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Driver Mows Down Dozens on Las Vegas Strip; Clinton: Trump "Is Becoming ISIS' Best Recruiter"; Presidential Candidates Lash Out at Trump

Aired December 21, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:31:54]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, NEW DAY HOST: We're following some breaking news out of Las Vegas. A driver mowing down dozens of pedestrians on the Vegas strip last night and killing at least one person. This is just the latest incident adding jitters to a holiday season that already has many on high alert.

So let's bring our CNN national security analyst and former assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem and CNN law-enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes. Nice to see you both of you this morning.

Tom, let me start with you about what happened in Las Vegas overnight. Dozens of people have been injured, one killed. How can investigators already say that this is an intentional act?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Alisyn, Lieutenant McGrath from the Las Vegas Police Department is already made statements that she's been talking to investigators, so, you know, that would indicate that she has admitted to what she did and probably why she did it and what state of mind she had. And really that's what -- in order to rule it terrorism, you have to have some ideological, political, religious motivation behind it, which if they quickly figured out that that's not the case, then that's why.

CAMEROTA: Yes, so they have ruled out terrorism. But Juliet, I just find it curious that they say that it was intentional. We don't know much about the driver other than she's in her 20's, and she had a 3- year-old in the car with her.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, and based on your previous guess, you describe what happened that night, I think you'd have to assume that it was intentional, because it sounds like, at least in the descriptions, that she just continually kept mowing over people. And it may be, as Tom said, that she is speaking freely for whatever reason that she did actually have an intent to do this, whether it was drugs, you know, a mental disorder or some other motivation. We'll find out relatively soon.

CAMEROTA: But Tom, if she was drunk or if she was on drugs or if she had a mental disorder, is that classified as intentional by police?

FUENTES: Well, the reason they're saying it's intentional is that the witnesses and the police have stated that she was on the sidewalk, went onto the street and went back onto the sidewalk and did that three times, including driving around a truck that was obstructing her at one point and then going back on the sidewalk and continuing to drive over people. So I think that because of the repeated efforts to get back on that sidewalk and strike people is why they're saying that.

CAMEROTA: I see. So it seems as though she was in more control than somebody would have had they been drunk.

OK, let us move on, Juliette, to this whole host of things that's making people so anxious and nervous before the Christmas season. Obviously, we know that ISIS is always looking for targets of opportunity. The holiday feels like it might be one, but then also Nashua in New Hampshire today just closed its schools. We've seen this before. We've seen this last week. Now it feels as though anybody who makes a threat can bring everything to sort of a screeching halt.

KAYYEM: Yes, unfortunately we live in a time where every loner and loser may have the capacity to close down a school district. So, you know, I've been in the room. Tom has been in the room. It is hard sitting on the outside to know exactly why these judgment calls are made, but I have to say every school district has to be anticipating these kinds of emails at this stage.

[07:35:10]

There's a lot of people who are just taking advantage of the concern out there.

And set up protocols to determine whether it's justified to close an entire school district based on a mere email. We don't know what was in the email, but this is why you have the FBI. This is why we have joint terrorism task forces, making sure that those protocols are followed. Because often when those emails are released, you know, really a lot of people in the field and experts can deduce that this was more likely than not a hoax.

CAMEROTA: Tom, it's not just the schools in Nashua getting this hoax. Also the Air France flight. A passenger found something suspicious in the bathroom. It looked like a bomb. In fact, it was a phony. But as law enforcement, how do you figure out what's bogus and what's real?

FUENTES: Well, I think what generally they're doing is bring the plane down as quickly as possible and then figure it out. Don't try to out- guess what might be in a package or in a bag on an aircraft with hundreds of people at 35,000 feet. But, you know, these these call-in or email-in threats, we're seeing this worldwide.

We saw the soccer stadium in Germany evacuated with 90,000 people a month ago due to a threat after the Paris attacks. We've seen a number of aircraft in the U.S. brought down by phone-in threats or email threats where the airline decided to land that plane immediately.

Now we've seen a couple of school districts, three now at least in the last week received threats. L.A. shut down. New York did not shut down, and now Nashua, New Hampshire did. So, you know, it's really a tough situation. The superintendent of that school district having to make the call is trying to out-guess is this yet another copycat or another hoax or someone's equivalent of pulling the fire alarm in the school, or could this be the one person that's going to actually doing attack. And they're making that call with hundreds of lives in the balance.

CAMEROTA: Right. I mean, it's just so maddening. Even when something isn't real, it's still wreaking havoc.

KAYYEM: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Juliette Kayyem, Tom Fuentes, thank so much for being on.

FUENTES: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: Merry Christmas to you guys.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, NEW DAY HOST: All right, another breaking story this morning. Five people arrested by Belgian police in connection with last month's Paris terror attacks. Police used phone records to pick up two brothers and a third person in Brussels just last night. Officials say two more people were arrested this morning. Guns and explosives were not found during either arrest.

CAMEROTA: Frantic rescues ongoing after a ship was caught in rough seas off an Indonesian island. There are reports about 80 people are still missing at this hour. Rough conditions, including 16-foot waves hampering search and rescue teams. At least 37 others have been rescued. An Indonesian official says three people, including two children, though, died.

CUOMO: Former President Jimmy Carter leaning on his faith in the face of tragedy. Carter led his bible class in Georgia Sunday despite having just lost his 28-year-old grandson, Jeremy. Carter told parishioners his grandson was not feeling well and died a short time later at the hospital. Now, this happened on Saturday. The 91-year-old also recently announced that he is winning his battle with cancer.

CAMEROTA: That's terrible.

OK. It's time for CNN Money Now. Chief business correspondent Christine Romans is in our money center. What do you have for us, Christina?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good Monday morning to both of you. I've got $2 gas. $2 gas is here, folks. The average price for gallon of regular now $2. Gas has not been this cheap since 2009.

It's a nice lift for holiday shoppers. Drivers saved about $540 this year thanks to low gas prices. That's about $10 per fill. Take it from your tank, put it in the bank.

I will prevail. That's the message from Martin Shkreli, the now exed CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. Now Shkreli's best known for jacking up the price of a drug used to treat AIDS patients by 5,000 percent. Remember him?

He's been indicted on criminal charges that he built another company out of million. Shkreli took to Twitter this weekend, calling the allegations baseless and without merit. He's out on $5 million bond. Chris?

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

So Hillary Clinton is not the only one going after Trump. I mean, he's got his whole Republican field is targeting him as the front runner, and people are trying to change the angle of attack. What does it mean what Hillary said in this debate? What does it mean about what's happening to Trump? We have all the latest and the perspective from a very special man about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY. Boy, the election has seen a shift. Right now, Democrats and Republicans are going after Donald Trump. Donald having no trouble hitting back. Let's bring in Hugh Hewitt, the host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," talk radio show host, also frequent guest as a moderator for CNN debate.

Hugh, one point already for that tie. Strong out of the gate. Merry Christmas in advance to you as well. Let's play the Hillary sound that has all tongues wagging this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We also need to make sure that the really discriminatory messages that Trump is sending around the world don't fall on receptive ears. He is becoming ISIS' best recruiter. They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical Jihadists.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, two takes are possible on this. One is what David Brock just offered on the show that intel experts have informed the campaign, including Clinton, that they are using what Donald Trump has said and done to recruit online right now. The other one is, we can't find a video, so this is untrue. Your take?

HUGH HEWITT, HOST, THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW: Chris, there's only one thing. Hillary Clinton lied. She lied again. She invented a second video narrative which has nothing to do with the truth. She's been fact checked on this claim by the "Washington Post" and by "The New York Times."

John Podesta was on "Meet the Press" yesterday. I was on the set with him.

[07:45:00]

He tried to dance around it. David Brock tried to dance around it. Hillary Clinton compulsively lied in the situation where it was not necessary, and it raises that fundamental question. Sixty percent of Americans don't trust her to begin with. She is the least trusted person in the field.

And I remember the late Christopher Hitchens wrote a book, "No One Left to Lie To," in which he marveled at the fact that both Hillary and Bill Clinton seem not to be able to control themselves. This was a completely unforced, unnecessary launch into falsehood. There is no video. No video exists. Donald Trump called this morning. NBC called "Meet the Press" yesterday.

He wants an apology. But I think more importantly, voters have to figure out that if Mrs. Clinton becomes President Clinton, they'll never be able to believe anything she says, because she just makes stuff up like this video, which does not exist.

CUOMO: What happens if she runs against Donald Trump, capped in thousands and thousands of people celebrating after 9/11? Is he someone to cry foul about somebody stretching the truth?

HEWITT: Yes, he is. Absolutely. When you make up a video out of whole cloth -- and remember, this is Hillary Clinton who invented a video narrative about the tragedy of Benghazi. In about three weeks we're going to see a movie. Thirteen hours come out about that tragedy, and people are going to be reminded again about her paralysis and her obtuse obfuscation about that night. It's going to be a very bad six weeks for a bad candidate.

But even worse, Chris, in that debate she also said, we now finally have ISIS where we want them. And she put her arms around her Libyan policy. Well, Libya has become a volcano of refugees and terrorists. It's the backup headquarters for ISIS to Raqqa, her disastrous policy with Russia, her flip-flops on Ejah (ph), her disaster in Libya.

I think that -- I expected a boring set up debate on Saturday. I was one of a handful of people in the country who watched it. You probably had to watch it, too. And it was it was agony to the to watch. It was so boring. But nevertheless, to make error after error, unforced error, I think tells us -- and people will be talking at Christmas dinner -- that Mrs. Clinton is simply past the sell by date. We can't take eight more years of lies. We can't take four more years.

CUOMO: What happens if an intel guy comes out and says, we do know that they're sending lots of Trump propaganda? We intercept tweets all the time. We know that there are messages. We know some of them are video clips. They're out there.

HEWITT: Utterly oblivious. It doesn't matter. She lied about a video. She was very specific. It would have been easier for her to say -- it would have been very easy to say, I worry that Donald Trump will become a tool in the propaganda machine. Because I worry that Hillary Clinton is becoming a tool in the propaganda machine. Those are legitimate worries.

I would send the entire audience to a book by Joby Warrick, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a "Washington Post" reporter. It's called, "Black Flags." I read it on the plane back to California from Washington yesterday. And ISIS is very, very sophisticated. They are cruel. They are absolutely fanatical, and they are very sophisticated.

So I don't put them past using anything that is said in American media. This exchange, anything that is said, in their propaganda. But we ought not to make up their propaganda for them. And certainly, the leading Democrat the presumptive Democratic nominee, ought not to be lying about what they're doing. That shows that she does not have the capacity to stay briefed, to stay focused, to be prepared.

Chris, I say it again. I hate to say this, because it's blunt. She is a liar. That video does not exist, and she owes Donald Trump an apology.

CUOMO: Well, that will be some development if it happens. My money's against it.

So we saw a big moment in the debate where you were up there asking questions. Donald Trump says to Jeb Bush, who's talking, Jeb, me or you. And Jeb looks at him, as he hasn't done before, and says, I'm talking. I'm talking. And I keep likening it to a scene out of a "Rocky" movie where Rocky's getting beat up the whole round, and at the end of it he looks at the guy and says, that's all you got.

Since then, Jeb Bush has been going after Donald Trump like never before. Do you believe this is the new way for Jeb Bush? And does this make him somehow a hero figure within the GOP?

HEWITT: Well, I do think it shows signs of life. He got off the floor, and Jeb Bush started punching hard. Interesting you use a "Rocky" movie, Chris. I've been using the analogy of the new movie, "Creed," where the young Apollo, Creed's son, fights the Englishman. Well, that's Rubio and Cruz and going at each other blow for blow. Over in the corner is Sly Stallone, Rocky Balboa. He's winning by not being in the ring. That's Chris Christie. I think he's the big winner out of this aftermath.

But here are the numbers I've heard. Ted Cruz's numbers have stayed exactly the same in Iowa and New Hampshire.

CUOMO: Right.

HEWITT: They're at 30 percent. His favorable and unfavorable are about the same. Marco Rubio ticked down a little bit. Jeb Bush ticked up a little bit. Donald Trump is falling behind in Iowa. And if he's going to win Iowa, and I think he needs to win Iowa, I would look for him to go after Ted Cruz hard in the next two weeks. Because it seems to me Donald Trump can't afford really to lose. That's not something Donald Trump does. He's a winner.

[07:50:00] And so Ted Cruz has got a commanding lead, and he's building on it. He's got great momentum. Marco Rubio's in third place at this point. But I've got my eye on Chris Christie, because the other terrific debate, as you know.

CUOMO: Yes.

HEWITT: And you nailed down after I asked Donald Trump whether he would stay in the Republican primary. And I applauded it. I was very happy to hear that he would. And I believe that when you asked him if he would stay in and he double down, that set the race up for the next five weeks. It's going to be a heck of a show.

CUOMO: Hugh Hewitt, thank you very much for the perspective as always. And if I don't see you, have a very good Christmas.

HEWITT: Happy New Year, Chris.

CUOMO: Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Well, the debate over how to defeat ISIS, front and center in the 2016 race. Which candidates have it right? Who has it wrong? A former Navy Seal and member of the House armed services committee weigh in, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: President Obama and Hillary Clinton both catching flack for comments made recently. Hillary's during the Democratic debate about the fight against ISIS. Let's start with President Obama.

[07:55:00]

Here's what he had to say about the war against ISIS, and then were going to bring in an expert.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, the media is pursuing ratings. This is a legitimate news story. I think that, you know, it's up the media to make a determination about how they want to cover things. There is no doubt that the actions of ISIL are designed to amplify their power and the threat that they pose.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: All right, let's bring in Republican congressman from Montana, Ryan Zinke. He also serves on the House armed services committee.

Congressman, thank you for joining us.

REP. RYAN ZINKE (R), MONTANA: Great to be here.

CUOMO: Early Christmas wishes to you and the family. What the President was saying there, what do you make of that statement? ZINKE: Well, first of all, General Dunford, who's the chairman of the

joint chiefs of staff, echo we don't have ISIS contained. The policy that this present has put forth will fail. It has always been a policy of failure. And I think a lot of it is just his ideology that we're going to apologize our way to victory.

It will take a force. It will take a force that can move the needle, and I don't think this president will do it. I don't think -- his narrative has always been apologize, do as minimum as possible. And we've watched ISIS expand from a few hundred to 72,000 or so. They've gained land, territory, influence. They're spilled over the borders, Paris, United States.

They will continue to be a threat until this president leaves office. And I think Hillary has double down with the same policy. It's a failure.

CUOMO: All right, we're going to talk about what Hillary Clinton said in just a second. But, you know, you have two sets of eyes on this. You have one as a congressman. You're also a former member of Seal Team Six.

Now, I've learned from a lot of special operators like yourself that the notion that you can beat ISIS at all is falsely optimistic. And the idea that these time horizons keep getting set that are anything like near-term is also disingenuous by any politician.

Are we setting ourselves up for failure by constantly talking about whether or not we're winning? Isn't that an unrealistic expectation?

ZINKE: Well, I think we can win. It will take an American-led force with our coalition, and we can remove ISIS. Part issue is you have to look Iran. If we just seize territory from ISIS and the result is the Iranian militia comes in behind it and we give Iran more influence, then it's not worth blood.

But you have to put a force package that will move the needle, and under this president and his rules of engagement, I don't think it's possible where this president is commander in chief to beat, defeat or degrade ISIS.

CUOMO: Hillary Clinton in the debate spoke about this, said something controversial, saying we are now where we need to be. Let's let the words play for themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I wish we could say, yes, let's go destroy ISIS and let's let Assad continue to destroy Syria, which creates more terrorists, more extremist by the minute. No, we now finally are where we need to be. We have a strategy and a commitment to go after ISIS.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Your reaction? ZINKE: Well, one it is Obama 2.0, and you can't apologize to victory.

We don't have a strategy. Congress has asked this administration time and time again for an effective strategy. We have got none. And if the strategy is to learn retreat in five different languages, I guess we're there. But I don't think that's appropriate. I don't think we should apologize for America being great. I think we should embrace American exceptionalism. And that is the narrative that we have to put forward.

CUOMO: Other than saying that we're great and we're strong, do you hear any of the GOP candidates right now offering something that, to you, with the experience you have as a special operator, sounds like a better idea than what's being done on the ground right now?

ZINKE: Well, first, I think we're going to have the debate on authorization to use military force, because I think America needs to hear what the strategy is and have the debate. Again, if you're going to put our troops into harm's way, which -- you know, I'm also a father. My daughter's a Navy diver. My son-in-law's a Navy Seal.

I think we owe to our troops to make sure that they have the right equipment, the right training and the right rules of engagement to win decisively in the field of battle. Our combat brigades, there's 3 combat brigades out of 32 that are C1. C1 in the military means fully ready and capable.

So we can't gut the military. So I think moving forward, let's get a plan. Let's get a plan to win. But I don't think this president will ever what it takes to win. I think it'll always be show and not substance, and I think that's what we're going to look at in the next year.

CUOMO: You raise a very important factor in all of this. That debate on the AUMF, that's up to Congress, not the president. They can have it whenever they want, and we're all looking forward to it. That's for sure.

Congressman Zinke, thank you very much. Appreciate you being on here.

ZINKE: Thank you and Merry Christmas.

CUOMO: To you as well, sir, and your family.

[08:00:00]