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Saudi Prince Pulls Financial Projects from Tehran; Gun Sales Surge as Obama Announces Gun Measures; Sheriff: "Steps Being Taken" to End Armed Occupation; FBI: "Missing 18 Minutes" of Terrorists' Movements. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 06, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:31:40] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Saudi Arabia and Iran are moving even further apart this morning amid severed diplomatic relations. A billionaire Saudi prince is now pulling the plug on a variety of financial projects in Tehran.

CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh live in Beirut with the latest.

Hitting them in the wallet, Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, commercial damage certainly, flights being canceled, business being curtailed, as well as diplomatic damage known Saudi consulate removing its ambassador and embassy from Tehran, other allies following suit, too.

John Kerry is working hard says his spokesman to try and de-escalate the situation, get some sense of peace back in here. And that may be paying off -- one of the key short-term issues that the U.S. so badly needs Saudi Arabia and Iran to try to cooperate, remember, those two countries have been in proxy wars, posturing against each other for decades, more specifically over Syria. That key issue in the short term is Syria.

The bid by the U.S. to try and get some kind of peace process rolling -- well, the U.N. special envoy to that conflict just met the Saudi foreign minister and came out suggesting that this recent spat probably wouldn't have a negative impact on the more immediate bid to get the Syrian opposition to speak to the Syrian regime. That's a long shot in itself, perhaps harder now, the Saudis and Iranians are openly at each other's throats like this.

The real issue here is, does this spat, this fiery rhetoric, these commercial and diplomatic ties being severed do they equate to a more open war in the Middle East or are we looking at something that's been hidden under the surface coming to the front now? Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you very much, Nick. Appreciate the reporting. There are an estimated 300 million guns in America. 2015, in fact,

was a banner year for the gun industry. In fact, every time there's any talk about gun control, sales soar, production ramps up. Who has these guns? What is causing sales to skyrocket exactly? We'll give you the answers, ahead.

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[06:36:50] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama's announcement on executive actions on gun control has had an unintended consequence. More people buying guns.

Here to break down those numbers is CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans.

Take us through it, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there.

We've seen this consumer behavior again and again. Gun sales surge when there are mass shootings or when there's talk about addressing gun violence.

Take a look at this, this is January 2013. This is the month after Sandy Hook, also the president was re-elected and people talked about gun control measures. Two million guns sold according to analysis of background checks.

You look in December of this year, again, after San Bernardino, another very brisk month. When you look at background checks and extrapolate with analysis, what we think happened with gun sales, you can see it was a very big month for gun sales.

So, look at this -- gun stocks, it's been a very profitable endeavor to make guns, to make weapons and ammunition, fight frankly and invest in them. Compare, for example, Smith and Wesson to Apple or Nike or Google since November 2008. You can see that it is big business and every time there is a mass shooting, people run out, they buy handguns, they buy recreational, you know, the AR-type guns and they buy the accessories that go with it.

I just want to show you Smith & Wesson just this week. This is the president talking about gun violence. You can see the spike in the stock, the company recently said its sales raised its sales outlook for the year. Really remarkable. You look over the past five years or so, you can see what kind of a run these gun companies and ammunition companies have had -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Christine, thank you very much. Interesting economic angle.

And, of course, it all comes back to the law. And now, we have the law at the crosshairs, I guess, once again. The president has taken executive action. That gets people upset right there let alone when it's about guns.

So, let's discuss how the president made his case yesterday and what this will do and whether it is good or bad.

CNN political commentator and host of "The Ben Ferguson Show," Ben Ferguson, and CNN political commentator and professor at Morehouse College, Marc Lamont Hill.

Professor, you are in front of me. But however, that may be a disadvantage today. I'll start with you, Ben Ferguson.

First, let's play this sound of the president from yesterday. I think there's something we can all agree on and move forward. Let's play a little bit of the president's emotion.

BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: From every family who never imagined their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun -- every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, I was surprised at how many people gave him heat about this, but, Ben, Marc, we play arms length on TV but we know each other fairly well. We all own guns. We've all been around these tragedies.

Can we all just agree, starting with you, Ben, that a man getting upset about how many people die in this country is not weakness? It is strength that he's showing by showing the emotion. Can we at least agree on that?

[06:40:00] FERGUSON: Sure. I have no problem. I said this yesterday when people started criticizing him for crying. I think it was genuine, sincere. You're seeing family members coming to the White House hoping and looking for some answers when they had their children murdered, 20 of them, in that school room.

The problem I have is the fact that the president yesterday implied that somehow what he was signing could have stopped Sandy Hook, could have saved one of the 20 children in that classroom. That is the part that frustrates me, because if he would have signed this seven years ago, it would not have affected any of these mass shootings because we know looking at those guns, how they were purchased. They were purchased legally.

And this law that he is doing or executive action, whatever you want to call it, is giving, I think, false hope to these families that came to the White House, somehow thinking when they left, this would have stopped those shootings. It would not. He should have done more on mental health.

CUOMO: OK, Ben, fine. There are a lot of different issues there at play.

One thing here, what the families want, I have had the blessing, the misfortune of spending a lot of time with people in pain. They want something to change. Anything to change.

FERGUSON: Sure.

CUOMO: Will these executive orders, bill background checks stop the massacres we saw? "No" is a fair answer if each one of those transactions was fine.

But the idea of who gets flagged on a background check, you went through them. You didn't have a criminal record, you didn't have adjudication of mental health. You didn't get flagged. Same with me. Same with Ben, maybe.

So, they will flag certain people, right? And that is some form of progress.

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's the point. When you talk to these families, I think they would agree that, you know, background check, closing the gun show loophole may or may not have stopped what happened to their children. I would argue would not have. Their eyes are wide open about that. They still want gun reform and change. As President Obama said, not being able to stop all tragedies is not an excuse to try to stop some tragedies. That's what we're going to see here.

And, absolutely, if you close the loophole, if you make it more difficult for bad guys to get guns, but more importantly, forget about the bad guys. What about people with mental health issues, what about people who simply shouldn't have guns in their hands, what about people who are passing guns? Unbeknownst to the family members or to themselves rather that their family member has a mental health issue or domestic violence issue.

All these things can be prevented if we had tighter checks.

CUOMO: Here's the problem, though. Ben, speak to this. If you are adjudicated mentally ill, you may get flagged, if the states share the information. There's some funding requests in there for that. If the doctor gives the information. If there's a lot of ifs, right?

But unless you're adjudicated, it doesn't matter how off your game you are, how sick you are, you're not going to get flagged. Why isn't that something that brings Congress together, at least act on that? At least act on funding, mandatory sentences for gun crime like you had Jeb Bush do in Florida with the 10, 20, life laws. Why isn't there consensus on those issues?

FERGUSON: There should be. But this is where people in Washington really need to focus. I think the president should lead on this and be clear.

CUOMO: But this is your guys, Ben. That's why I'm asking you. This is your guys.

FERGUSON: Hold on. Well, it's not totally true when it comes to what Washington is doing. Every time they try to pass legislation, they start putting in the guns they don't like into legislation and so then you have people that go to each side of this issue and stand there and they do not work together.

If the president would have come out instead of doing executive action saying I'm going solely on the issue and only the issue of mental health to Congress and we're going to put something together, that would be a starting point I think could do a lot of good for everyone.

But when you go to Congress, there are people that say, hold on, I want to ban this gun, ban this magazine, I want to ban this capacity.

CUOMO: I got you. Let Marc respond.

FERGUSON: You have to do it by itself.

HILL: One, I don't think mental health is the only issue here. So, it wouldn't --

CUOMO: But it is an issue. You might as well do something. It's almost like immigration. Try to get something done if you can't get everything done.

HILL: Which is why the president did some things. He didn't try to ban assault weapons. He didn't try to limit ammunition. There were a lot more things that he could have done, but he didn't want to be divisive about this, number one, more than he needed to be.

Hold on, Ben. And number two, he didn't want to step on too many legal toes because that's another battle --

CUOMO: You could argue he didn't have the ability to do those things with the existing legislation.

(CROSSTALK)

HILL: I would disagree.

FERGUSON: The president wanted to do it. He didn't have the ability to do it.

HILL: Of course, he wanted to do it. Right, he stayed within the bounds of his limitations which is what we wanted him to do. But specifically, what he wanted to do here is simply refine guidelines, right? When you say, I'm going to redefine or refine, rather, the definition of what a gun dealer is, so the guy that inherits his granddaddy's gun collection but it's a thousand guns, that's a gun dealer. That's not changing the law. That's clarifying the law within his power.

CUOMO: The one thing that will complicate it, and, Ben, thank you very much for starting off this conversation, but at least making it on a man level making it OK for a man to show emotion. It doesn't make you weak.

Those ATF recommendations, we'll end on this. You should go look at it for yourself. It's online. The ATF has different case scenarios of who is a gun seller. They're vague.

HILL: Deliberately vague.

CUOMO: It's case by case. It's fact specific.

[06:45:01] So, there's going to be a little bit of torture on this as we go forward.

But, Ben Ferguson, thank you. Professor Hill, as always.

Now, these are big issues. That's why there's so much that can be said about them. You're going to get to hear them played out in a way that you probably haven't in a very long time.

Tomorrow night, President Obama has taken the invitation to join our man, Anderson Cooper, for an exclusive live town hall on this issue, "Guns in America". He will make his case, the president, to a live audience. He will take questions from them and it will all be done under the moderation of our best, Mr. Cooper. Tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. here only on CNN.

Mick?

PEREIRA: So, we've been watching the situation in Oregon. Is that occupation of a national wildlife refuge there about to come to a head? A question we've been asking every day. The armed protesters believe a plan by the feds to remove them might be in the works. We'll bring you a live report, ahead.

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PEREIRA: Plans are in the works to end the occupation of a federal compound in Oregon. That according to the loam sheriff. However, he's refusing to say exactly what those plans might be, insisting that the FBI and police are not backing down from those 20 armed protesters who took over the facility four nights ago.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is live in Burns, Oregon, with the latest for us -- Paul.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michaela, as you look behind me, overnight, one of the demonstrators decided to sort of hold guard or stand guard.

[06:50:06] In fact, he slept in his rocking chair. He says he has an old cowboy rifle. They moved in equipment behind me.

The FBI is denying they issued arrest warrants or plans to be here. Basically, though, the leader of this group says they have fears that the FBI will try to raid the compound they're now occupying. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMMON BUNDY, MEMBER OF ARMED MILITIA: If something happens, know it, that it is because of the actions of the FBI and because of their intimidation factors and because of their commitment to protect and defend other agencies rather than human people, rather than Americans. (END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And that protest leader also saying on social media, likening this group to Rosa Park, saying they're doing the same thing she did which was stand up against bad laws.

In the meantime, we should call this the hands off standoff continues. We still have not seen any sign of any law enforcement at this compound here in remote, rural eastern Oregon.

Back to you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: The hands off standoff, that is an apt term, Paul. Thank you so much for the background.

Well, investigators asking for the public's health to piece together an 18-minute gap in the movement of the San Bernardino terrorists following that attack. Where do investigators think they were? That's next.

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CAMEROTA: That friend of the San Bernardino terrorist, Enrique Marquez, is set to be arraigned today. He's facing a slew of charges for allegedly buying some of the military style weapons used in that massacre.

This comes as the FBI turns to the public for help, to close an 18- minute gap between the time of the attack and when the terrorists were killed in a shootout with police.

[06:55:07] Here with more is CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes. He joins us now.

Tom, great to see you.

The terrorists were on the loose for three hours and 42 minutes before they were killed. So, what are the theories about all of that time is accounted for except those 18 minutes. Where do investigators think they were those 18 minutes?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning, Alisyn.

They don't know exactly where they were. They said they lost track of them near the intersections near the I-10 and I-215 freeways. That's where they need help.

Did they get on the interstate, did they drive into the desert, and maybe that's where they get rid of the laptop computer that they've been looking for and maybe other evidence, met with somebody else? Maybe they went to an area they have no idea that they went to and met other people. They don't know. That's what they really want to know.

Normally, in an investigation like this they try to piece together every second of time in their lives, and not just on that day but go back in time as well to see who else they may have been involved with, which is still a critical question.

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, that's the striking part, just how much the FBI and investigators know about the other three hours -- 3 1/2 hours. How did they figure out all of those movements?

FUENTES: That's the painstaking process of taking video from every security camera they can find, whether it's public cameras, such as red light cameras, or whether it's cameras in parking lots of shopping malls, and, you know, mom and pop stores, any place that might have a camera that shows the road or shows the parking lot and literally goes through thousands of pieces, thousands of clips, piece them together in chronological order.

And basically, like a jigsaw puzzle, put together where that van went in between the -- actually from the time starting at 8:37 in the morning when they left their residence all the way to this 18-minute gap and then when they resumed coverage of them, until the shootout with the police where it all ends.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

FUENTES: Very painstaking process. But it's very important.

CAMEROTA: One of the striking details that came out about that day is that before the attack, this couple dropped their baby off with the grandmother. What has come out about what the grandmother knew?

FUENTES: Well, they're not saying yet exactly where they're at and whether she'll ever be charged or whether she knew or where they go. So, that's still a mystery in this.

They haven't disclosed -- you know, they put out an additional press release last night about midnight Eastern Time, saying that in the investigation, they had executed 29 search warrants, 550 interviews, collected 500 pieces of evidence.

The one thing they will not tell you is that if that resulted in a spinoff case, if they identified other possible suspects, not just in this attack but whether they, anywhere in the last couple of years, may have been planning an attack as such -- as Marquez may have indicated, that, you know, they may be off on another direction in the investigation in addition to this one that we just don't know about, may not know for years to come, until those cases go to fruition. They are not going to announce, we develop suspects, and such and such and we're on them now. That's not going to come out.

So, if they're on to other people, that's still going to be a secret for a while.

CAMEROTA: That's interesting. And it's not unimaginable to think there would be somebody else who helped them pull this off or was somehow in the know beyond Enrique Marquez who we said is set to be in court today.

Tom Fuentes, thanks so much for explaining all of this. Let's hope the public can help fill in that 18-minute gap. We're following a lot of news for you this morning. So let's get

right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: North Korea announcing it has conducted a successful test of a hydrogen bomb.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know enough about his calculations, how he thinks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: North Korea wants to be recognized by the global community as a nuclear power.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to find ways to make sure that program doesn't move forward.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He was born in Canada and he actually had a Canadian passport along with a U.S. passport. I hope that wouldn't be what it is. And we'll find out, I guess.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the things that the media loves to do is gaze at their navels for hours on end.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Now, we're in a different ball game and we need the ability to execute.

OBAMA: The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage right now, but they cannot hold America hostage.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment.

TRUMP: They're not going to take your guns away, folks. They're trying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. We do have breaking news. Welcome back to your NEW DAY.

We begin with North Korea, claiming it has successful detonated a hydrogen bomb for the very first time. The explosion so powerful it registered with the force of a 5.1 magnitude earthquake. The reclusive nation saying it was an act of self-defense against the U.S.