have found no credible evidence of a threat to the homeland, also saying he has ordered review of the controversial K-1 fiance visa program which allowed one of those San Bernardino attackers to get into the country. The president trying to be reassuring at a time when his critics, when Capitol Hill are saying he's not doing enough. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Anyone trying to harm Americans need to know -- they need to know that we're strong and that we are resilient, that we will not be terrorized.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So after the visit with the families in San Bernardino, the president flies off to Hawaii for his long vacation there. He'll be back in Washington D.C. after the start of the new year. Back to you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Joe, thanks so much for all of that.

Well, the friend of the San Bernardino shooter remains behind bars with a bail hear set for next week. So what finally led officials to arrest him? CNN's justice reporter Evan Perez joins us now with that story. Evan?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Alisyn, he's the only person thus far to face any charges as a result of the San Bernardino terror attack. Enrique Marquez is the friend and former neighbor who helped Syed Farook buy two military style rifles that Farook and his wife used to kill 14 people. Federal prosecutors charged him with material support for terrorism, lying on a firearms application because he bought two rifles so Farook wouldn't have to go through a background check, and immigration fraud. He took money to marry a woman who is part of Farook's extended family.

The most serious charge, material support for terrorism, stems from plots that Marquez, a Muslim convert, and Farook planned in 2012 but actually never carried out. The idea was to attack a library or cafeteria using pipe bombs and guns, an attack that prosecutors said was, quote, "designed to maximize the number of casualties."

A second chilling plot involved attacking a busy highway at rush hour in an area with no exits. They would use pipe bombs to disable cars and Farook would open fire on people in the cars and Marques would stand on hillside to kill law enforcement and rescuers trying to help victims. Prosecutors also revealed that a few hours after the San Bernardino attack Marquez called 911 and talked of wanting to kill himself and that he had let Farook hold guns for him. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Evan, thanks so much. Joining us now to discuss this and to discuss the wider battle right now against ISIS, independent senator Angus King of Maine. Senator King is on both the intelligence and the armed services. Senator King, happy holidays, thanks for being with us.

SEN. ANGUS KING, (I) MAINE: Thank you, John. Nice to be with you.

BERMAN: We just heard Evan's report about Enrique Marquez who is this friend to the California terrorist. He is now under arrest, involved apparently with some kind of plot in 2011 and 2012 with one of the dead terrorists right now.

My first question again, you are on the intelligence committee. I don't want you to tell us anything classified, but are you confident that there was no one else involved in any way with the San Bernardino attack?

KING: No, I don't think we can say that yet. I wish I could but the FBI is still working on this. One of the pieces of evidence that is most puzzling is both of the shooters destroyed their cell phones right after the event or during the event and they also destroyed the hard drives on their computers. If you weren't in touch with somebody else that would be incriminating to them or to you, why would wow do that? And we don't have any evidence that there were other people involved, but I think the jury is still out on that question. And I don't think anybody can say definitively, at least as far as I've heard in the last few days, that there wasn't anybody else involved.

BERMAN: It strains credulity to think that Syed Farook, the dead terrorist right now, would have plotted an attack with Enrique Marquez in 2011 and 2012, one they did not ultimately go through, carry out an attack in 2015 and not have any communications with anyone else over that intervening period.

KING: Well, that's the question. And I think that's the right question. And by the way, this points out the importance of the telephone metadata program, which is not about phone content of conversations but about who called who for how long. That was the program that was so controversial a couple years ago, but it seems to me this is an exact case where that could be very useful to see what number his number called, how many times, and therefore you could chain and see who he had been in touch with. That's one of the tools, and this is a case where that tool I think is particularly important.

[08:05:06] BERMAN: And you in fact are proposing legislation right now with Senator Tom Cotton that would give you new types of access to some of this information?

KING: Well, we made a change last year which actually I supported. I didn't like the idea of all of this phone data being in the hands of the government. I think there is always potential for abuse in that situation. So we made a change where the data is left with the phone companies. It's basically their billing and calling records. But the gap in it was there was no requirement that the phone companies hold that data for any particular length of time.

Tom Cotton and I are concerned the phone companies can start to reduce that to shorter than a year or a few months, and then it won't be useful in a case like this. So we put a bill in, and frankly I had an amendment on this. It didn't make it when the bill went through, so Tom and I are going to move to shore up what I consider a defect in the law.

BERMAN: Let's see if this new environment helps that get through this time.

I want to ask you something interesting that we've all seen here over the last four weeks. Before Thanksgiving President Obama made a speech to the nation. He came out during the day to essentially say he knew of who specific and credible threat against the homeland. Of course a week later the San Bernardino attack happened. And then just yesterday he did the same thing. He came out and said there was no, you know, credible and specific threat against the homeland right now. Go out and enjoy the holidays. I do not recall two such messages like that over a short period of time from the president. Why do you think he's doing that?

KING: Well, I think he's in a very tough place. He doesn't want to scare people. He doesn't want to raise fears. He doesn't want to let the terrorists win.

On the other hand, I honestly have to say I think it's a mistake to make that kind of reassurance because what we're talking about here is a new kind of terrorism. The San Bernardino attack was kind of a hybrid. We had the fiance, the wife who was from Pakistan, has been radicalized when she got here. But the real danger -- let's take Marquez. He was an American citizen. He got radicalized if you look into his background, online, watching videos and that kind of thing. That is what we have to worry about. It is the lone wolf. This was two lone wolves, we think. We're not sure of that yet. But there are people sitting in their basement being radicalized watching these videos.

And I frankly think it is a mistake for the president to make that kind of reassurance because, you know, it could happen I again, I think and. And I hate to say that, but I just think that's the fact. And the president doesn't help his credibility when he makes a statement like that and three or four days later San Bernardino happens.

The point is there isn't any, I can tell you there isn't any credible evidence of an imminent plot. That is true. But that doesn't mean there won't be an attack from somebody who is self-radicalized sitting in their basement in Peoria or Dallas or Los Angeles or New York.

BERMAN: The fact of the matter is the types of threats the United States is facing right now do not come with specific and credible threats beforehand. That is what we learned in San Bernardino.

KING: That's right. That's exactly the problem.

And here -- we've got to get to the root of this. And one of the ways I think we are failing in this war -- and it is a war -- is in the battlefield of ideas. ISIS posts something like 90,000 social messages a day. And that is feeding this around the world. Young people, I can't figure why it appeals to them, but it is.

We have to counter that. Work with the Muslim world. They have to take the lead on this. They are the ones who are credible saying this isn't Islam. This isn't what we believe. And we have to start posting videos of what it is like to live under ISIS. In other words, we've got to fight it out on the battlefield of ideas because we are not going to be able to kill or arrest our way out of this. That's an important part of what we have to do, but ultimately it is going to be the ideas that win.

BERMAN: Just one last question on the president's message, what would you tell him? He's got a news conference coming up in a few hours. What will you tell him that he -- how would you be explain to him that he shouldn't be telling the United States that there is no specific credible threat?

KING: Well, you're putting me in an awkward position of giving advice to the president of the United States.

BERMAN: Well, you are a senator. It is part of your job.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: OK. Well, I think he ought to say we have no credible threats, but there is this risk of self-radicalized lone wolf terrorism, and we all have to be diligent and alert. We have to be in touch with law enforcement if we see something we think is suspicious or worrisome. And we are resilient people. We are not going to let these people terrorize them. But nobody can give you a guarantee that some deranged person in some part of the country isn't going to do something awful.

BERMAN: You talked about the success that ISIS is having on social media around the world right now. One of the things that people in the United States are now saying is the U.S. has got to get better at defense on social media, which means checking social media when a lot of people are coming to the United States right now. Is this a change you would like to see in the visa processing?

[08:10:12] KING: Absolutely. A bunch of us sent a letter to Jeh Johnson at homeland security earlier this week that essentially said that. Let's Google people just like employers do, find out what their background is. Frankly I think that should have been part of the process long before now. BERMAN: Everyone seems to agree on this. I haven't found a lot of

people who disagree with that notion right now. So how quickly can you get something done along these lines, because it seems it should have started yesterday?

KING: I can't speak for how long it's going to take. It shouldn't take a great deal of policy. These visas are processed by State Department people around the world, and you just say OK here is the checklist, and at the bottom is check social media, Google them and see what comes up.

This raises another important point, though, John, and I ran across this yesterday, and that is manpower or people power. I'm not sure we have enough resources to do all the checking and investigating. I don't know how many FBI agents are involved in San Bernardino, but I'm sure it is more than 100.

And we're talking about straining our counterintelligence and law enforcement, just the sheer numbers of people necessary to check out the leads and also to do the visa applications.

By the way, one of the things that bothered me this morning, he said, well, we're now going to look into the fiance visa. It ought to be all visa programs. It ought to be the visa waiver program. We can't be closing doors after the horse is already through. We ought to be, in my view, looking at the entire process whereby people get into this country, particularly through visa programs, and be more diligent how we check them.

BERMAN: Senator Angus King of Maine, thanks so much for being with us. Have a great holiday, sir.

KING: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Quick, programming note here, CNN's Wolf Blitzer will have live coverage of President Obama's year end news conference. That begins about 1:40 p.m. eastern time. Michaela?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, John, a pair of homegrown terror suspects have been charged in Pennsylvania, indicted for attempting to provide material support to ISIS. Authorities say the 19-year-old shared extremist propaganda on 57 Twitter accounts and called for attacks on U.S. military members. In northern California, Adam Chafee charged with trying to aid the Al Qaeda linked al Nusra Front. That 22-year-old has been arrested as he tried to travel to Turkey.

CAMEROTA: Turmoil in Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. The Democratic National Committee suspending the campaign's access to the party's voter database after a staffer accessed confidential data from Hillary Clinton's campaign. CNN's Athena Jones is here with more for us from Washington. Athena, what have your learned?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. This is not good news for Sanders, and it is coming just a day before the third Democratic debate. As you said, the Vermont senator's campaign has been suspended from using the Democratic National Committee's voter database. This is after snooping into rival Hillary Clinton's data. The breach happened on Wednesday and Clinton data was accessed by at least one Sanders staffer after a software error occurred at the technology company that runs its program.

Now, we're talking about vital voter information the campaign's use to make strategic plans, but you are not allowed to look at another candidate's data. The Sanders campaign will remain suspended until it provides the DNC with a full explanation of what happened and provides proof that any data that was accessed has been discarded.

A spokesman for Sanders blamed the tech company saying, quote, "On more than one occasion the vendor has dropped the firewall between the data of different Democratic campaigns." So he's making the point there that Sanders' voter records were also vulnerable. The Sanders staffer who accessed the data was fired. He was the campaign's national data director, and he told my CNN colleague just a short while ago that he wasn't trying to take Clinton data. He was trying to figure out how badly the Sanders campaign's data was exposed due to this security breech. This now former staffer says the Sanders campaign didn't gain any material benefit from his actions. John?

BERMAN: Thanks, Athena.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in New York pushing for an end to the civil war in Syria. This hour he is set to hold a high level meeting with diplomats from Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. But Iran's foreign minister is casting doubt on the process, saying there seems to be no agreement on how to involve the Syrian opposition groups.

PEREIRA: Hello, where are the Adele concert tickets?

CAMEROTA: Sounded more like Lionel Richie.

PEREIRA: Stop it, stop. People who endured long, long, long wait times and failed to get tickets to her shows on Ticket Master, tickets for her 56 day North American tour. Concerts kick off next summer in St. Paul, Minnesota.

[08:15:04] The silver lining here, folks, if you weren't able to snag tickets, at least you have the perfect album with which to have a good cry. I actually don't find it upsetting music. I find it so beautiful. It moves me. It doesn't me move to tears necessarily.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Can I show you how the Twitter sphere reacted? There's some good tweets. Let's them pull them up.

This is my favorite. "Hello from the outside. At least I can say that I tried. To buy Adele tickets before they sold out. Now, they're on StubHub for ridic amounts."

Here's another one, "Hello from the ticket line. I've clicked refresh a thousand times."

Oh don't get Twitter mad. Don't do it.

CAMEROTA: Love it.

PEREIRA: I wish I was going to the show though.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. I always great to hear you say, hello.

PEREIRA: Stop it. You too at the Lionel Richie.

CAMEROTA: It's true.

Jeb Bush asked by our own whether Hillary Clinton would make a better president than Donald Trump. His answer, leading many to wonder whether or not Bush will break his Republican pledge.

We'll get the take of former Governor John Sununu about this. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think Hillary Clinton is going to be elected president of the United States. She's not trustworthy. And his proposals aren't much better.

BERMAN: You didn't answer my question. Would he make a better president than Hillary Clinton?

BUSH: No, I've learned not to answer questions. That's one of the things that you do now in political discourse. You answer what you want to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, that was Jeb Bush refusing to tell John Berman who would be better or worse for the country, Trump or Hillary?

[08:20:05] This comes from the aftermath of this week's CNN debate. Has something changed in the Bush campaign in the past week?

John Sununu is a former New Hampshire governor. He was also an advisor to the 2012 Romney campaign and former chief of staff for George H.W. Bush.

Good morning, Governor.

JOHN SUNUNU (R), FORMER NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR: Good morning. It's nice to see you.

CAMEROTA: Nice to see you as well.

Let's talk about what many are calling a shift in the Bush campaign. We saw there in the interview with John Berman and we saw it on display in the CNN debate Tuesday night when he went mano a mano with Donald Trump in a way he hadn't before and he engaged with Donald Trump.

Let me play a portion of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: This is a tough business to run for president.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, I know. You're a tough guy, Jeb. I know.

BUSH: And it's -- and we need --

(LAUGHTER)

-- to have a leader that is --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You're tough.

BUSH: You're never going to be president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency.

TRUMP: Well, let's see. I'm at 42, and you're at 3. So, so far, I'm doing better.

BUSH: Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, Governor, in the past, Jeb Bush backed down out of decorum in the debates but this time he didn't. What do you think has shifted with Jeb Bush?

SUNUNU: Well, I think -- I don't know what's going on inside the campaign. I haven't endorsed anyone. But I think what I see from observing is that they have recognized that this has become a campaign in which emotion is a very strong part of it. And he's trying to make sure that people understand the passion he has about some of the issues.

The follow up to the exchange you put up there I think was a very important one, where Bush talked about the substance of a problem. And that is the fact that we want to put -- if you want to put boots on the ground to deal with ISIS and virtually all except for Rand Paul on that stage want to and you want 90 percent of those boots to be our allies in the Mideast, you have to at least have a style and a tone that doesn't turn them off.

And I think the point he's trying to make is that just brashness and tough statements don't make a president.

CAMEROTA: I mean, I think that there's a debate for a while ignore Trump, or engaged with Trump. And some of the candidates have gotten burned when they tried to engage, and for a while, Jeb Bush seemed as though he was trying to ignore him and sort of take a higher road, he said. But now, he appears to be engaging him.

Is that a wise tactical move?

SUNUNU: I think it is a good tactical move for Jeb Bush to do that. I think he's got to be firm on his issues. I think he has to engage on differences in issues and difference in style and difference in capacity to be commander in chief.

So, I thought the approach he took at the debate was good. I thought the interesting thing about the debate in addition to what Jeb Bush did was the markers that Cruz and Rubio played down, and the style and tactics that Governor Christie took.

I think all the candidates are using debates not to win a debate, but to lay an agenda for the weeks in between debates, and then they go out into the hustings now and reinforce those with their town halls and other campaigning.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and what happened at the debate, and what's happened since. They engaged about immigration and who has the strongest policy on immigration and what they both said in the past. They've continued that battle, just yesterday on the campaign, let me -- I mean, on the campaign trail. Let me play for you their argument that continues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, he is going to have a hard time because he's not told the truth about his position in the past on legalization.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I oppose amnesty. I oppose citizenship. I oppose legalization for illegal aliens. I always have. And I always will.

And I challenge every other Republican candidate to say the same thing. Or if not, then to stop making silly assertions that their records and my records on immigration are the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Governor, you have a interesting perspective on this. You too just like these two gentlemen are Cuban-American. Who do you think is winning the war of words over immigration policy?

SUNUNU: Well, I think Senator Cruz had a very tough time the other night on the fox network when he got quizzed about the legislation amendments that he had filed. I think those two are going to keep going at it. They are arguing, as Christie said, sometimes they are arguing about issues that seem to be more appropriately argued on the floor of the Senate.

But the fact is that immigration is a tough issue and at one time or other I do believe that both of those candidates supported a pathway to legalization.

CAMEROTA: And does that hurt. I mean, let's say that Ted Cruz did support a path to legalization as he appeared to from his own words in 2013 when he introduced that bill.

[08:25:02] Does that hurt both of them? During this primary? Can they win the primary having had those positions?

SUNUNU: Yes. I think the immigration issue is an important issue. But I don't think you have to be at absolutely one end or other in order to win the primary. I think there are nuances in there that a lot of the Republican primary voters will accept. What is important is to be committed to make sure that anyone that comes into this country gets vetted properly.

I think Jeb Bush put that marker down in the debate. He wanted to make sure that people understood that that was his position. I think Rubio and Cruz both have that position. I think the Republican primary voters are more concerned about making sure that anyone that comes into the country gets vetted properly.

CAMEROTA: Very quickly, Governor. I want to ask you what's going on with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Vladimir Putin gave something of a glowing review of Trump. In the past 24 hours, he says Trump is, quote, "a bright person and no doubt talented." Now, what's even more interesting is that Donald Trump responded this morning about what he thinks about that sort of little endorsement or at least positive review.

Listen to what Trump said about Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, fine about Putin. I think that he is a strong leader and a powerful leader. He's represented his country. That's the way the country's been represented. He's actually got popularity within his country. They respect him as a leader.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Strong, powerful, respected later, is that the right take on Vladimir Putin?

SUNUNU: Look, Putin is smart. He recognized that the biggest gift he could get out of the election next November is Donald Trump ending up as president, that the United States ending up with a president that really doesn't know how to be commander in chief and how to deal with these tough foreign policy issues. And Putin is just out there stirring the pot a little bit and having a good time.

CAMEROTA: And is Donald Trump taking the bait?

SUNUNU: I'm sorry. Say that again, please?

CAMEROTA: OK. Putin is stirring the pot, but Donald Trump likes what he's saying. Should he be responding so positively to Vladimir Putin?

SUNUNU: All you have to do to get a positive response out of Donald Trump is stroke his ego.

CAMEROTA: There you go. Governor Sununu, thanks so much. Happy weekend.

SUNUNU: Thank you, Alisyn. Have a great weekend.

CAMEROTA: You too.

Let's get over to John.

BERMAN: You got a laugh of John Sununu there, a first on morning television.

A young man on probation after killing four people in a drunken driving crash believed to be on the run. The affluenza teen vanished after this startling video of him surfaced allegedly doing exactly what a judge told him exactly not to do. Next, the father whose son survived the crash tells us what he thinks should happen once Ethan Couch turns up.

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