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Bomb Explodes Near New Jersey Train Station; FBI Stops 'Vehicle of Interest' in NYC Bombing Probe; ISIS Wing Claims Responsibility for Minnesota Mall Attack. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 19, 2016 - 06:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Monday, September 19. Welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. We do have breaking news. A bomb explodes overnight near a train station in Elizabeth, New Jersey. We have video. Watch. Police say that was one of five devices found inside a backpack hidden in a trash can.

[05:59:10] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Also new this morning, the FBI questioning several people who were picked up near the Verrazano Bridge in New York in connection to Saturday's bombing in New York City that injured 29 people.

The series of mysterious attacks over the weekend, of course, raising fears of terrorism. Or is there a serial bomber on the loose? We have every angle of this breaking story covered for you. So let's begin with CNN's Jean Casarez. She's live in Elizabeth, New Jersey. What do you know, Jean?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, the FBI continues to process this scene. This is an active investigation.

It all started last night at 9:30 when two men found a backpack in a trash can that was near a pub and close to train tracks. They thought there might be some valuables in it, so they took it out, took it under the train tracks, and opened it up. And they saw a pipe, and they saw some wires. They realized it was a very serious situation, so they went to local authorities. Local authorities called in the bomb squad and also the FBI's bomb squad.

And that is when a robot came in to try to disarm, and I think you're watching it right now. That robot inadvertently cut one of the wires and, as you can see and saw, there was a huge explosion. And that is just one of the devices. There were multiple explosive devices inside that backpack. And, at that point, they realized they had something on their hands that they had to deal with.

Now, in the last few hours, the FBI and state authorities have found what they believe could be extremely important evidence in this investigation. Listen to the mayor of Elizabeth, New Jersey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAYOR CHRIS BOLLWAGE (D), ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY: The backpack was found in a garbage can outside of a neighborhood pub. That neighborhood pub does have a security camera, and there are agents and Elizabeth police reviewing that security camera footage for this evening as we speak.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: Now, it's interesting to note that this pub didn't have much activity on Sundays. Every day of the week the mayor tells us except Sundays, they're very busy. But not on that particular day.

The device has put -- been put in a container. It is still local, but it will be transported to the FBI. Quantico, Virginia, that is their forensics lab. That is where they do all of their forensics work.

And Chris and Alisyn, an interesting thing to note here, the mayor tells us that there is trash pickup from that trash can every day but Sunday, and that there was trash pickup on Saturday. We don't know when, but that timeline will probably be extremely important to authorities of when the trash pickup was on Sunday [SIC] and then, of course, they discovered that backpack last night at 9:30 -- Chris, Alisyn.

CUOMO: Important detail, Jean. Thank you very much. Goes to two things. One, their timeline and, second, also the level of sophistication of planning that may have been involved. Jean Casarez, we'll check back with her very soon.

We have the leaders involved of this investigations also. We'll have New York's governor. We'll have New York's mayor this morning coming into the show to tell you the latest.

We also have more information on this New York City bombing investigation. The FBI and NYPD saying they stopped a vehicle of interest on a highway in Brooklyn, and officers are now questioning its occupants.

Authorities say there are similarities they found so far in the bombs used in New York and at a Marine Corps run in Seaside, New Jersey. The backpack bombs, they were just found. We are waiting on what they see forensically in the investigation there.

All of this, of course, centers around finding the person or persons responsible, especially for those 29 people who were injured in New York on Saturday.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is live in New York's Chelsea neighborhood. That's where that bomb went off -- Jessica.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Chris, that intense manhunt wrapping up -- ramping up, I should say, with the discovery of video; and part of it was from right here at the scene of 23rd and Seventh Avenue. Officials now telling CNN that they have video that shows the same man, one man in the two different crime scene locations here in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan. Now, the first video shows, around 7:50 p.m. on Saturday night, 40

minutes before the explosion happened right here, one man in this general vicinity where the explosion happened. Then, about ten minutes later at 8 p.m. on Saturday night, that same man is spotted on video about four blocks north of here at West 27th Street. And we understand in both video clips, in both locations, that man has a duffel bag with wheels.

That man is then seen at West 27th Street with the same duffel bag, and he leaves it. That's when officials say the video shows two additional men walking onto that scene, going into the duffel bag and taking out a white, plastic garbage bag. Officials say that inside that garbage bag was the unexploded pressure cooker.

So right now investigators trying to figure out how these three men might be connected; how they could be connected to the explosion and the scenes here; and then who that one man is who was seen with that duffel bag with wheels in those two separate locations.

And then, of course, happening overnight on Sunday night at 8:45, the FBI and New York Police Department pulling over what they're terming a vehicle of interest. That happening near the Verrazano Bridge in Brooklyn.

Right now getting very few details as to exactly why this vehicle was being tracked, why it was pulled over and exactly who was in the vehicle. But a lot developing overnight.

In addition, we're also getting our first insight, and we're hearing some of the dispatch audio that came about when that explosion happened around 8:30 Saturday night. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Six-one-five. There was an explosion. There's units saying there was an explosion from a garbage pail. Have units stay off the block.

[06:05:05] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stay off 23rd between 6 and 7.

We have reports of people injured, 707 6th Avenue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: And surveillance video has been taken from all around this area. You can see 23rd Street still blocked off. Officials hoping to fill in the gaps in what they know with some of that video evidence -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. And we'll try to get more details throughout the program this morning. Jessica, thank you.

Police in New York, of course, stepping up security after this series of bombings over the weekend, this as President Obama and dozens of world leaders are in New York for the U.N. General Assembly.

CNN's Bryn Gingras is live outside of the U.N. with more. How is security, Bryn?

BRYN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, you can imagine the strain that all these officers are under at this point with the U.N. beginning today and also, of course, these incidents happening both in New York and New Jersey.

And that's why governor Cuomo that an additional 1,000 National Guard members come here to New York to assist the NYPD, which you've already mentioned. They've already boost [SIC] patrols.

Of course, around the city, the five boroughs, we're going to see the strategic response teams, the critical response command teams. Those are those heavily armed, well-trained officers. They're going to be at major landmarks, including here at the U.N., Times Square, of course, subway stations but also just at random locations.

Speaking about the subways, when people head to work this morning, they're going to be seeing a lot of K-9 units in those subways. There's going to be more random bag checks. So certainly, a boost in security because, of course, at this point, as we keep mentioning, there has been no arrests connected to the incidents that happened in Chelsea.

So, of course, everyone at this point, including everyone going to work, everyone in the city needs to remain vigilant -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Thank you very much for the reporting. We'll check back with you with any developments.

There's also new information on another attack on U.S. soil. The FBI calling the weekend stabbing spree at a Minnesota shopping mall a, quote, "potential act of terrorism." An ISIS-linked news agency is taking responsibility, praising the attacker as a, quote, "soldier of the Islamic State."

CNN's Rosa Flores is live in St. Cloud, Minnesota. What is the latest, Rosa?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, good morning. Let me get you up to speed here.

According to police, one man wearing a private security company uniform walked into the mall that you see behind me, made a reference to Allah, asked a couple of people if they were Muslim before attacking them with a knife.

Now, authorities are not identifying this man at this time, but they do say that Saturday night, by the end of the night, he had stabbed nine people. Three of them are still in the hospital, one with life- threatening injuries.

Now, authorities say that this could have been so much worse. Officials who have seen a surveillance video say that one man is hailed a hero, off-duty police officer Jason Falconer from nearby Avon. They say that he shot and killed the suspect in this case and even shooting him down when this suspect was lunging at him. Now, like you mentioned, a news agency linked to ISIS has claimed

responsibility, calling this suspect a soldier of the Islamic State. Now, CNN cannot independently confirm those details, but, of course, as you mentioned, the FBI is investigating this as a possible act of terrorism -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Rosa, thank you for all of that.

So let's discuss all of the developments with Juliette Kayyem. She's our CNN national security analyst. Phil Mudd, CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official. And Michael Weiss, CNN contributor and co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror." Thanks to all of you for being here.

Juliette, I'll start with you. So let's talk about these three locations of all of these different bombs. The most recent was Elizabeth at this train station last night that was found, and then of course, there was the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan, and Seaside Park in New Jersey along the route of what was going to be -- what was a charity run. What do you think the significance is, and do you think they were coordinated?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think we don't know yet, so I'm just going to take the facts and help your viewers about the connections.

I think there's no question, if we just start from the beginning or start from the middle, which is the New York attacks on 23rd and 27th, you have the same individual and very similar bombs.

Going back a day to New Jersey, so starting the weekend, all we have heard is that there are similarities between New Jersey and New York. That's probably the flip phone. But we don't know if materials found in the bombs on Saturday are the same -- in New York are the same as those in New Jersey. And those include ammonium nitrate, aluminum power and Tannerite; and those are things that can be easily purchased anywhere.

And then now we come to New Jersey last night. We don't know enough about the explosives. We just know that coincidences like this don't happen very often.

[06:10:00] So if you're looking at this in the totality, you're going to want to look at it over the course of the weekend. What we have on the investigation side is, obviously, the same person on Saturday night, as you guys reported last night; and video surveillance at various places that may help.

So right now, investigators are dependent on materials in terms of connecting the things, and surveillance. And that's essentially how this will unfold. You know, there's these guys that are now stopped in the car. We just simply don't know enough to, I think, make speculation about what that is. That's where we are right now.

CUOMO: All right. Juliette, moving very quickly. Different states, obviously, all working in coordination with the feds on this. They do believe there's similarities and detonation techniques, very crude ones, easily found on the Internet or on that favorite magazine of dirtbags, "Inspire," where you can find how to do this kind of stuff.

But you have three phases and we have the perfect panel for it. We have how the prosecutors are looking at it, which is where your mind goes. We have how the investigators look at it, in terms of seeing this as a terror investigation. We've got Phil Mudd for that. And then we have what the larger motivations are here at play, and we've got Michael Weiss on that.

So Phil, when you're sizing up this investigation, you have multiple events popping up, similar modus operandi in terms of what these people did to put the bombs and how they look. So what are the phases?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Look, the first phase is opening the aperture to facts. I've heard people, for example, talk about this as terrorism. That's not a fact, Chris. That's somebody's supposition.

The facts are we have devices, and the FBI labs should be able to tell very quickly whether, for example, the wiring in those devices indicates that the same individual wired both of them. We've got video. We've got call-ins. We might have -- you've heard about a stop of some suspects or persons of interest. You have video from the sites, which might have license plates from vehicles that were going through the area.

So, we're speculating on what might have happened here, but inside this game, investigators, if you listen to the last moment of conversation, investigators have a large volume of data that they're already starting to sort through.

CUOMO: But Phil, so help people understand that.

MUDD: That will take them a couple days, Chris, before the facts narrow down.

CUOMO: People -- help people understand that, because common sense tells you somebody's doing this to disrupt our way of life. It's a homicidal act without a specific target.

MUDD: Yes.

CUOMO: It's terrorism. You're saying no. Is that the mind of the investigator, because you have to make a case as such?

MUDD: No, it's because terrorism requires a political motivation, and I don't know the motivation of the individual.

Let's assume, for example, it's a male who lost his girlfriend and want to blow up a block. If you want to tell me you know what this person was trying to do, I'm going to tell you, how do you know that? I have no idea, and so I can't tell you what the motivation was and whether this was an act of terror before I understand what was in his mind or her mind. CAMEROTA: Michael, no claim of responsibility from ISIS. What does

that mean to you?

MICHAEL WEISS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Nothing. I mean, this could be, as Phil was pointing out, some aggrieved lunatic who wanted to kill as many people as possible without any kind of political motivation. If it was jihadi in orientation, you know, ISIS has two main tactics that they choose from. One is the ISIS-directed attack such as Paris and Brussels and Nice; and the other is the ISIS-inspired attack or what is somewhat loosely referred to as the lone wolf or the stray dog.

So when Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, the ISIS spokesman that the coalition killed a few weeks ago, in 2014 came out with this communique, basically, it was a global injunction to all Muslims to kill the infidel wherever you find him. Take a rock, smash his head in; get in a car, drive over him; take a knife and stab him. These are the invisible soldiers of the caliphate.

Now, ISIS may not know if this was ISIS-inspired yet. That's the trick, right? They didn't come out, they didn't claim responsibility. By the way, they're not the only jihadist organization on the planet. You've also got al Qaeda. You've got other competitive strands of the same ideology. We don't know enough yet about New York.

Minnesota, I'm more inclined to say it's...

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about that.

WEISS: Yes.

CAMEROTA: That was this mall attack where somebody who claimed -- I mean, I think that that is ISIS-inspired, and he was able to stab multiple people before being killed.

WEISS: Actually, I think that's more ISIS-directed. If the Amaq News Agency came out right away and said he's a soldier of the Islamic State, that suggests they probably knew.

And what worries me about this is, you know, I interviewed people within ISIS and people who have defected. A few months ago, I guy I profiled in "The Daily Beast," Abu Khalid, who was a member of their spy service, what's known as the Amnaldala (ph), the state security or the FBI of ISIS, he has informants placed within ISIS, including in the foreign intelligence branch, which plans these attacks overseas.

He told me that, in the next three months or so, they're planning something in Minnesota. And he said it was specifically going to be from the Somali diaspora community, which -- and we can't confirm this yet, but local reporting in Minnesota suggests that this guy was a 22- year-old, maybe born in Kenya but of Somali background.

I shared this information with the FBI, and they said, "Thanks, we'll look into it" and never really heard back from them. A while ago.

CUOMO: The -- you have to look at this in different phases. And I get that it's frustrating for people, even this terrorism question. It's a very straight shot for Philip Mudd. Until you know...

[06:15:08] WEISS: Exactly.

CUOMO: ... you don't show what this is.

And Juliette, we deal with this all the time, and we get it.

KAYYEM: Yes.

CUOMO: But it doesn't make sense to non-investigative people.

KAYYEM: Well...

CUOMO: Who else plants bombs in random areas where people are going to be, other than somebody who's up to no good and wants to affect our way of life? Why isn't that enough? Is -- again, is the distinction because, well, you're going to have to go into court and make a case, and it can't just be that it feels like something? It has to actually be that.

KAYYEM: Right.

CUOMO: Or people escape justice.

KAYYEM: It's all of the above. So look, none of us are questioning that terror occurred, in particular, you know, on Saturday morning, Saturday night and fears of terror on Sunday with the train station. That is different than an investigator or a prosecutor eventually needing to make a terrorism case and just reiterating what I said all weekend. We just don't know who the culprits are.

There are a number of motivations. They may seem obvious to us that this is a politically motivated. You know, we talk about terrorism. We mean ISIS, all the stuff that Michael Weiss talks about.

But -- but you don't want investigators going into an investigation assuming too much, because you're going to miss clues. And that's why your analysts are saying, look at the facts. The facts give you a lot, and then we go from there.

CAMEROTA: OK. Panel, thank you very much for all of your expertise. We will have, obviously, new information as it develops throughout the program.

Coming up in our next hour, we'll get the latest from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will also be here later in the program.

CUOMO: Up next, the politics of terror. What are we hearing from the people who want to lead you as president of the United States? Very different approaches which can have a different impact. We'll give insight, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:40] CUOMO: All right. We're following breaking news. There are a lot of developments involving bombs in and around the New York and New Jersey area.

What you're watching right now, that is a bomb being detonated, being exploded by authorities in Elizabeth, New Jersey. That's one of five devices that were found in a backpack late last night near a train station. This, of course, bears a lot of suspicion given what happened in two other explosions in New York's Chelsea neighborhood and Seaside Park, New Jersey. The series of attacks doing the obvious, sparking fears of terrorism.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are trying to make the case that they should lead. How are they responding to this? Are they helping? Are they hurting? Let's bring in CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "The New York Times," Mr. Alex Burns; and CNN political commentator and political anchor of Time Warner Cable News, Errol Louis.

They both spoke about this, obviously. Interestingly, the man in charge, President Obama, was very quiet about this, saying let's see what happens, not mentioning it when given opportunities. The candidates for president much more vocal about it. Here's a mash-up of sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York.

We'd better get very tough, folks. We'd better get very, very tough.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think it's always wiser to wait until you have information before making conclusions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: So, two very different styles. Trump was 30 minutes after the event. Nobody knew what was going on, Errol. But he was already making determinations and conclusions. Clinton, a lot more reticent. Which plays better? Which is better?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, what plays better for Trump is to simply sort of throw this out and then discard it if he turns out to be completely wrong. And if he turns out to be somewhat right, saying, "I was first." So this is what he's done. He's done this on a number of different issues over the course of the campaign. He runs the risk of being completely wrong. Won't bother his followers one bit if he turns out to be completely wrong.

For Hillary Clinton, a more conventional approach. She's seen enough of this stuff and, as we all have, to know that what looks one way could be another.

You know, I was thinking back to the Oklahoma City bombing in the 1990s. Everybody thought it was some Islamic terrorism. It turned out to be a white supremacist.

You think back to 2002. You have John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper. People are just getting killed all over the D.C. area, and nobody knows what it is. It turned out to be somebody who was sort of just crazy, sort of a black supremacist, to extent that he had any ideology at all.

So, I think Hillary Clinton being a lot more cautious. This is what her team complains about, that Donald Trump gets graded on a curve. He jumps out. He has absolutely no idea what's going on. He says, "Let's get tough." He gives you a solution before he knows anything about the real dimensions of the problem. And people just kind of, you know, sort of say, "Well, yes, that's Donald Trump."

CAMEROTA: Also, to say a bomb just went off in New York City actually sounds more catastrophic than it ended up being, though 29 people were obviously hurt. But to say a bomb went off without the details of what had happened, some think that that goes overboard.

However, the conventional wisdom, Alex, the conventional political wisdom is that terror happening close to the election works for Donald Trump.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That's certainly the conventional wisdom and certainly, on an intuitive level, Donald Trump is the candidate who is campaigning as the guy who is sort of ringing the alarm bell loudest and playing into people's real fears about domestic terrorism.

I do think, in the larger sense, polls have shown pretty consistently that Hillary Clinton holds a small lead on the question of who do you trust more on matters on national security and defense and foreign policy. Trump with a small lead on the much narrower question of who do you trust to handle ISIS.

So, I do think there is a question of, you know, on a gut level, people respond to Trump-style appeals to their fears and to their anger. When it actually comes time to vote, there's another question about who do you actually want to have as president? And that's really, I think, the biggest question of the election at this point. Is, you know, do you want the guy who sounds like what's in your heart, or do you want the person who, you know, seems a little bit more conventionally calm in this kind of situation?

CUOMO: Well, look, we see certain things every time. The first is that it's easy to get frustrated when you hear people going slow about what seems so obvious. Other than the outlier, where it turns out that somebody is an anti-statist, you know, or anti-government but it has no connection to anything else, people feel like they know what this is. They know what's going on. They want their leaders to reflect their urgency and their anger.

[06:25:16] So how do you balance that with what may wind up being true, what deliberate speed does for leadership? How do you balance the two?

LOUIS: Well, it's interesting. I think the way that we worked it out here in New York is that we have this kind of -- almost, you know, kind of, sadly, a kind of repeated ritual in times of emergency; and this includes natural crisis, as well. You know, sort of storms and floods and blackouts and so forth. You know, we understand that we're going to get the information as quickly as the authorities can get it to us. You know, and they go as quickly as they can be accurate but no faster than that. And that's -- you know, it's a tough standard, but once the standard is announced and it's adhered to in good faith by these folks, the professionalism itself starts to sort of create a sense of confidence.

And, you know, and I think we have that here in spades. You know, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which for years was based, actually, in Chelsea...

CUOMO: Right.

LOUIS: ... they were one of the first people on the scene, you know. These are professionals who, you know, they're trained, they're motivated, they took an oath. When stuff happens, they're in motion; and they tell us, you know, within hours. You know, what's the -- what's the big hurry, you know, on some level, I think is what's conveyed by the mayor, the governor, the police professionals. And, you know, it works when we let it work.

CAMEROTA: Panel, we have a lot of developing news. Sorry to make this short. Thanks so much for being here. Great to get your take.

So the search for clues and suspects intensifies after a series of bombings in two states over the weekend. Up next, we will talk to a man who witnessed the blast in New York City.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)