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ISIS Threat Continues to Grow & Evolve; Racial Tensions in 2015. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 25, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00] BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Christmas blessing. Thank you, John.

There have been three attacks, new attacks by Palestinians on Israelis in the last 24 hours. Officials say a man stabbed two soldiers in the West Bank. Another Palestinian tried using a screwdriver to stab Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint.

And a third attacker tried to ram soldiers with a car. All the attackers were shot and killed. This marks only the latest in a wave of near daily attacks by Palestinians dating back to October.

There was a deadly explosion in southern Nigeria overnight as an industrial gas tank went up in flames. Witnesses say the truck caught fire engulfing a factory and surrounding buildings. There are conflicts reports right now on the death toll. The Red Cross confirms at least four are dead. But some local reports put the toll at more than 100.

Russia turning to an unlikely partner in the war on ISIS, the Taliban. Vladimir Putin will start exchanging intelligence with Russia's long- time enemy, hoping to stop growth in the number of ISIS fighters in Afghanistan. Putin has expressed concerns about jihadists from Russia's Caucasus region and the former Soviet republics going to fight with ISIS.

More than 100 protestors in Chicago staging what they call a "Black Christmas". The demonstrators marched along Michigan Avenue Thursday, holding die-ins, blocking last-minute shoppers from stores and calling for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The protest happening in response to the 2014 police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

And Christmas came early for "Iron Man" and Avenger" superstar Robert Downey Jr. California Governor Jerry Brown pardoned Downey Thursday for several drug offenses in the 1990s. Downey, one of 91 people granted clemency by the governor for past crimes, most of them are minor drug offenses that are no longer felonies under California law.

That's a look at your Christmas Day headlines.

Alisyn, back to you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: From the bombing of the Russian passenger plane to the coordinated terror attacks in Paris, and most recently the ISIS-inspired terror attack in San Bernardino, the threat from ISIS continues to grow and evolve.

Let's talk about it and joining us to discuss is Bobby Ghosh. He's our CNN global affairs analyst and managing editor of "Quartz".

Merry Christmas, Bobby. Great to have you here with us.

So, there was that sickening litany of attacks that ISIS has been behind or at least inspired. And yet we also heard there were moments that seem to be victories against ISIS. So, at the end of 2015, what is the status of the strength of ISIS?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, in terms of actual territory that ISIS controls, at the end of 2016, they might have a scooch less than they did at the start of --

CAMEROTA: 2015.

GHOSH: They -- speaking about 2015. They lost Tikrit which was a big city, Saddam Hussein's hometown, an important strategic loss for them. They also lost some territory in northern Iraq.

But when it comes to the idea of ISIS, and let's remind ourselves, ISIS more than anything else is an idea. A terrible idea it might be, but it is an idea. As an idea, they've actually grown. They've shown that all the way from San Bernardino, California, to Paris, France, to the Sinai in Egypt, to Beirut in Lebanon, they are attracting -- people no longer have to travel to Syria or to Iraq in order to join up and commit mayhem there. They're able to commit mayhem around the world.

So, if you like, they are offshoring this idea, they are offshoring terrorism in a way that brings it closer to all of us, and makes it much more dangerous.

CAMEROTA: And so, in that way, you would say they've gotten stronger?

GHOSH: They have absolutely gotten stronger. They've gotten -- their reach is greater than it ever was before. They're long way from when President Obama called them the varsity squad. This is now far and away the most powerful, most dangerous terrorist organization that has ever existed. They now have al Qaeda way back in the rear-view mirror.

CAMEROTA: You know, that's interesting that you bring up al Qaeda because President Obama this year has talked about how al Qaeda has decimated. Did al Qaeda just morph into ISIS or is this a different group, with a different ideology?

GHOSH: Well, this used to be al Qaeda in Iraq, which used to be a franchise operation, if you like, of core al Qaeda, the one of Osama bin Laden. Yes, they morphed a great deal.

A lot of the people who would previously go to fight alongside al Qaeda, a lot of local terrorist groups in different parts of the world which paid homage to al Qaeda now have transferred their allegiance, their loyalties to ISIS, and perhaps more importantly, a lot of people who gave money to al Qaeda, a lot of that money that now turns up in the pockets of ISIS. So, they've kind of -- they've taken over that space.

Al Qaeda still exists. They're an organization, and they don't like each other very much. They disagree on some fundamental things.

CAMEROTA: Such as? I mean, what are their disagreements? Don't they hate sort of western civilization and democracy and freedom?

[06:35:00] GHOSH: Yes, their differences are at the top. Their differences are about what is OK and not OK. Al Qaeda likes to say that they're not in favor of attacking other Muslims, whereas ISIS clearly has no such problems.

Far and away, the vast majority of people ISIS has killed are fellow Muslims. Not just Shiites or small minority sects, but fellow Sunnis. Al Qaeda doesn't like that. Or --

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: Al Qaeda is not being honest about that.

GHOSH: Yes, absolutely. Al Qaeda is kind of wants to have its cake and eat it, too. It does all this violence in Muslim countries, but likes to present sort of an outward of appearance of being holier than though, holier than ISIS.

But these differences at the leadership level, when it comes to foot soldiers, they can work together, they can cooperate. We saw that in Paris this year when you had the Coulibaly brothers and you had the guy who attacks the Jewish super market. They knew each other. They were two different operations. One supposedly for al Qaeda, one supposedly inspired by ISIS, but working together.

CAMEROTA: So, very quickly, for 2016, do you see more of an international coalition coming together to fight them?

GHOSH: You see absolutely a bigger international coalition. Whether that's automatically a good thing is a little unclear. Right now, you have -- there are so many different military operations taking place simultaneously in Syria and Iraq. You have Russia, latest entrant, you have Turkey, you have Iraq, you have Iran, you have the United States -- all of these guys are fighting, all of us are fighting there we're not really coordinating.

The different people fighting in that area have different agendas, different final goals. There will be more boots on the ground. They're not necessarily American ones and not necessarily for the best.

CAMEROTA: Bobby Ghosh, great to get your take at the end of the year. Thanks so much for being here as always. We love having you on NEW DAY.

Let's get over to Michaela and Chris. CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: ISIS a big concern to be sure, but not our

only one. Police relations, race relations, it's really been swirling around in our culture. So, we're going to discuss, have communities and police made progress?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: But first, don't you think we need more music?

CUOMO: Oh, yes.

PEREIRA: Let's listen to the Young People's Chorus of New York City.

(YOUNG PEOPLE'S CHORUS OF NEW YORK CITY SINGING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:40:48] CUOMO: Merry Christmas to you. Welcome back to this special Christmas Day edition of NEW DAY.

Tensions between police and communities seemingly not letting up this year. Did they get worse? Anything that shows a chance of improvement?

Let's discuss. Harry Houck, CNN law enforcement analyst, retired NYPD, and Marc Lamont Hill, CNN political commentator and professor at Morehouse College.

Merry Christmas to both of you.

HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Merry Christmas to all you guys.

CUOMO: I know you both got a lump of coal, but not today.

HOUCK: Not today.

CUOMO: Let's take a look this poll that we have here, a CNN Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Let's take it towards the end of the year, reveals one in five African-Americans say they were treated unfairly because of their race by the police in the past 30 days, comparison, 3 percent of whites saying the same.

Harry, do we have a problem?

HOUCK: I don't think we have a problem. I think a lot of people think they have a problem and I think a lot of people's hatred for the police, especially based in the rhetoric this prior year, people are just -- when they're answering questions like that and they may be black, they say might, yes, I'm having a problem with the police.

So, I really -- I don't really go by these types of polls. I don't think they really show any truth in the system.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's an opinion poll, right? So, it shows what people think. And I think if one-fifth of a community feels as if they're being targeted, even if every black person in America is wrong, right, the fact that one-fifth of them feel that way, the numbers haven't gone much differently in 2000 when we did the same study, when you look at the fact it hasn't changed much over the past 15 years, that suggests there's a problem.

If you're trying to police where one-fifth of the people feel like they've been targeted over the 1ast 30 days, that's significant. And I would disagree lastly with the idea that it's just based on the media narrative, because again, before there was a media narrative about Black Lives Matter, before this stuff happens in Sanford and in Ferguson, we were still having this problem.

CUOMO: It's not new, but, boy, has the media taken a beating this year. It's very interesting on this kind of social cataclysms that we go through now --

HOUCK: The police.

CUOMO: But, see, the police are a player in the dynamic. I'm saying that now every time we have a social problem, like the media gets a black eye by both sides. You have those who are pro-cop, and understandably, that should be all of us, you know, pro-good policing of the community, you know, they're upset at the media.

What it comes down to, why am I bringing that up? It comes to your ability to deal with the problem. I have no feelings at this point.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: The idea -- well, do you want to deal with the problem. Even though you say you dismiss this poll, it does seem that this year, we got into a different layer of dialogue about these situations. Maybe it's the cameras, maybe it's something. But do you see that there is more discussion of it in an open way as opposed to just holding tight?

HOUCK: I mean, I like the discussion, I got no problem with the discussion. What I got a problem with the false rhetoric and the lies about the police out there, and the assumptions that every time the police is involved in an incident with somebody who's black, and the police officer is white, it's automatically a racial issue. That's my problem.

And that's what we got -- why do we report white cop shoots black man? Why do we say police officer shoots perpetrator. Why do we have to make it a racial issue when it happens even when it's not a racial issue?

CUOMO: What if it is an issue that is racial?

HOUCK: Well, if there was an evidence that indicate it is a racial issue, I've got no problem with that. But we have no evidence to indicate, and some of the shootings we've talked about in the past year here, that were racial incidents, such as Ferguson, all right, Staten Island, all right, Baltimore. We don't know if there are racial issues, but it's being thrown out there --

(CROSSTALK) CUOMO: Even if the shooting is justified, can you still have an issue of race involved in a use of force?

HILL: Absolutely. I wrote a piece for CNN.com on this study. And one of the things I talked is that -- first of all, it's not just white and black, right? Black cops can do this to black people as well.

I'm not -- I don't feel safer when a black cop pulls me over necessarily. Sometimes I do, but in general I don't, because I think there's a question about how black people are viewed by law enforcement. And for law enforcement, it's not about being white, it's about being blue at that level.

But I also think here, that even if a police officer does not intend to be racist, even if they don't have a racist bone in their body, there is still scripts we have in our minds -- and psychologists bear this out, I know you don't like studies, but psychologists bear this out, that -- you know, that we have ideas about who people are based on race, based on agenda, based on their age, based on other factors. So, even if the cop doesn't dislike black people, they still may make a different judgment when a black kid standing up like Tamir Rice than if a white kid was standing there with the same circumstances. And that's why I think race is something we have to constantly think and talk about.

[06:45:02] CUOMO: Harry, one thing that surprises me about you when sometimes you're reflexively defensive in these situations, my experience growing up with cops like you here in the city, they were the first ones to ask for more community policing.

HOUCK: Right.

CUOMO: They were the first ones to say, you got to let me get in this community when I'm not booking somebody, when I'm not making an arrest. I got to work with this community better. Whether it was Puerto Ricans or African-Americans, the cops wanted to get in there and be with them because they saw this problem, that the only time you see me I'm coming hard at you, you're never going to like me, or trust me.

HOUCK: That's why I'm very pro-community policing, because when I was a cop in New Jersey before I came to New York, I walked a beat in a black neighborhood where they assassinated a white police officer two years earlier, right? This is 1978.

I went and I walked that beat and I had six square blocks. I got to know everybody. I got to know the bad guys. People invited me in their homes for dinner at night. Officer Harry, it's too cold, come in and have dinner.

That guy -- I played ball with the kids in the street. This is what we need. What happened was, is that the money disappeared for that and police officers were put in police cars not because they can patrol more of an area, it's all about money. These politicians are talking about better police departments, let's

give the police departments more money so that they can put a cop out there walking beat and get to know the people.

CUOMO: Let me finish on this because it's Christmas, people will not believe this. But you two are friends, are you not, and you participate in a very productive dialogue?

HILL: Absolutely. I haven't invited him over for dinner yet, though.

CUOMO: No? I heard --

HOUCK: We haven't had a chance to go out for drinks yet because this guy's so busy, you know, we can't nail him down.

HILL: I'm busy -- 2016 I'm busy too. So, we'll get there.

HOUCK: OK.

CUOMO: A whole year he's busy.

You don't even do a whole year on me, Mick. I usually get at least six months lead time or something.

PEREIRA: You give -- that's being generous. That's being generous. I'm kidding. There's a lot of love in this room, certainly today.

So, let's talk about this Christmas morning. Maybe you got a gift you didn't like. What should you do? Should you regift it? Return it?

We're going to share tips to minimize the holiday headaches. How did that get in here anyway? What is that?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:51:05] PEREIRA: So, you're at the house. You're unwrapping all those gifts. So much joy. So much fun stuff.

But for some, Christmas means enjoying brand-new gifts. For others, it's time to go back to the store for returns. You know what I'm talking about.

The big question is, should you re-gift it, is that OK?

CAMEROTA: Yes.

PEREIRA: Or do you return it?

Here with wisdom, our chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Get the money, get the money.

PEREIRA: You do not support re-gifting?

ROMANS: You can re-gift if you want. But if you didn't want it, how do you know somebody else is going to want it?

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: That makes it OK?

CAMEROTA: Ask authority.

PEREIRA: Level of couth that I don't have.

ROMANS: Now, look, about 38 percent of people are going to return gifts. Quite frankly, that's just the way it is, about a third -- more than a third of people. It's mostly electronics. It's toys, video games. But more than anything, it's clothes.

So, grandma and grandpa, I'm sorry that I'm not going to wear your sweater. Make sure you bring your receipt. That's the most important.

Some places have very good, very generous return policies. Others don't and here's why, billions of dollars are lost for the retailers in something called wardrobing, where people buy something in November, around Black Friday, they wear it through the holiday season and try to return it.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: The retailers really look hard to make sure --

CUOMO: How do they know?

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Tag on the back. Property of Vanna (ph).

PEREIRA: And some of the places, don't they, they give limits to the time you can do the return.

ROMANS: Yes, and teen retailers have the most strict return policies. There's one I can think of that has 21-day return policies. So, if you want to return something, do it quickly. Don't do it on December 26th. And here's a reason why, there are a lot of people shopping on the 26th. Know the return window, is it 21 days, is it longer?

Do you need the receipt or not? Do you need to have the credit card it was purchase with? That's why I always try to give a gift receipt when you give a gift.

Now, here's something will happen when you're going to return your gifts. They're going to try to get you to open a store credit card. Don't do that.

CUOMO: Why?

ROMANS: Sometimes it can make you appear financially risky on your credit report if you get a whole bunch of store cards open. Also, if you're prone to overspending, don't open a bunch of extra store cards. CAMEROTA: What about the sale gift cards?

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: There are online marketplaces for your unused gift cards. Some of them you can get as much as 90 cents on the dollar. You're never going to get 100 percent. But there are a lot of different sites you can go to, to check that out. Some of them are more reputable than others.

One of my favorite ones is called giftcardgranny.com, cardpool.com is another one. I'm not recommending either of those. I'm just telling --

CUOMO: Sounds like you're recommending them.

ROMANS: There are a lot of them out there if you want cash for your -- if you get a Lowe's card and never shop at Lowe's. There you go. That's one thing you can do.

PEREIRA: You can be a smart and savvy gift returner. I've learned so many things from you today.

CUOMO: Do you return gifts? Do you regift?

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Romans, that's a terrible answer. Let's try that again? Do you regift? Do you return gifts?

ROMANS: I have been known to regift something if I knew for example my neighbor really liked it.

CUOMO: What do you give people? Savings bonds? Bags of pennies? What do you give people?

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Wait, do you tell them you're re-gifting the gift?

ROMANS: I do. If I get something, I got this, I can't use it.

CUOMO: Every time?

ROMANS: I don't usually regift.

CUOMO: Every time you've re-gifted something you've told the person that this is a regift? Romans, I've known you for a long time.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMANS: What is this, I'm not guilty.

CUOMO: I am sad, though.

ROMANS: The most important thing to me is that people don't hurt themselves by spending too much money. If you need to return something, return it. Clutter is bad. Too much credit card debt is bad.

[06:55:01] Let's go on a financial diet for New Year's.

CUOMO: Romans grabbing back to high ground at the end of the segment. Never answered my question.

ROMANS: Do you regift? Do you regift?

CUOMO: I don't. Nobody gives me anything. Who wants coal?

All right. We've got good, good stuff for you today. You're going to meet a really driven hard-nosed CEO. What she, the CEO, what she makes of it, that's what makes her the good stuff.

This is 7-year-old Micah Robinson (ph). She just launched her own not for profit organization designed entirely to deliver blankets to people who need them. She's the CEO.

It's something she's been passionate about since the age of 5. She saw a man on the street during the dead of winter and it had some impact on her. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was like wondering how does he keep warm, how can he sleep.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So that's how it -- her blanket drive came about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Even kids get the need. Since then, Micah has collected and handed out hundreds of blankets.

PEREIRA: Go ahead, girl.

CUOMO: Just formed a nonprofit Micah's Care Ministry to keep track of it all. Her parents say they help, but really she's all about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Being kind, being caring, showing love. Coming from a 7-year-old, it brings a whole new life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I like doing this because it helps people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: She may be my new favorite 7-year-old.

CAMEROTA: Me too. That's so inspirational.

CUOMO: It should be inspirational. A 7-year-old does it, why don't you?

We have a lot more of our special Christmas day edition of NEW DAY right after this quick break.

PEREIRA: Are we having a snowball fight first?

CUOMO: Romans is going to throw one at me and it's going to have a rock in it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)