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CNN NEWSROOM

Taliban's Devastating Attack on School in Pakistan; Bill Cosby's Wife Speaks Out; More Details on John Crawford III's Death; Jeb Bush Will Run for Office

Aired December 16, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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


MICHELLE STOCKMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So this could be the reason why they are attacked in this way but it's just really a horrific scene here. The nation is grieving, and right now it's up to the parents and other family members of the children and staff to go to the hospital and try and find the missing from their family and see if they're alive or if not a very grim task. Carol.

COSTELLO: Certainly. Michelle Stockman, many thanks. As if this savage attack on helpless school children isn't chilling enough, that very group responsible for that attack in Pakistan has long wanted to strike on U.S. soil. In fact, it claimed responsibility for the failed bombing in New York's Times Square. That was just over four years ago, but it's threats against the United States have kept flowing. Jim Sciutto is CNN's chief national correspondent, he joins us now from Washington and in London Charlie Winter is an expert on radical Islam. He's with the Quilliam Foundation, a think tank focused on counterterrorism.

Jim, first to you. Tell us about this group and how it's been targeting the United States successfully as far as we know.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, so TTP is - it's known. It's acronym for its Pakistani name. But the Pakistani Taliban, principle -- its principal target is the Pakistani government but it has gone after the U.S. Most common way across the border into Afghanistan against U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. That's been a target. But they carried their attacks all the way to U.S. soil in that attempt in 2010 radicalizing this attacker with the failed bomb attack in Times Square and they've made other threats. After the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 they called for retaliation against the U.S., including on U.S. soil.

In 2012 again they called on followers to carry out operations overseas, not just against the U.S., but against European partners. Now intelligence officials I talked to say that their principal focus is the Pakistani government, the Pakistani military. You can see this attack as retaliation for significant operations that the Pakistani military has had under way in the northwestern part of the country with some success, frankly, against the Pakistani Taliban. So, you see them striking back here. But it is a group that has greater aspirations and it's something that U.S. intelligence, U.S. counterterror officials have to keep an eye on.

COSTELLO: This particular group, though, Jim, I thought that the U.S. officials thought it had been weakened.

SCIUTTO: It had been weakened, it has. The Pakistanis have had a lot of progress. And not just the Pakistanis. Two drone strikes in the last several years have killed two of their leaders, two of their senior leaders including most recently just last year, Hakimullah Mehsud killed, and he's one of the leaders of the TTP, the Pakistani Taliban, that has made specific threats against the U.S. So you can see perhaps this attack it's something of an act of desperation to show their strength striking, in effect, that the weakest, softest target imaginable. Young students in a school, but these groups are heart to put down. So, even if they had been weakened they clearly were not destroyed and they're able to carry out a very significant attack.

COSTELLO: So, Charlie, a question for you: is ISIS with its brutal attacks inspiring other terrorist groups to act as brutally as possible?

CHARLIE WINTER, RESEARCHER, QUILLIAM FOUNDATION: Well, I think there is certainly a phenomenon where different jihadist groups are trying to outbid each other. They know that Islamic state does have the media spotlight at the moment and I think that a group like the TTP is - among other things, I think that largely this was - this attack was driven by an urge to retaliate. Vengeance if you like. I think it was also trying to say, look, we are still on the math. And I think that al Qaeda as well will be doing a similar thing. Islamic State has really taken the eyes of the international media. Everyone wants to know what's happening in Iraq and Syria. But that doesn't mean that people aren't so interested in what's happening in Pakistan and in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula. And that doesn't mean that jihadists groups there are more likely to come out with a high profile attack.

COSTELLO: It's just so chilling. But at some point, Charlie, will there be a backlash, a tipping point, will other countries in the region finally stand up strongly and really fight back against these groups?

WINTER: Well, I think that at the moment they are doing all they can to fight back against these groups. It's very, very difficult. A lot of these countries are structurally inhibited from being able to attack these groups properly. What needs to happen is political change, is - the military stricken, what we've seen in Pakistan is primarily a military response to the TTP and that has led to indirectly, led to an attack like this.

There needs to be more of an inclusion of the tribal areas in Pakistani politics. It's always at the heart of these issues is politics. These groups say that they're driven by jihadism, that they're trying to implement a true version of Islam on earth, but in reality what it is, it's politics that's driving them.

COSTELLO: Jim, you wanted to say?

SCIUTTO: Yeah, we are just going to say that it has been a primarily military response, and there is a far greater response that you will hear from many that needs to happen. I've been to the madrasas, the Islamic schools in parts of Pakistan where this kind of thinking, Islamist thinking, is fuelled among very young people seeing the west as at war with Islam. And those are the students that as madrasas become the recruits for groups like the Pakistani Taliban. And also a lot of criticism falling on the Pakistani government for making a deal with the devil if you might call it. Their own ties to the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. They use that as a lever of power and that lever of power has been used to attack U.S. Forces, attack - carry out terrorist attacks, et cetera.

So you have this long-term relationship with these groups that this is something. There has to be a comprehensive response. There can't just be military operations. In effect, they have to wean themselves off this relationships with these groups to really attack, you know, a lot of the root causes of this kind of terrorism.

COSTELLO: And I have to leave it there, thanks to both of you. Jim Sciutto, Charlie Winter, many thanks.

Still to come at the NEWSROOM, after weeks of revelations against Bill Cosby, someone is stepping forward to defend him. That would be his wife Camille. She's linking the comedian's case to another story in the headlines. You know, that "Rolling Stone" article and UVA. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: After months of silence while her celebrity husband was accused of drugging and raping more than a dozen women over many years, Camille Cosby has finally spoken out. And as the good wife standing by her man, she suggests Bill Cosby is being unfairly maligned by the media, "We all followed the story of the article in "Rolling Stone" concerning allegations of rape at the University of Virginia. The story was heartbreaking, but ultimately appears to be proved to be untrue. Many in the media were quick to link that story to stories about my husband until that story unwound. None of us will ever want to be in the position of attacking a victim, but the question should be asked who is the victim?" CNN's Jean Casarez joins me with more on this.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's fascinating. Because with what you just read, I love to look at the facts. OK, what do we know from this? We know that they know what's going on in the news cycle. Right? What is happening? So obviously there is an awareness and I find particular interest in the question is who is the victim here. In other words, what she is saying is that it's her husband. Her husband is the victim in all of this. And you know, unless there is a trial, unless there is a court of law with a jury or a judge to decide, I guess that question may never really be answered.

COSTELLO: Yeah, It's just -- something -- well, she did - the "Rolling Stone" article some might say, well, she has a point there, right?

CASAREZ: And there have been other instances, right? The Duke rape scandal. I mean those two young men were found innocent by the attorney general of that state so there have been situations, but also as a responsible journalist when women keep coming up with similar stories, you have to vet them as we do before we put them on the air and we have to hear that and we want to hear the other side. We want the other side out there and the statement doesn't answer that big question.

COSTELLO: Right.

CASAREZ: It's ridiculous (ph).

COSTELLO: It seem that there is a different kind of PR campaign going on right now with the Cosbys.

CASAREZ: And I think one sentence really demonstrates that. "He is the man you thought you knew." because the Bill Cosby we all grew up with, Bill Cosby that has done so much for others and that we have respected, she wants to restore that. And I think it's also interesting that she talks about that the man you've heard about in the last couple of months. But remember almost a decade ago Andrea Constand, the civil suit? It was very public back in 2005 and other people like Tamara Green stepped forward and spoke so it wasn't silent behind closed doors but the focus is now, not then.

COSTELLO: Yeah, and I ask you this every time, but what's the end game? Like -- I just don't see it ever ending ...

CASAREZ: Yeah.

COSTELLO: Jean Casarez, many thanks, I appreciate it. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: All right. A bit of breaking news from the political world to pass along to you. Jeb Bush -- you're going to be surprised - he is announcing on Twitter "I am excited to announce I will actively explore the possibility of running for president of the United States." And in a Facebook post Bush goes on to say he made this decision after talking with his wife about the future of the nation and the kind of leadership he thinks the United States needs. Bush adds he will set up a leadership pack in January that will help facilitate conversations with Americans from coast to coast. He signed off on the post "I'll be in touch soon. Onward, Jeb Bush." Gloria Borger is on the phone right now. Gloria, no surprise right? She dropped. We lost Gloria Borger. So, I'll move on. But again, Jeb Bush via Twitter says he is, indeed, thinking of running for president of the United States. We'll talk much more about this. I want to get Gloria back on the phone.

In other news this morning, the family of a man shot and killed by police at a Walmart store in Ohio in August is now filing a federal lawsuit. John Crawford was carrying a bb gun he had just picked up in the store when police approached him. Police call it a mistake in which there were "no bad guys," but the Crawford family blames his death on excessive force. Our Ana Cabrera is following the story. She joins us live from Chicago. Good morning, Ana. ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. So, this is a

federal civil suit that the family and their attorneys are planning to file today in the death of John Crawford III. This happened back on August 5. The police officers involved went through grand jury proceedings, they were not indicted in the case, which is part of what has been all the outrage in the recent days and months after the several different instances of African-American men being killed by white police officers. Now, the family is suing the police department, the police chief, as well as Walmart itself saying that this shooting was not justified and we're showing you some surveillance video from inside Walmart on that day and pictures of John Crawford.

Here's what we know about what happened on that day, August 5. John Crawford went to Walmart with his girlfriend, his girlfriend says they were planning to get stuff to make s'mores. He picks up a toy gun, essentially. Not - maybe not a toy gun but it wasn't a rifle as it appeared. It was a bb gun inside the store and can be seen wandering through the store while on a cell phone carrying that bb gun. Now another customer in the store called police on that day and in the 911 call you can hear that customer describing somebody walking around the store with a gun. He apparently says that he's pointing the gun at people in the store, including children and that's how police end up responding with that background in their mind. What happens when police get there is really what's in question. The family says that they essentially shot first, asked questions later, that they had this pre-conceived notion that this man was in the store to do harm and that they believed that he brought the gun in the store with that purpose. That was before, we now know, that he never brought the gun in the store, he picked it up in the store and it wasn't even a real rifle, Carol.

COSTELLO: I know there's also anger at the way Crawford's girlfriend was questioned by police. What are they saying about that in the lawsuit?

CABRERA: Well, there's new video we just learned about an interrogation that happened with Crawford's girlfriend Tasha Thomas on the day he died before she even knew that he had died. In fact, she is just hammered over and over again by this detective Rodney Curd who essentially is trying to get her, at least in the family's eyes, to say something that wasn't true. That Crawford had brought the gun into the store and the family attorney, Michael Wright, says that this goes to prove that police were trying to justify why they shot John Crawford. And you can hear in the video as you -- it's a 90-minute interrogation, over and over and over again the detective says "Why would he have a gun? Didn't he bring it in there?" And she keeps on saying "I swear on my dead brother, I swear on my kids, I swear on my job, I swear to god I did not know he had a gun. I did not know that, you know, he -- he did not bring it into the store." And at the very end of the interview is when we find out and she learns that Crawford, in fact, died. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RODNEY CURD, DETECTIVE: All right, well to let you know, unfortunately John has passed away as a result of this. I don't have any other way to tell you. I mean what happened there wasn't a good thing and as a result of his actions, he is gone. You sure you don't want your mom back here?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll give you a minute to process that, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: You see that devastation upon hearing the news that her loved one had died. Now, we did have a chance to read through the report made by this detective who was interrogating Tasha Thomas and he essentially said that his line of questioning was under the assumption that actually John Crawford had brought the gun into the store, that he did not know the back story when police later were able to look at the surveillance video. And he also said that he waited that long to tell her that Crawford had died because he also did not know that Crawford had died and he told her as soon as he learned it he says. Carol.

COSTELLO: Wow. I'm sure you'll continue to follow this story. Ana Cabrera reporting live this morning. Thank you.

All right. Let's return to our breaking news from the political world. As I told you, Jeb Bush announcing on Twitter he will explore the possibility of running for president of the United States. I want to talk with Gloria Borger. She's on the phone right now. Hi, Gloria.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

COSTELLO: I like his tortured wording. "I'm excited to announce I will actively explore the possibility of running for president of the United States."

BORGER: It's, you know, it's a little tortured. That's what they all say. And I was told, it's interesting, last week that when Jeb Bush decided it was not as if he was going to have a balloon drop, but he was going to sort of announce it in a different way and I think that's what you've seen. You saw him yesterday saying OK, I'm releasing 250,000 e-mails from when I was governor. I'm doing an e-book and then, of course, today announcing on social media that, yes, I'm exploring the possibility. Which means I think we can all safely say that Jeb Bush is running for president.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: Until he isn't. But he is.

COSTELLO: So what do you think like tipped the scales for him?

BORGER: Excuse me?

COSTELLO: What do you think made him decide to run?

BORGER: I think that if you look back on this over the past six to nine months, six to nine months ago everyone I was talking to, including people in his inner circle were saying you know what, "he's thinking about it, but I don't think there's any way he's going to do it. His family aside from his mother was all on board. I spoke with his brother within that time frame, Neil Bush. He was on board. You saw Candy Crowley's interview with Bush 43 saying he was on board. I think what's occurred, Carol, is what often occurs. Is that you take a look at the field and you say two things. You say, one, I could beat any one of these people who are considering running. And, two, if I don't do it now, this is it for me. This is my moment and if I don't at least try I will never have done that.

And then I think there's probably one more thing, Carol, which is that he took a look at the Democratic Party. We all spend an awful lot of time talking about how the Republican Party is split, and it is, but he took a look at the Democratic Party, he sees the Elizabeth Warren wing of the party giving Hillary Clinton some heartburn and I think he believes, I know his people believe, that she is beatable. And so all of those things put into the pot and he came out with saying you know what, I think I ought to give it a shot.

COSTELLO: You know, I just remember him saying recently that primary fights are hard in the Republican Party and he may not get through it. He was worried about that.

BORGER: Well, you know what, he said something that really caught my ear last week. And he said you know, sometimes you have to lose a primary in order to win a general election and effectively keep your principles and your values. So I was asking some of his people about that statement because what he was doing -- and both he and Hillary Clinton are doing this now, by the way. They seem to be having these internal conversations out loud to audiences. They are thinking - what he was saying out loud to the public is what he's been saying privately to his advisors, which is, you know what? I understand that I'm not in tune with all of the Republican Party. I get that. He's not the Tea Party favorite candidate because of his positions on immigration and his positions on education, but he says you know what? That's all right because I believe what I believe, and so I'm going to have to lose a primary or two and it's not going to be the end of the earth because I'm not going to change my position.

And you remember that Mitt Romney was criticized very strongly for doing that, you know moving to the right in the primaries and then trying to move to the center in the general election and then people believe he didn't believe anything. So I think that was Jeb Bush's way of saying, you know what? I'm not going to do it. There's things I believe in very strongly and I'm going to talk about them.

COSTELLO: So we could well see Bush versus Clinton, right, in 2016.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: You know, yes. A dynasty. The dynasties running against each other. There are so many interesting dynamics here, of course. Because the families have actually grown close because Bill Clinton is very close to Bush 41 and to Barbara Bush and they're kind of adopted him as a son and he's grown closer to Bush 43 and, you know, Candy Crowley asked Bush 43 last week about it and he said "Look, we'd have a hard fight, I think my brother could win but we would always remain close." So that family dynamic will be very interesting to see how that plays out. Also, of course, people will also ask "Isn't there anyone else other than a Bush or a Clinton?" If it does come down to those two, and let's not jump to conclusions here because Bush has a long way to go to get the nomination if he can get the nomination. And, you know, it's hard to believe a candidate represents change when you come from such a dynastic line of politicians. Someone said to me the other day "Hillary Clinton represents change just because she's a woman." So she looks like change. Jeb Bush not so much.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: So that may be a higher hurdle for him than it is for her.

COSTELLO: Interesting perspective as always. Gloria Borger, many thanks to you. I appreciate it.

BORGER: Sure.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the newsroom. You are welcome. Still to come, manhunt for a military vet. A community in fear after the killings of six people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning, I'm Carol Costello, thank you so much for joining me. Authorities are telling residents of a suburban Philadelphia community to be as vigilant as possible as a manhunt continues. A former Marine reservist is suspected of killing his ex- wife and five former in-laws.