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CNN NEWSROOM

Trump Under Fire; Terror Investigation; Interview With Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 23, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:02]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: We have already discussed, as I'm in Paris, obviously very mindful of terror, and specifically ISIS.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (VT-I), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Brooke, can I make...

BALDWIN: Want to get to more political threads of the day, but go ahead, sir.

SANDERS: Well, could I make -- could I make one additional point, if I might?

BALDWIN: Please, go ahead.

SANDERS: And that is, people may not have noticed, but just last week -- just last week, King Abdullah of Jordan made a very, very profound point that I think needs a lot of discussion.

And what he said is that while international terrorism is, by definition, an international issue, at the end of the day, the Muslim countries in that region have got to stand up and take the lead in fighting against ISIS and fighting for the soul of Islam.

And I think King Abdullah is exactly right. And I think what we have got to do in the United States and France, in the U.K., Russia, we have got to be supportive. But, at the end of the day, the boots on the ground have got to be Muslim boots who will win the fight for the soul of Islam and destroy ISIS.

BALDWIN: Thank you for adding that. We have definitely heard that before, significant, given who it's coming from.

Let me ask you this, Senator. We know that Donald Trump has recently made news because he says he saw thousands upon thousands, his word, of Muslims in Jersey City cheering when those Twin Towers came down back on 9/11.

And to add to that, as we have been talking, I have just been told that, moments ago, Ben Carson says, you know what, he's seen the very same video.

There's no evidence of that happening. Your reaction, Senator?

SANDERS: Well, I think you're right. I have not heard any evidence of this happening.

I don't know where Mr. Trump gets his evidence, what he has seen, but I don't think anybody else in America has seen it. And what I get concerned about, Brooke, is this growth of Islamophobia in this country, this desire to win votes by scapegoating a group of people, which is not what America is supposed to be about.

So, I think, once again, Mr. Trump is missing the boat.

BALDWIN: You talk about you don't know where Trump gets his evidence. I do have to point out -- and I know you have seen these polls, sir, as well, but here he is. In the wake of especially since what happened here in Paris, he is on top, increasing his lead since the terrorist attacks here just a half-a-mile from where I'm standing.

So, here's my question to you, Senator Sanders. When it comes to Donald Trump, does the truth matter?

SANDERS: Well, I would hope that in our democracy in the United States of America, the truth does matter. The truth will matter.

And, trust me, if I run against Donald Trump, we will, he will and the American people will learn the truth, and that is that Donald Trump should not be president of the United States, that we have to reinvigorate American democracy, that we have got to create an economy that works for the middle class, and not just the top 1 percent.

So, there's nothing more that I would enjoy than the opportunity to take on Donald Trump and expose many of the fabrications that he has brought forth.

BALDWIN: Senator, I heard your chuckle all the way here in Paris when you began answering that question for me. Can you tell me why?

SANDERS: I'm sorry? Which...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I heard you chuckle, I heard a laugh from you all the way here in Paris as you were listening to my question. I'm curious why the chuckle.

SANDERS: No, not quite aware that I was chuckling. Sorry.

BALDWIN: OK. No, thought it was just a tone. I will move on.

To you, sir, I know that you have long blasted super PACs, promised not to take their help. But we here at CNN, we reported last week that a super PAC tied to a nurses union is supporting your campaign, has spent almost $570,000 in their efforts.

Question: Will your campaign call on the National Nurses United union to stop spending money on your behalf? Would you do that?

SANDERS: No, I have -- what I have said over and over again is that I have not and will not raise a nickel for a super PAC. I am the only Democratic candidate who does not have a super PAC. And

I will not have a super PAC. Very few Republicans don't have a super PAC. What the nurses union does is...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: But would your campaign call on them, Senator -- would your campaign call on them to stop?

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: They are nurses and they are fighting, fighting for the health care of their people. They are doing what they think is appropriate.

[15:05:05]

I do not have a super PAC. And that's the point that I have been making.

BALDWIN: OK.

SANDERS: OK? Thank you very much.

BALDWIN: Final question. You're in a very special city to me. It's my hometown, where I was born and raised.

Why are you at the King Center?

SANDERS: OK.

Well, I was at the King Center today and had the opportunity to meet with Dr. King's daughter, Dr. Bernice King, because Dr. King has, for my entire life, my adult life, been one of my heroes. I think he's one of the great leaders in the modern history of the United States of America.

I think the vision that he has brought forth is an extraordinary vision. And our job as a nation is to rally around that vision and to convert that vision into a reality.

So, I'm just delighted to have met with Dr. King's daughter and look forward to continuing to fight for the vision that he established.

BALDWIN: All right, Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you so much for the time. I truly appreciate it live in Atlanta. Thank you.

SANDERS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: And let's continue on. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin live here in Paris at the Place de la Republique.

You're watching CNN's special coverage of the terror attacks that still most definitely have the city on edge. Here's what I can tell you at this hour breaking right now. We learned in an area, a Paris suburb has been sealed off as a bomb disposal tam is checking out what may end up being an actual suicide vest. We know it was discovered inside of a trash can. It has since been removed and is undergoing analysis to see if in fact it contains live explosives.

This piece of information is coming into us today in France as they launch these new attacks against ISIS targets in Iraq from the newly deployed Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. The French Defense Ministry says a group of terrorists were "neutralized" in a mission that lasted seven hours.

France is stepping up its mission against the terror group after it claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks back on November 13, two Fridays ago, here that left 130 people dead and so many others wounded, this as investigators, they are still looking for this fugitive suspect who managed to survive these attacks here in Paris.

They have arrested 21 people during anti-terrorism raids in nearby Belgium. I can tell you that one person has been charged, but 15 others were released. It is believed Salah Abdeslam made it out of Paris and into Belgium in the hours after his brother and six others targeted this soccer stadium and the cafes and the Bataclan theater, most of those locations just a half-a-mile from where I'm joining you right now.

Here in Paris, it's 9:00 local time. British Prime Minister David Cameron joined French President Francois Hollande today in visiting that concert hall. In fact, we have a picture of them as they laid flowers in memory of the 89 victims who lost their lives at that sold- out show.

The prime minister is also expected to make the case on Thursday for his country to join the coalition effort in bombing ISIS in Syria.

So let's begin this hour with CNN international correspondent Ivan Watson, who joins me here in Paris.

Ivan, tell me, do we have an update on what police say resembled that suicide vest in the trash can?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We do.

CNN's affiliate here in France BFM-TV is reporting that the suspect item in the trash can appears to be a suicide vest containing bolts and the explosive TATP. That's the same kind of explosive that was used in the suicide vests of the Paris attackers on the night of November 13.

And it was also one of the explosives that was found back in January in the Belgium town of Verviers, when another ISIS cell was broken up by Belgian officials. We can't confirm this independently just yet. That's again -- we have to attribute that to CNN's affiliate BFM-TV, but it's a disturbing development, but perhaps it will help put some people at ease because of course there's one fugitive, Salah Abdeslam, who has been missing ever since the Paris attacks who was thought to have perhaps been carrying a suicide belt.

That's part of why Belgian officials have said that that suspect is believed to be dangerous right now. So we will bring you updates as we get more on that development -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Ivan Watson, thank you so much.

Want to stay on this and talk about the news here that Ivan was just breaking for us about this possible suicide vest that was found in a suburb outside of where we are here in Paris.

I have CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank joining me from New York. And journalist Stefan de Vries is here with me in Paris. Stefan was one of the first people actually to arrive on the scene after the "Charlie Hebdo" killings earlier this year in January.

But, Paul, I would like to begin with you here.

[15:10:00]

When you just heard that from Ivan, again, according to our -- I believe it's a French or Paris affiliate saying bolts and TATP in this suicide vest, what does that tell you?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, the big question here, Brooke, is whether this suicide vest belongs to Salah Abdeslam, the eighth attacker who is on the run who it appears probably aborted his attack for an unknown reason on Friday night in Paris and then was picked up by friends driving through the night from Belgium, picking him up from Paris and bringing him back towards Belgium, possibly towards Brussels.

One of those people who drove him said he had a thick jacket on, that he possibly had a suicide vest underneath. But this new information could suggest that he actually jettisoned the suicide vest in Paris itself that night. They have been very worried about the missing suicide vest. So, if they have indeed found it, they will no doubt be doing some forensics on it, some DNA testing to see whether it actually did belong to him or not.

But it seems very similar in design, TATP, the same explosive used in the other suicide vests used on that night, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Paul, stay with me.

I'm turning to you, Stefan, now, because I want you to explain the suburb outside of Paris where this potential suicide vest with TATP possibly was found, where is that also in relation to half-a-mile from where we're standing and all these cafes and the Bataclan?

STEFAN DE VRIES, FRENCH JOURNALIST: It's very nearby actually.

It's the end of line four, which is the north-south metro line that goes actually through the center. And the only stop outside of the center is Montrouge, so it's the last stop of the city.

So, it's really close to the border of Paris actually. It's basically still the very large metropolitan area of Paris. It's -- I think it's about three, four miles from here, not more.

BALDWIN: Montrouge.

DE VRIES: Montrouge.

BALDWIN: What's the area like?

DE VRIES: The area, it is actually a good suburb. It's not a very dangerous suburb, not at all actually. It's basically an area where a lot of families live with kids who cannot afford to live in the center.

They move towards the Montrouge, for instance. The whole southern suburbs of Paris are a little bit like that, and also because the metro goes there, it's very attractive to live there and work in Paris. It's a normal neighborhood, nothing special.

BALDWIN: Could have been anywhere, could have been off the metro line, as you point out. Could have no significance to the location, but could be tied. We still don't know.

Paul, when you hear about the explosive TATP, how dangerous -- the notion that you could have an active suicide vest in a trash can in a Paris suburb, walk me through what this bomb disposal unit is doing right now.

CRUICKSHANK: Look, Brooke, it is very dangerous. It's very unstable and volatile. You can set it off by just putting it in too warm a temperature or hitting it in a hammer or if you're in a car and the car is jolted, it could go off. And it's very, very tricky to make for that reason because it's so volatile and reactive.

So they will be putting a cordon presumably around this. They have probably already done all of that. There will be a bomb disposal unit that would have been sent in to try to neutralize the threat from this suicide vest which appears to have been jettisoned.

But it should also be pointed out that in these attacks we saw play out in Paris, most of the damage was actually done by Kalashnikovs, by AK-47s, not by these suicide vests. It was the guns which killed most of the people. The concern is that even Salah Abdeslam, even if he has jettisoned his suicide vest, may still have a number of weapons or access to a number of weapons in Brussels.

BALDWIN: Those guns.

CRUICKSHANK: And the Belgians just in the last few minutes have by saying that the terror alert they are seeing now in Brussels goes far beyond just Salah Abdeslam, that there's concern about a wider group of attackers that could be about to perform an attack.

BALDWIN: OK, Paul Cruickshank, thank you very much. Stefan de Vries, thank you. Paul mentioned Belgium. We will get to that. Of course, it's the

ISIS headquarters the coalition ISIS is targeting with bomb after bomb after bomb. And CNN gets dangerously close to the front lines there. You will see what happened.

Also ahead here on CNN, Donald Trump says he would bring back water- boarding. Hear why and the reaction that comment is getting.

Also ahead, a man points his gun at point-blank range directly at a hero on the street. The gun jams not just once, but twice. We now have the breaking news about the suspect who has been on the run.

I'm Brooke Baldwin live in Paris. Our special coverage continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:19:13]

BALDWIN: I'm Brooke Baldwin live here in Paris.

In politics, Donald Trump definitely under fire today for saying that he saw thousands upon thousands of American Muslims cheering after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, specifically seeing these people cheering in New Jersey.

Ben Carson just said he saw the same video. The problem is there's no known video. There is no evidence of that ever happening.

In fact, "The Washington Post" says that it fact-checked Donald Trump and that claim is false. Not one to back down, a short time ago, Trump tweeted this. He's demanding an apology from the newspaper "The Washington Post," cites a "Post" story from a week after the attacks. Quote: "In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and hold tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river."

[15:20:13]

He tweets: "I want an apology. Many people have tweeted that I am right."

Let's chat about this with our CNN media correspondent, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES," Brian Stelter.

Brian, let's just listen to Trump's claim that got this whole controversy started.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might not be politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down, as those buildings came down.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, so that was a sound bite that started the whole thing. We saw what happened he says in "The Washington Post" several years ago. What do we know, Brian Stelter?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: What we know is that there's no evidence to back up what Trump is saying.

You might agree with the 99 things out of 100 that Donald Trump says. But this one is simply not true. There's no evidence of it. Trust me, there would be evidence of it. You can imagine how big of story this would have been all around the world if there had been even hundreds, let's put aside thousands, even hundreds cheering after 9/11.

I just spoke Serge Kovaleski. He was the lead author of that "Washington Post" story that you were just quoting. "The Washington Post" story is what Trump is using to cite as evidence. But Serge says he spent days in Jersey City and he walked those streets and he tried to find any evidence that there were all these people celebrating. He found no evidence.

He said to me -- quote -- "That was not the case, as best I can remember."

That's just one example of many, Brooke. Like I said, you might think Donald Trump is right about almost everything he says, but on this count, he's simply wrong. That's why it's surprising that he's doubled down and that Ben Carson has joined him today.

BALDWIN: Listen, we know Donald Trump's reactive on Twitter. There's a lot of tweeting and retweeting. And let me ask you about this. We also know he retweeted what kind of turned out to be this fake racially charged crime data about black-on-black crime from a group that doesn't exist.

The retweet, it highlights a photograph of a dark-skinned man wearing a bandanna, dark shirt and military-style pants, here it is, holding a handgun sideways and claiming to list 2015 crime statistics, includes six lines, three of them central here, "blacks killed by police, 1 percent, whites killed by blacks, 81 percent, blacks killed by blacks, 97 percent."

This retweet, Brian Stelter, comes two days after a half-dozen white attendees at a Trump rally shoved and kicked this African-American protester who disrupted that speech. What do you make of that?

STELTER: "GQ" magazine recently asked Trump. There are people who believe that what you're doing is playing into racial prejudices and is very racially charged. He said, "I'm the least racist person you will ever meet." It would never cross his mind.

Now, that said, a retweet like that from a group that doesn't exist, with data that doesn't not exist is the kind of thing that perpetuates that kind of impression. And the bottom line here is that whether you agree with Trump, you disagree with Trump, you should be ticked off whenever there's misinformation out there.

It's very hard for journalists to fact-check everything that every candidate says. We know politicians have been lying ever since the founding of the United States. We know that. It's very hard to always fact-check everything that's out there.

But when things are as clear as these are, all of us should be ticked off when any politician, any candidate is sharing misleading information, because it makes it harder to have real debate. It makes it harder to actually have discussions around the Thanksgiving table in a few days about what's right and wrong when we don't agree on the facts.

BALDWIN: OK, yes. Then there's been this proposed bill that would ban anyone currently on the U.S., the FBI's terror watch list from buying a gun. It's pitting national security interests against Second Amendment rights and the Republicans -- the presidential contenders, they are really split on this one.

You have Donald Trump who says he supports this kind of ban. Ben Carson on the flip side, he sees it as a problem. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Yes or no, should someone on a terror watch list be allowed to buy a gun?

TRUMP: If somebody is on a watch list and an enemy of state and we know it's an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely.

BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, as you, I'm sure, note, there are a lot of people on that watch list and they have no idea why they are on that list. And they have been trying to get their names off of it and no one will give them information. I am a big supporter of the Second Amendment. And I don't want to deprive people unnecessarily, that there needs to be better due process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, CNN political commentator Buck Sexton is now joining us. He's also a former CIA counterterrorism analyst.

[15:25:04]

So, Buck, should people on the terror watch list be able to buy guns in states? What's your opinion?

BUCK SEXTON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think Ben Carson is correct here. You either believe in due process rights or you don't.

People that would have their Second Amendment rights abrogated because they're on this list -- this list, which, by the way, is just compiled by bureaucrats. You have no means, you have no redress of finding why you're on the list. It's very hard to get off the list. It has close to a million people on it.

There are children as young as 9 or 10 years old who have been put on the terror watch list. There's really no rhyme or reason in some cases to how somebody could get on this thing in the first place. And again you either believe in due process, and the Second Amendment is a constitutionally protected right, or you do not.

I think that the federal government needs to do a much better job of cleaning up this list. I think there are people who are obviously bringing challenges about this whole notion in the first place even with regards to flying. If you have not been charged with a crime, you cannot have rights taken away from you. I think Carson is right here and I think Trump has erred.

BALDWIN: Let me just say this. I was reading about this GAO March report, these individuals approved for guns 91 percent of the time, these folks who are on the FBI terror watch list. Yes, some people are on there erroneously. But some people have nefarious intentions. What about the latter? How do you keep guns out of their hands?

SEXTON: I would want to know how the government would be able to distinguish between the two, because if somebody clearly does have nefarious, in this case terrorist intentions, you would assume that there would be evidence.

And, in fact, if there was enough evidence to prevent somebody from being able to buy a gun, I think there would be enough evidence to bring some kind of a prosecution or at least bring charges, which, by the way, just bringing charges alone is enough if the sentence could carry more than a year to prevent somebody from buying a gun.

So, again, it all comes down to whether you believe in due process rights or not, whether somebody could have their First Amendment rights, Second Amendment rights, you name it, taken away because of a suspicion that the government doesn't have to be answerable to anybody about.

BALDWIN: Buck Sexton, thank you so much.

SEXTON: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next here on CNN, in the shadows of the ISIS capital, CNN goes deep inside of Syria near the front lines of the fight against the terror group. Our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, joins me with a live report.

Keep it here on CNN.

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