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New Day

Man Killed in Shootout in Paris; Sen. Ted Cruz Opens Up About Gun Control and His Citizenship. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 07, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:31:57] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We are following breaking news here in Paris. Today marks the one year anniversary of the attacks on the "Charlie Hebdo" magazine. We have new information about the investigation into that attack and also into the November attacks here that just changed the way Parisians see everyday life. But on this day of all days, a real scare, a report in north Paris of a man with a cleaver trying to get into a police station. He screamed "God is great," "Allahu Akbar," which has, unfortunately, become an operative phrase for too many terrorists. He was taken out by police. They thought he had on an explosive belt. Experts looked at it. It was judged to be a fake. But, still, what a scare.

We have Melissa Bell on the scene there right by the police station and we're going to be talking about what this means. But let's get a report first.

Melissa, what is the mood like there right now? What are you understanding?

MELISSA BELL, FRANCE 24 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR: Little by little the police cordon's being lifted here. They had sealed off several blocks, there was 10 (ph) of them, huge police presence for the last couple of hours ever since news emerged of this attack and the death of this man from (ph) the police station. But even now the cordon's being pulled back and the situation brought under control.

But lots of people all around. A huge media presence, as you'd expect. The world's media have gathered in Paris (INAUDIBLE) for this first anniversary of "Charlie Hebdo." So, of course, they've all congregated on this northern Paris suburb. It is one of the more multicultural sort of parts of Paris. There's always lots of people milling about. But clearly this particular incident has attracted people in even great numbers. Although just behind me you can see perhaps these - the road of the goutte (ph), where the man was killed a couple of hours ago. But as I say, we're getting closer to where the incident happened, even if the street itself remains cordoned off for now.

CUOMO: All right, Melissa Bell, France 24 international affairs editor, thank you very much for the help as you've been for us for the past year. I'll check back in with Melissa if we learn anything else, but right now let's figure how this fits into the scheme of threat and how it is a reflection of what French authorities and really French citizens are trying to deal with especially here in Paris. We have CNN terror analyst and editor and chief of the CTC Sentinel, Mr. Paul Cruickshank. And we have Stefan de Vries, a French journalist, a CNN contributor. He was one of the first to arrive on the scene at Charlie Hebdo a year ago.

Gentlemen, it's good to have you both with me, as always.

Now, this situation, yes, we want to dismiss it out of hand. This guy had a knife. He seemed to be deranged. The vest was a fake. They were worries that there could be a secondary attack. That he was bait. That did not come to fruition. And yet he does represent a new threat here in France. How so?

STEFAN DE VRIES, FRENCH JOURNALIST: Absolutely. I mean the country has been under threat since - the highest threat level since January 2015. He attacked the police station at the exact same time as attacks of "Charlie Hebdo" last year. So this can't be a coincidence. And it just shows how - basically how the threat is very serious in this city and that's also the reason where this - why there's so many police and military troops in the streets.

[08:35: 07] CUOMO: All right, and as you were pointing out to me earlier when I was saying, well, this guy, he doesn't look legit, you were pointing out, but that's how low the bar is for people who can be inspired, that you have a huge community here that is sympathetic to radical thought and any one of them can decide to do something like this. That makes the policing problem so difficult.

Now, on the other front, the investigative front of what happened here in November, Paul Cruickshank, you've been driving our understanding from the beginning. The suspicion early on was, could this planner have been the head of the snake? You were suspicious then. Now you can confirm there are other people still at large that they believe were pulling the strings here in Paris.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERROR ANALYST: Exactly right, Chris. We're being told by a senior Belgium counterterrorism official that there are two senior operatives still at large, senior members of this conspiracy who, during the period of the Paris attacks, were providing orders from Brussels to the Paris attackers in Paris. Their pictures were put out on December 4th by Belgian authorities to try and track these men down, but at that time they hadn't established their identities. Now they're close to establishing their identities.

CUOMO: What does that mean exactly? Help us understand. What does that mean when you're investigating something like this where you know there are two guys, but how do you know there are two but you don't know who they are exactly? How does it work?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, they established that they used these fake Belgian IDs cards to go to Hungary with Salah Abdeslam to probably pick up some of the attackers. They established that they used those same fake Belgian identity cards to wire money to the female cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ring leader on the ground here in Paris during the attacks. But all they had was this fake Belgian identity card, the CCTV footage. They have to do a lot more investigations to figure out exactly who

these people are. They're on the cusp of that now. But these men are considered armed. They're considered dangerous. There's concern that they could plot follow-up attacks.

I was told that they were more senior in the conspiracy than Abdelhamid Abaaoud. How do they know this? Because they're actually managed to listen in to some of the communications after the Paris attacks on November 13 when these men were communicating with some of the individuals linked to the attacks, part of the attacks here in Paris, Chris.

CUOMO: And another name that Paul brought to us early on was Fabian Clan (ph), that they believed was taking credit for some of these. He's higher up in the - in this criminal syndicate known as ISIS now. And the concern is, if they're out there, what else are they planning? And that feeds into the far of the new normal here in Paris. You know, we keep saying, they didn't just take lives at "Charlie Hebdo" and here in November all around Paris, they were attacking a way of life.

DE VRIES: Certainly.

CUOMO: And where are you now in terms of dealing with that as a society?

DE VRIES: Well, the thing is in Paris now, since November, it has been much quieter in the bars and restaurants and the hotels. Much less tourists.

CUOMO: There has been injury on the economic front as well.

DE VRIES: Absolutely, yes, yes.

CUOMO: The hotels, tourism.

DE VRIES: The direct effect, the economic cost of the attacks, is just maybe about 2 billion euros. So it would be over $2 billion. This is an estimates of the direct effects. So - but there are more - far more effects because, as we've seen in 2001 with 9/11, it takes a very long time before the tourists are really coming back as they came back - as they were coming here before. So it will take two, three, four years before Paris will find its normal situation, if there are no new attacks, of course, because that's a thing that's completely uncertain.

CUOMO: So how do you deal with trying to make your population comfortable with a situation that they now know you can't really control for good and bad reason. As Paul keeps highlighting, ten plus thousand people who identify with Islamic extremist thought, that they're sympathetic to it. That's a huge population. We're dealing with a handful in the United States and they still have cases in all 50 states. How do you balance the big Muslim populations, the Muslims that don't feel that they're integrated to society, the poverty, the risk with, yes, you're safe?

DE VRIES: Well, it has to be stressed, of course, that this is a very, very small group basically because there's over 6 million Muslims in France and maybe these are a couple of hundred of people. And they're not only Muslims. They're also French people. They were born here. Some of them come from Catholic backgrounds. Basically these are losers and they have no place in society. Now they find a place with ISIS where they can be - well, where they think they can be someone. This is, of course, part of a much larger social problem we have here. But how to deal with, well, threats on a day to day basis is very difficult because we are still under a state of emergency. There have been a lot of abuses by the police of this state of emergency. The government has been -

CUOMO: You've been critical of this from the beginning.

DE VRIES: Yes.

CUOMO: The state of emergency was billed as a great thing. You had concerns about the balance of liberty and policing from the beginning. You're saying that - that balance has been a little bit off.

[08:40:02] DE VRIES: Absolutely. There have been over 3,000 searches, house searches. Over 300 people have been - gotten house arrest. And so far only two preliminary inquiries have been started by the judges (ph). So you see it's a massive scale - a massive breech of civil liberties. And the whole problem is, how far do we go in breaching these civil liberties in order to protect these same liberties. And, of course, that's the debate that's now starting in this country.

CUOMO: A tough balance.

DE VRIES: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Stefan de Vries, as always, thank you very much. Mr. Paul Cruickshank, thank you very much, bringing us this reporting really advanced our understanding of this continuing threat here.

Alisyn, I'm going to get back to you. And I have to tell you, just being in Paris, it's such a beautiful city, a cafe society here, really sets a standard across the world. But now you notice when there are the police sirens, when there are the ambulance sirens, people respond differently. And you can't blame them.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Chris, thanks for all the great reporting from the ground there in Paris and, of course, Chris will have more for everyone throughout the morning here on CNN.

Coming up, Ted Cruz opens up about his birthplace. Is he worried about Trump calling it into question? That answer, next.

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MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here are those five things that you need to know for your NEW DAY.

At number one, we have breaking news that we're watching. Police in Paris thwarting an attack at a police station. A man carrying a cleaver has been gunned down by officers there. He was apparently wearing a pouch that looked like a suicide belt. This attack comes one day to the year of the "Charlie Hebdo" attack that killed 12 people.

[08:45:10] Back here at home, Donald Trump challenging Ted Cruz to see a judge to determine once and for all whether he's a natural born citizen and qualified to run for president. Cruz, for his part, insists he never owned or had a Canadian passport.

President Obama is set to discuss his executive action on guns tonight during an exclusive live town hall event hosted by Anderson Cooper. You can catch it here on CNN at 8:00 p.m.

President Obama among other world leaders expressing doubt about North Korea's claims that it tested a hydrogen bomb. Now South Korea is planning to resume its propaganda broadcast across the border.

Good news to report. All 17 miners trapped in the salt mine in Lansing, New York, overnight are now rescued. That group was stuck in an elevator some 900 feet below ground.

For more on the five things, you can always visit newdayCNN.com.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Michaela. Senator Ted Cruz opens up. The Republican presidential hopeful has a candid chat with our Dana Bash on President Obama, gun control, and those attacks being made on his birth certificate.

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CAMEROTA: CNN caught up with Texas Senator Ted Cruz on the campaign trail in Iowa. Just 25 days before the caucuses. Cruz addressing Obama's executive action on guns and so much more.

[08:50:02] CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash is live in Storm Lake, Iowa, and she's here to share her chat with Cruz. Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. And on the campaign trail, when it comes to Republican candidates, they were kind of tripping over themselves to criticize President Obama and his new gun policy. But nobody went quite as far as Ted Cruz in the way that they expressed that criticism. I talked about that and much more on his campaign bus.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: Right after the president gave his speech, you posted - or your campaign posted - on your website a menacing picture of President Obama. And the headline said "Obama want yours guns." How is that anything but fearmongering?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It is actually quite accurate. This is the most antigun president we've ever seen. Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Barack Obama, said he believed it was his job as attorney general to, quote, "brainwash Americans against guns. " BASH: But that is not the president.

CRUZ: But it is at the president's direction. At every instance the president uses every terrorist attack, virtually every criminal incident.

BASH: So you don't take him at his word that he just wants to protect your children, his children --

CRUZ: Absolutely now. And in fact, I'll tell you who I do take at her word?

BASH: Why not?

CRUZ: Is Senator Dianne Feinstein who said if I could go to Mr. America, Mrs. America, and say hand over your guns, I want all of your guns, I would do it. I believed Dianne when she said that. And do you know what? Barack Obama is in exactly the same boat. And by the way, if you want to know what his position is, you should take a look at the Supreme Court's case in Heller v. District of Columbia. Now I represented 31 states in the Heller case which upheld the individual rights to keep and bear arms. Do you know what Barack Obama's position is? That there is no individual right to keep and bear arms whatsoever under the Constitution. That you and I and every American we have --

BASH: That's not what he said when he spoke. He's said he's a constitutional lawyer and he very much believes in the Second Amendment. You're just saying you don't believe him.

CRUZ: No, but let's be more clear. So Hillary Clinton, for example, has said she will put Supreme Court justices on the court who are overturned Heller.

BASH: You may have heard that Donald Trump is bringing up the fact that you were born in Canada and saying that if you are the Republican nominee, it could be held up in the court for two years. You are a constitutional scholar. You have argued before the Supreme Court. Why do you think, on the legal basis, he's wrong?

CRUZ: Oh, look, the legal issue is straightforward. The son of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural born citizen.

BASH: But it's never been tested. You know full well because you've done it on other issues.

CRUZ: But listen, the Constitution and laws of the United States are straightforward. The very first Congress defined the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad as a natural born citizen. And by the way, many of those members of the first Congress were framers at the constitutional convention. At the end of the day, this is a non issue.

But, you know, my response is - you and I were talking about just a minute ago -- I tweeted a link to a video of Fonzie jumping a shark. You know, I'm not going to engage in this. And the reason is simple. There are far too many serious issues facing this country. Last night North Korea claims to have tested a hydrogen bomb. What the American people are looking for is who is prepared to be commander in chief. Who has the seriousness, who has the judgment, who has the knowledge, who has the clarity of vision, who has the strength to resolve --

BASH: Let me just button this up though. Just on the issue of the passport.

CRUZ: What passport?

BASH: Donald Trump is suggesting -- saying that you had a Canadian passport.

CRUZ: That's not true.

BASH: It's false.

CRUZ: Yeah.

BASH: Never had a Canadian passport.

CRUZ: No. Of course not.

BASH: In your entire life.

CRUZ: Of course not. No.

BASH: And you're sure? You asked your mother, you asked your dad. Never had one.

CRUZ: Yes, I'm sure. And how about - Look, the media, with all due respect, love to engage in silly side shows. We need to focus on what matters.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Let me ask you about an issue that you have talked about a lot in Congress, which is immigration, and on the campaign trail. But legal immigration. I remember covering you in the Senate a few years ago. You were arguing how important it is for legal immigration to continue and you called for an increase in visas for highly skilled workers by 500 percent. Now on the campaign trail you say they should be done away with completely or at least suspended. Is it just because the politics of being a candidate have changed?

CRUZ: No, there is change circumstances. So listen. My principles remain identical. My principle are, No. 1, we should secure the border and stop illegal immigration. And No. 2, we should welcome and celebrate legal immigrants. Now as it concerns the H-1B H1DD visa program, I used to support an expansion of that program, and I support the original goals of that program, which is bringing in high skilled workers that produce jobs and economic growth.

[08:54:53] But any rational person responds to changed circumstances. What's changed? We've seen a whole number of employers abusing the program. No. 1, bringing in people who are not high skilled, bringing in medium and low skilled IT workers and then firing American workers. And add insult to injury, forcing the American workers to train their foreign replacement.

BASH: Do you know the rap on you, on this, on what is being talked about where we are here in Iowa about renewable energy, is that you are flip-flopping on the campaign.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: I know that there are a lot of people who are going after you because they want the job that you do. But, you know, these are things that are being talked about.

CRUZ: So let me get this straight. Your point is that political opponents of mine are attacking me? You know, as they would say in "Casablanca," I'm shocked, shocked to hear such a thing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: You can always rely on Ted Cruz for a pop culture reference there. And Michaela and Alisyn, this is, I think, a good example of the line that Ted Cruz is trying to walk as he tries to finish out a sprint here in Iowa before the caucuses. He is by all accounts the frontrunner here at this point. Just being with him, the crowd seemed to be energized. They seem to be into him and these are people we're talking to who are experienced caucusgoers, which a place like this matters. Whether or not he can deflect criticism from Donald Trump and everybody else and staying on his message is going to be the test in the coming weeks.

CAMEROTA: Dana, just fascinating to see you sit there and talk to him rolling through that snowscape of Iowa. Thanks so much for sharing that with us.

BASH: Thanks, guys.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, stay with CNN for more of our breaking news coverage of the deadly attack that was thwarted at that Paris police station.

PEREIRA: But right now, "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello will pick up after a short break.

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