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CNN NEWSROOM
New Details on California Massacre; Shooter Pledges Allegiance to ISIS; How San Bernardino Terrorists Lived; Remembering the Victims; Search for Suspects in Paris Attack; Rains Lash Southern India; Investigators Search for ISIS Influence on San Bernardino Shooters; Women Being Radicalized as Jihadists; Steps to a Fiancee Visa; Denmark's Green Country; Trump Defies Odds as Republican Front-Runner; Coloring The Donald.. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired December 5, 2015 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): New details emerge about the shooting massacre in California. What authorities are learning about the suspects and their ties to terrorism.
Plus police are now searching for two men who may be linked to the deadly terror attacks in Paris.
And later, the latest U.S. Republican presidential polls are out.
Is Donald Trump increasing his lead as the front-runner despite his recent controversies?
We'll have a report just ahead.
Hello. Welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. I'm Lynda Kinkade and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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KINKADE: We begin in San Bernardino, California, where investigators revealed they have evidence that ISIS may have inspired Wednesday's mass shooting. The FBI is now treating it as an act of terrorism.
It also says proof of extreme planning was discovered at the home of Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. CNN and other media were allowed inside their rental apartment after authorities searched and released the crime scene.
Reporters saw lists of items seized by the FBI as well as the family's personal belongings.
Officials say Tashfeen Malik pledged her allegiance to ISIS during the massacre. Jim Sciutto, our chief U.S. security correspondent, has more on that investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF U.S. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight the FBI says it is investigating the San Bernardino shooting as an act of terrorism. If confirmed, it would make it the deadliest on U.S. soil since 9/11.
CNN was the first to report that, as the attack was happening, investigators say the female shooter, Tashfeen Malik, made a Facebook posting under a different name, pledging her allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: This is now a federal terrorism investigation led by the FBI. And the reason for that is that the investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization by the killers and of a potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations.
SCIUTTO: U.S. officials believe the attack may have been inspired by ISIS, but not directed or organized by the terror group. And today, many ISIS supporters have praised the shooting online, calling it a heroic lone wolf attack.
Police found two smashed cell phones in a garbage can near one of the crime scenes. They also found a computer at the shooter's home with a missing hard drive. Investigators suspect it was removed and possibly destroyed.
DAVID BOWDICH, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI LOS ANGELES OFFICE: We have retained those cellphones. And we do continue to exploit the data from those cell phones. We do hope that the digital fingerprints that were left by these two individuals will take us towards their motivation.
SCIUTTO (voice-over): There is precedent for ISIS sympathizers pledging their allegiance to the terror group online during or before attacks in the past.
When ISIS-inspired gunmen assaulted an event publicizing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Garland, Texas, this May, one of the shooters, Elton Simpson, tweeted his pledge of allegiance to Amir al-Mu'minin, which means "the leader of the faithful" and refers to the ISIS leader al-Baghdadi.
Tonight the sister of Syed Rizwan Farook still can't believe he's involved.
SAIRA KHAN, SISTER OF SYED RIZWAN FAROOK: I asked myself, if I had called him that morning or the night before, asked him how he was doing, what he was up to, if I had any inclination, maybe I could have stopped it.
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KINKADE: That was Jim Sciutto reporting there.
It was the killer's landlord who invited journalists inside their apartment after law enforcement officials finished the search. CNN's Victor Blackwell has an up-close look at how the two lived.
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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the door was pried open, a dramatic scene as a crush of reporters and camera crews were allowed inside the townhouse rented by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik. The couple's landlord invites the media to look inside the home with no objection from the FBI.
DAVID BOWDICH, FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: We executed a search warrant on that apartment. And last night, we turned that over, back to the residents. Once the residents have the apartment and we're not in it anymore, we don't control it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When did you get notice you could come back in here?
DOYLE MILLER, LANDLORD: Last night about 8-9 o'clock. So this is unreal.
BLACKWELL (voice-over): Around the apartment, signs of life familiar to families everywhere, clutter in the kitchen, toys belonging to the couple's 6-month-old daughter scattered on the floor.
But it's here in the couple's bedroom closet where you find a sign of the intense investigation that took place, as CNN's Stephanie Elam discovered during a tour of the home.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here, you can see where they smashed up into the ceiling to take a look to see what was up there. It does appear, based on how much debris is --
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ELAM: -- on the ground, that there was an effort to get up there and make sure that they checked every crevice of this back bedroom.
BLACKWELL (voice-over): Personal identification and other documents belonging to Farook's mother were left scattered on the bed. Evidence of the couple's devout faith are also seen throughout the apartment: a prayer rug on the wall, various books on the subject of Islam, even prayer beads left on the edge of the bed.
In a corner, the crib belonging to their 6-month-old baby girl, left with her grandmother on the day of the shooting.
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KINKADE: That was Victor Blackwell reporting for us there.
And as we've been reporting, several pieces of evidence pushed authorities to launch a terror probe in the San Bernardino shooting.
Sajjan Gohel joins me now to discuss this development. He's the international security director for the Asia Pacific Foundation. The think tank provides analysis on a variety of global security and geopolitical issues and it's frequently consulted by governmental and military bodies.
Thank you so much for joining us, Sajjan.
SAJJAN GOHEL, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY DIRECTOR, ASIA PACIFIC FOUNDATION: Pleasure to be with you.
KINKADE: You have written extensively about radicalization and recruitment.
What do you make of this couple with a young baby, a 6-month-old baby, and their path to radicalization?
GOHEL: Well, I know on the surface for many it will come as very disturbing, what took place, potentially new in the minds of some.
But unfortunately, it is all too common a trend now that we are witnessing, where people, married couples, individuals who, on the surface seem to be doing very well, have become radicalized and recruited.
They have bought into an ideology, even if they live in the West. And they get motivated online to take part in acts of terrorism. And far too frequently now we are seeing more women playing a direct role in terrorism, from being on the periphery of plots, they are actually now directing them. They're engaging in them.
This is a new trend. And unfortunately, what took place in San Bernardino is not a one-off incident. It will be replicated in the future.
KINKADE: The propaganda and the ideology of ISIS clearly speaks to some people. Just explain for us why it is so effective.
GOHEL: Well, ISIS has a motto, which is it remains and it expands. It has created this narrative that it is the only Sunni Muslim group that can continue to represent their branch of Islam, that it could spread, it could create the caliphate, the Islamic super state.
It uses very powerful visuals to purport their agenda, their propaganda. And they also use a lot of new media platforms to get their message out, effectively as their oxygen of publicity.
And far too often, young, impressionable people are buying into the half-truth. They are not looking at the fine print of what this group stands for. Primarily, the biggest murderers of Muslims are actually ISIS themselves. Every day they kill dozens of ordinary Iraqi and Syrian Muslims.
But it doesn't get enough attention. And a lot of these individuals think that by carrying out attacks on behalf of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that somehow it gives them a meaning and a purpose in their lives. They are actually totally brainwashed by this death cult.
KINKADE: You mentioned that we're going to see potentially more shootings like this one in San Bernardino. Some governments like France and Egypt have banned ISIS videos online. What else can governments or authorities do to kind of shut down that ISIS propaganda?
GOHEL: This is a very difficult challenge for the authorities. In many ways it's an uphill treadmill. You can't try and bring down websites and platforms that are used by ISIS. But they will find other methods. They use the Dark Web for example on the Internet, which is very hard for the authorities to monitor or to ascertain.
Ultimately this is a battle of narratives. One has to be able to expose the group for what they are, for the life that they purport, for the fact that they are, in many ways, an outfit that kill anybody that stands in their way.
And far too often they have been able to use new media, not just as a platform to get their message out, but also to recruit, to radicalize, to cut out the middleman. This is very different from the Al Qaeda days, where people would travel to Pakistan, get physical training. It's all done through the Internet. More needs to be done, though, to stop the virtual communication from indoctrinating young, impressionable minds.
KINKADE: So you said it's very difficult to actually stop this propaganda online.
What needs to be done, therefore, within mosques, where a lot of this, I guess some of the radicalization could happen.
How can people within mosques perhaps identify people that might be led astray?
GOHEL: Well, a lot of improvements have been done in terms of getting the local community, the religious leaders and mosques to be able to assist the authorities. And progress has been made. In fact, a lot of counterterrorism operations have depended on the assistance from imams, from the mosques and community elders. The problem --
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GOHEL: -- now, unfortunately, is that these individuals that are getting radicalized are not necessarily showing any overt behavior at mosques that would arouse suspicion.
It is often done in front of the computer, their parents' basement, where they have the Internet running or where they are amongst a small group of people.
We are seeing more women getting recruited. And that is a dynamic that needs more attention, more perspective because, up until now, they were seen as assisting behind the scenes on plots, doing part of the propaganda.
What took place in San Bernardino set a very dangerous precedent, where they are directing terrorism. They are actually engaging in it. And far too often we have developed a picture of young men in their late teens, early 20s. We also now need to understand the type of women that are getting recruited, because that's another big difference between Al Qaeda and ISIS. ISIS encourages women to take part in acts of terrorism.
KINKADE: And this shooter in the San Bernardino massacre, she was the mother of a 6-month-old baby. We have also seen women from Britain, who have grown up in a Western country, lured to Syria to join ISIS.
Can you explain what attracts women to ISIS?
GOHEL: Again, it is very similar to effectively online recruitment, very similar to how a pedophile would do it through the virtual Web. They groom them. They manipulate them and they offer them promises, that they have a greater meaning in their life, that they can serve to fight for a greater cause.
And a lot of these young women that get recruited, they end up being the wives of ISIS fighters. And many of them end up regretting going there because they don't necessarily realize what's happening on the ground. They don't see the dark methods that ISIS use to subjugate people, to hurt them.
And we have seen a lot of cases, as you mentioned, in the U.K., where young in their teens have abandoned their families overnight without telling them and just disappear.
And families need to pay more attention to what potential triggers could be arousing this radicalization. They may think that certain talk at the dinner table where extremist views are being expressed is nothing to be concerned about. It's just a young, angry teen that's showing their views.
It could actually lead to something far more worse because this is a growing trend, where ISIS are now depending on Westerners not just for propaganda but for actually engaging in acts of terrorism.
KINKADE: Some fascinating analysis there. Sajjan Gohel, thank you so much for joining us.
GOHEL: Pleasure.
KINKADE: Well, the exact motive for the massacre remains unclear. An attorney representing the Farook family says the current climate in the U.S. is unfairly labeling Muslims in a negative light.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're talking about political candidates that could very likely be our next president, who are saying things like we should register all Muslims and that mosques should be investigated and looked into or that the families of terrorists should be killed without due process.
Or the latest thing that was said was that it was known that it was going to -- that it was a terrorist act that was committed simply because the person had an Islamic last name.
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KINKADE: A Muslim national spokesman is also defending his faith. He says it is important to remember that leaders in his community are actually condemning violence and promoting peace.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really about the idea these are all acts of terror that are happening in our country. And so we should talk about not just the labels but the solutions.
How do we stop groups like daish?
How do we stop radicalization?
How do we stop these mass shootings that are crippling our nation?
And our point of view is that leadership matters. Look at the leaders who are guiding these people in a certain direction, especially these disturbed people, which is why we would say look at case studies like Khalifa of Islam, His Holiness, who's the spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, who spends a lot of time playing an active role in the lives of tens of millions of Muslims in 207 countries around the world, on how to embody peace and love as opposed to brutality and injustice.
And so there is something to be said there.
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KINKADE: Through their attorney, Farook's family says they didn't know the couple held radical views. And they had no idea why they carried out that brutal massacre.
Well, 14 people died in Wednesday's shooting. And our Randi Kaye has been getting to know them through their friends and loved ones.
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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sierra Clayborn was just 27 when she died in San Bernardino.
On Facebook, she had written, "I am dedicated to enjoying my new life that God so graciously gave me. So I thank Him all that I can and live life to the fullest. I love my life."
She was a chemistry major who worked for the county since 2013. A friend posted on her page, calling her a bright star whom he could always count on for support.
Michael Raymond Wetzel --
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KAYE (voice-over): -- a supervising environmental health specialist, leaves behind six children.
MICHAEL WETZEL, SUPERVISING ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SPECIALIST: My name's Mike. This is our gingerbread Karlie here, who's in "The Nutcracker" this week.
KAYE (voice-over): A friend told the "L.A. Times," Wetzel loved babies. He once coached a team of 5-year-old girls learning soccer for the first time.
In the chaos after the shooting his wife posted, "My husband was in the meeting where the shooting happened. I have not been able to get in touch with him. Please, please pray that he is OK."
Wetzel was 37.
This woman fled to America from Iran at 18 to escape Islamic extremism and the persecution of Christians following the Iranian revolution. After a stop in New York City, Bennetta Betbadal moved to California to get married. She and her husband, a police officer, have three children, ages 10 to 15.
UNIDENTIFED MALE: Everything she touched bloomed. Doing what she did with the county, there is not one even bad person there would say anything negative about her.
KAYE (voice-over): Forty-six-year-old Betbadal graduated with a degree in chemistry before joining the county health department. On her fundraising page, loved ones wrote, "It is the ultimate irony that her life would be stolen by what appears to be the same type of extremism that she fled so many years ago."
At 52, Nicholas Thalasinos was described as a very devout believer. His wife told reporters they were Messianic Jews and that he became born again a couple of years ago.
She told the "L.A. Times" her husband was very outspoken against Islamic terrorism, adding "I'm sure that he went down fighting and protecting people."
Thirty-one-year-old Tin Nguyen was looking forward to getting married. The "L.A. Times" reports Nguyen worked as a county health inspector. One cousin told the paper, "You cannot imagine how caring she is. She had such a big heart."
Just days before the shooting she was reportedly trying on wedding dresses, her mother telling reporters that they were planning a wedding. And now they are having a funeral -- Randi Kaye, CNN, Atlanta.
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KINKADE: Welcome back. Iraq is demanding that Turkey remove its forces currently stationed near the city of Mosul.
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KINKADE: Turkey says they are there to provide training for Iraqi soldiers in the Nineveh Province, an area which has been overrun by ISIS since July 2014.
The Iraqi government said Turkish troops moved in without request. Iraq's prime minister tweeted this Saturday, "The unauthorized presence of Turkish troops in Mosul Province is a serious breach of Iraqi sovereignty."
Officials in Belgium now have two more suspects they are searching for in the deadly Paris attacks. Authorities are looking for two men who had connections to the suspect known as the eighth attacker. CNN's Alexandra Field reports.
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ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Saleh Abdeslam remains the man most wanted by police in connection to the Paris terror attacks but authorities are now looking for two men who were traveling with him in Hungary just two months before the attacks.
All three men were stopped at the Austrian-Hungarian border; officials say that, at the time, two men presented false Belgian identity cards with the names Soufiane Kayal and Samir Bouzid.
Police later raided a house that was rented out using the identity card with Kayal's name on it. They now say that the identity card with Bouzid's name on it was used just four days after the Paris attacks to wire money to Hasna Ait Boulahcen.
She was one of the women who was killed in the police raids following the attacks. She is the cousin of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is widely regarded as the ringleader of those attacks.
As for Abdeslam himself, authorities have said that he managed to leave France on the night of the attacks just hours later, crossing the border into Belgium before police realized who exactly they were looking for.
A friend of Abdeslam has said that he dropped him off in the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek but officials haven't been able to determine where Abdeslam went from there. In Paris, Alexandra Field, CNN.
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KINKADE: India prime minister Narendra Modi says he is pained at the devastation caused by flooding in the south of the country. Over 270 people have been killed so far and 120,000 have been rescued as unusually heavy rains lash the state of Tamil Nadu. Robyn Curnow has more.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ROBYN CURNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Much of this city of 9 million people is under water after weeks of heavy rain, the worst flooding here in a century. Some Chennai residents are waist deep in it, some ankle deep, after a few breaks in the rain have let some of the waters have recede.
These are the scenes from the streets of India's fifth largest city, South India's industrial and commercial center.
Many people are being forced to upper floors of buildings. Whether outdoors or indoors, the water is making life miserable.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We are facing lots of problems due to this flooding. There's also a power shortage. The flooding makes it very difficult to survive. We can even see snakes in the water.
CURNOW (voice-over): Emergency workers, including Indian armed forces, rescued more than 120,000 people on Wednesday and Thursday. And operations are ongoing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now we've got all the boats on which our personnel, along with very (INAUDIBLE) meals and water. Supplies will be deployed in the flood-affected areas.
CURNOW (voice-over): This is what Chennai's airport looked like earlier this week. Many flights have been cancelled and some airlines are now flying in and out of an airport about 100 kilometers west of Chennai. On Thursday, India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, flew over the flood-hit region and pledged $290 million for relief funds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) stand by the people of Tamil Nadu in the hour of need.
CURNOW (voice-over): Even if the rains ease up and the waters recede, many people are still going to need help -- Robyn Curnow, CNN.
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KINKADE: Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is at the World Weather Center and joins us now.
Just put this in perspective for us.
How much rainfall are we talking about?
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Chennai, specifically that particular region, they received six times their monthly average rainfall for December.
And, what are we, only five days in?
Puts it into perspective for you.
It led to these scenes on the ground. You can see some of the flooding that people had to navigate around. There were plenty of people stuck on top of buildings because they simply had no place to go. In fact, there were about 120,000 people rescued from the tops of their buildings.
Water is also inundating agricultural fields as well, which is a concern. And also concerning, Lynda, is that this water stagnation, you can see it on the -- on your TV screens now, that could lead to the spreading of disease.
Come back to my graphics. You can see how much rainfall we have experienced in Southern India.
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VAN DAM: November was an extremely wet month, breaking records. That's over a meter of rainfall, folks, in one calendar month. And so far in the month of December, five days in, we have beaten all kinds of records.
You can see the calamity that this causes at some of the railroad stations for that area -- unbelievable, unprecedented event they're calling it, the worst flooding in over a century.
You can see our computer model still indicated that onshore flow, bringing rainfall from Mangalore (ph) to the south. Chennai, you do have a brief break in the heavier rainfall as we speak. But there is still the possibility of heavy rain showers in this extended forecast.
Look at this, 913 millimeters accumulated in Mangalore (ph). Again, that's six times more than their average monthly rainfall rate in December. So thanks to a low pressure system moving through, an additional 50 to 100 millimeters of rainfall on top of the heavy rain values we showed you just a moment ago.
One last thing I have got to show you, social media is lit up with these photos of Mount Etna coming out of Sicily and to southern portions of Italy. This is Europe's most active volcano. And it has created a very unique phenomenon that is called lightning, volcanic lightning. And it actually happens when volcanic ash is spewed into the upper levels of the atmosphere, creating a separation in charges.
And the lightning bolt is there to kind of connect the positives and the negatives. And if we get the chance and can show the video, this is the nighttime eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily.
KINKADE: Incredible. I read that it was the strongest in years. It's absolutely incredible to see.
VAN DAM: Incredible to see and an incredible thing to witness as well. But I wouldn't want to be anywhere near it.
KINKADE: No, neither would I. So good to see you again. Thanks, Derek.
News just into CNN: ISIS now claims the husband and wife responsible for the mass shooting California were two of its supporters. The terror group made the announcement in an online radio broadcast, adding that they pray the couple will be accepted by God as martyrs.
U.S. investigators have already said the female shooter, Tashfeen Malik, pledged her allegiance to the leader of ISIS in a Facebook post during Wednesday's shooting.
Authorities have said there is no evidence ISIS ordered the attack.
Still to come, panic, chaos and fear: witnesses who were inside a California conference center on Wednesday when that massacre happened tell us what they experienced firsthand. Stay with us.
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KINKADE (voice-over): Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Lynda Kinkade. And here's an update of the top stories we're following this hour.
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KINKADE: Returning to our top story now, the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Days after the Wednesday attack, new details keep emerging. The FBI has taken over the investigation from local police. Now they say the shooting may have been inspired by ISIS. Fourteen people were killed and 21 were wounded. Our Chris Cuomo talked with two women who survived the violence.
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CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": How did you know what to do or...?
AILEEN TORRES, WITNESS TO SHOOTING: We didn't. It was just chaos, you know. There was just rumors that it was the active shooter training. So it was just chaotic. We really didn't know what to do.
VERONICA NAVARRO, WITNESS TO SHOOTING: Everybody was -- people were crying. And I just felt like I couldn't sit there because I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I needed to know if the shooter was still in the building. I needed to know for myself.
So I broke away with the crowd with two other gentlemen and we ran to a farther office and that is when we were able to see SWAT getting there. And then we could see the bodies being pulled.
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KINKADE: Investigators think Tashfeen Malik, the female shooter, pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS during Wednesday's attack. CNN's Brian Todd has more on this part of the story as well as the radicalization of women around the world. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): During the shootings, she pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a posting on Facebook, according to U.S. officials. And now officials are investigating whether Tashfeen Malik was the one who turned her husband into a radical.
One of the husband's co-workers told CBS News she was to blame.
CHRISTIAN NWADKE, CO-WORKER OF SYED RIZWAN FAROOK: I think he married a terrorist.
TODD (voice-over): The 27-year-old female attacker was born in Pakistan and later traveled to Saudi Arabia at least twice, according to a Saudi official. She met Syed Rizwan Farook there, then traveled with him to the United States on a fiancee visa.
Farook family lawyers say she was a typical housewife but traditional, often wearing a burqa.
DAVID CHESLEY, SHOOTER'S FAMILY ATTORNEY: She did maintain certain traditions, from what I understand, in terms of fasting and prayer five times a day. She chose not to drive voluntarily.
TODD (voice-over): In online dating profiles thought to be his, Farook expressed his desire for a girl who wears a hijab and said he enjoyed target practice in his backyard. The FBI asked directly if it was Tashfeen Malik who influenced Syed Rizwan Farook.
DAVID BOWLICH, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FBI, L.A. OFFICE: I don't know the answer, whether she influenced him or not.
NIMMI GOWRINATHAN, PROFESSOR, CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK: I very much believe that it's possible that she influenced him. When we look at female fighters, female recruits to the Islamic State, we tend to read her through the men around her, whether it's a boyfriend, a husband or a cousin, you know, that is the reason for her support for the Islamic State or any other political movement.
And with this case, we're being forced to sort of re-examine that.
TODD (voice-over): The couple wouldn't be the first Bonnie and Clyde inspired by terrorists.
Hayat Boumeddiene, the widow of Paris supermarket gunman, Amedy Coulibaly, was, according to his former lawyer, the more radical one in the couple. Boumeddiene is now believed to be with ISIS in Syria, as is Sally Jones.
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TODD (voice-over): She's the widow of top ISIS operative, Junaid Hussain, believed to have inspired the only ISIS-instigated attack so far on American soil, the foiled attempt in May to shoot up a Prophet Muhammad cartoon-drawing contest in Garland, Texas. Jones is now believed to be a key recruiter for ISIS.
In a sobering new report on ISIS sympathizers inside the U.S., Lorenzo Vidino at George Washington University says many of those supporters are women who are adept at social media.
LORENZO VIDINO, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: "Jannah Bride," "Jannah" means paradise in Arabic. SO you do see that women are more prolific than men. They tend to write more. They tend to post a lot of things. They tend to have a lot of accounts.
TODD: Those accounts, Vidino says, are used for propaganda and for the recruitment or other women. But it is not clear right now who might have radicalized Tashfeen Malik. A source close to the Saudi government tells CNN she was not on any Saudi watch list or under suspicion by the Saudis of any extremist activities -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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KINKADE: Now Tashfeen Malik came to the U.S. in July 2014. Officials say she had passed two rounds of criminal and national background checks to get a K-1 visa, often called a fiancee visa.
CNN's Tom Foreman takes us through the process.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If an American wants to marry someone from another country they will start with a lot of paperwork to get what's called a fiancee visa, nine pages of instructions, six pages to be filled out.
What does the government want to know? Well, first of all, they want to know that the sponsoring citizen who is bringing this person is, in fact, a U.S. citizen. They want to know they are planning to marry within 90 days and they want evidence of a real relationship.
These people have to at least seen each other in person somewhere once in the past two years. That's to avoid willful fraud or a case of mail order brides, that sort of thing.
Beyond that, the immigrant who's coming in will have to supply a valid passport, a birth certificate, a divorce or death certificate for any previous spouse, police certificates to prove this person is not just a criminal from wherever else they lived, medical records to prove they're not carrying a communicable disease and evidence of employment or income, basically that this couple can pay their bills.
Beyond that, they'll pay a $340 filing fee. There will be fingerprinting and biometrics for this couple and there will be background checks on everybody that this immigrant would know, who they associate with. They are looking for any inconsistencies in the written information and this.
And then, if it goes beyond that, they go to a face-to-face interview, where they are really probed about this relationship. Are you really getting married because you love this person?
Do you really know this person?
Are you actually doing this for the reasons that this visa would be granted to a fiancee?
The process takes about a year, maybe more, maybe less, depending on the caseload and the individual specifics. And it's not really successful that often if you think about it because 230 million people in the country, this is how many are approved of these fiancee visas in a normal year. There's been a spike last year. But many people who look at immigration law say essentially that's not a tremendous number. And it shows just how rigorous this process is to try to keep people from coming in improperly or illegally.
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KINKADE: That was Tom Foreman reporting from our Washington bureau there.
If you would like to help the victims of the San Bernardino shooting, head over to "Impact Your World" website. There you can find out how you can volunteer, you can give blood or you can simply donate money to help those affected by the tragedy. That's at cnn.com/impact.
World leaders are meeting in Paris this hour for day six of the COP 21 climate change conference. And they've just received a special message from Spain.
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KINKADE: Welcome back. The COP 21 climate change conference is under way in Paris. And world leaders there are still negotiating the language for a climate change deal. A short time ago, astronauts from NASA, who have seen the Earth change from afar, gave their take on climate change. Have a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Less than 550 humans have orbited the Earth. Those of us lucky enough to have done so more than once have not only heard about the negative impact that the Industrial Age has had on our planet, we have seen it with our own eyes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The view from space is just breathtaking. And at the same time we recognize deforestations and wildfires and so on which are related to climate changes. UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): From our vantage point, 250 miles above the Earth, we can see how precious the Earth really is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The one thing that we all wish, though, is that groups like yours could be holding their meeting today in space with the beautiful horizon-to-horizon view of our planet as your backdrop. It would be an awe-inspiring distraction for sure but there would be nothing better for reinforcing the significance of what you are doing there together today.
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KINKADE: Well, the number 2 is key when it comes to discussion about climate change. Environmental policy experts say 2 degrees Celsius is when climate change starts to get especially dangerous. But if we stay below that mark, we may be able to avoid some of the worst aspects of global warming. And Denmark is going above and beyond to make that happen. CNN's John Sutter reports.
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JOHN SUTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right now everyone is trying to figure out how to fix climate change, but what if I told you there is a place that's already figured this out?
SUTTER: When did you start cycling?
KLAUS BONDAM, DIRECTOR, DANISH CYCLISTS FEDERATION: Basically just after I could walk.
SUTTER (voice-over): Denmark aims to ditch fossil fuels completely by 2050 and it's already well on the way.
How?
Well, four things essentially. First up, bikes.
BONDAM: In Denmark, you will see basically everybody cycle. I mean, members of the royal family cycle, ministers in government cycle, business leaders cycle, nurses cycle, teachers cycle, journalists cycle.
SUTTER (voice-over): And that's no accident.
BONDAM: It's basically all kinds of infrastructure that makes the accessibility for the cyclist --
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BONDAM: -- comfortable, effective and easy.
SUTTER (voice-over): It's not just bike paths that connect the city, it's also a super unique heating system. And that's reason number two this is one of the greenest places on Earth: district heating. They're burning trash to do it.
SUTTER: Does it smell?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Very much. But we say it's smell of money.
SUTTER: The idea is that you're taking basically all of the trash and the waste from Copenhagen, and you're turning it into heat essentially, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Heat and electricity.
SUTTER: And no waste.
SUTTER (voice-over): Next up, wind, which you can see pretty easily from 140 meters out.
SUTTER: Made it.
SUTTER (voice-over): This is the top of one of the most powerful wind turbines on Earth.
SUTTER: So what's the point of making them so enormous besides that it's just massively impressive?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
This is one of the main things that will help bringing down the cost of installing turbines.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last year we had 39 percent of all of our electricity stemming from wind-generated electricity.
SUTTER (voice-over): All of this wind power has created a new sort of problem, if you want to call it that, one that Denmark is trying to solve by connecting its power system to other countries.
Denmark sometimes makes more wind power than it can use and that means all coal plants temporarily can be shut down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are exporting 700 megawatts to Sweden.
SUTTER (voice-over): They sell the excess power to nearby countries and when the wind isn't blowing, they buy hydro and nuclear.
There's nothing magical about Denmark. It subsidizes clean energy, taxes cars and puts a price on carbon pollution. This green revolution starts simply with a change in attitude.
CONNIE HEDEGAARD, EU COMMISSIONER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: We have a responsibility to take care that we leave the planet Earth in a better shape for the next generation or at least as good as we found it ourselves.
SUTTER (voice-over): As the world talks and talks about how to fix climate change, the politicians should take a look at tiny Denmark. This is one of the happiest places on Earth and it has a thriving economy.
The only difference between the Danes and us, they've decided to do what it really takes to avoid disastrous warming -- John Sutter, CNN, Copenhagen.
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KINKADE: Up next on CNN NEWSROOM, the many controversies surrounding the Trump campaign may settle down for the time being. We'll have a look at how the tempestuous muns (ph) has affected his poll numbers. That story just ahead.
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KINKADE: Welcome back. U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has regained a dominant lead in the Democratic field. She's now polling 28 points above her main competitor, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Support for Clinton has risen as foreign policy and national security increasingly become focal points of the upcoming elections.
And on the other side of politics, Donald Trump has a big lead in his own Republican field. That did not prevent protesters from interrupting his rally in North Carolina at least 10 times Friday night.
Protesters waved signs and chanted, "Black lives matter," throughout Trump's speech, eventually getting on his nerves. But as our Dana Bash reports, all the controversy surrounding the Trump campaign has not slowed it down.
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DONALD TRUMP, ENTREPRENEUR: And my life has been about winning.
DANA BASH, CNN SR. U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump is winning, big time, 20 points ahead of the rest of the GOP pack, according to CNN/ORC's new national poll.
And he leads by massive margins on how he would handle issues across the board. Most trusted by Republican primary voters on the economy, ISIS.
TRUMP: And we will bomb the hell out of them.
BASH (voice-over): Ahead on handling immigration, the budget, foreign policy.
TRUMP: Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I'd approve it.
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TRUMP: You bet your ass.
BASH (voice-over): CNN/ORC's poll was conducted before Wednesday's mass shooting in California, an event Trump predicted would pump his popularity even more.
TRUMP: Every time there is a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country. We have weakness. We have weak, sad politicians.
BASH (voice-over): In the last week alone, Trump's lead increased by 9 points, jumping from 27 percent to 36 percent. A month of controversial remarks that could have crushed any traditional candidate, retweeting racist and wrong data about black crime, insisting thousands of Muslims in New Jersey were cheering on 9/11, seeming to imitate a disabled reporter.
TRUMP: "Oh, I don't know what I said. I don't remember."
BASH (voice-over): Perplexed competitors are hoping to learn from Trump's appeal while trying to knock him down.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLA.: Because being president isn't just about seeing what's in front of you. It is about understanding what will happen next if you don't do what needs to be done.
BASH (voice-over): Marco Rubio himself is coming under fresh fire from other GOP candidates. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie saying of the first-term Florida senator there is not a lot of depth there.
RUBIO: He is running for president and I'm one of the other candidates. He's not going to say nice things about me.
BASH (voice-over): Rubio is now part of a three-candidate race for second place, along with Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, all registering in the mid-teens. As for Carson, he continues to struggle with foreign policy, like repeatedly mispronouncing "Hamas" when talking to the Republican Jewish coalition.
DR. BEN CARSON, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hamas rules the Gaza Strip.
BASH: And what about Jeb Bush, the man who came into the race this summer as the front-runner in our international poll, the favorite among establishment Republicans? He has now fallen to just 3 percent -- Dana Bash, CNN, Washington.
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KINKADE: Well, just when you thought the world could not get enough of Donald Trump, if you did indeed think that, the billionaire now has his own coloring book. And it's coming out just in time for the holidays. CNN's Jeanne Moos tries to stay between the lines of this report of the most colorful presidential candidate.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump is used to being parodied. But now the parody is interactive.
You can color him Donald.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here, let's get those eyebrows.
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MOOS (voice-over): Donald as the Statue of Liberty, on Mount Rushmore, on the million dollar bill. Donald with his wife, Melania, Donald arm wrestling Hillary.
Donald as a Beatle?
MOOS: I never thought I would be coloring Donald Trump's fig leaf.
MOOS (voice-over): Even Donald on the Sistine Chapel.
I colored my way through the entire interview with the creator and publisher of "The Trump Coloring Book."
MOOS: Do you think Donald Trump would be flattered or insulted by his coloring book?
M.G. ANTHONY, WRITER AND ILLUSTRATOR: I'm not so sure if he'll sell this at his gift shops in his casinos but I think he would enjoy this.
MOOS (voice-over): It turns out adult coloring books are the hottest category in publishing right now. So cashing in on Trump made sense. There's also the off-color coloring books, featuring notable Trump quotes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Trump.
DONALD TRUMP, ENTREPRENEUR: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you Batman?
TRUMP: I am Batman.
MOOS (voice-over): Go ahead and color that quote.
But who needs a whole box of crayons?
ANTHONY: Which is the beauty of this coloring book. You really only need one or two colors.
MOOS: You only need orange and yellow?
ANTHONY: That's pretty much it. And you're good to go. MOOS (voice-over): But we weren't good to go almost from the get-go.
MOOS: Oops. Oh, no. That's trouble. I just broke the yellow.
MOOS (voice-over): But just that yellow stub was enough to get to the roots of The Donald's hair on the page he shared with Albert Einstein.
MOOS: I'm just doing Einstein's tongue.
MOOS (voice-over): 25,000 copies will be shipped just in time for Christmas. So you can color the candidate who is already beyond colorful.
TRUMP: Bing, bing, bing.
MOOS (voice-over): Jeanne Moos, CNN --
ANTHONY: Well, we're trying to make coloring great again.
MOOS (voice-over): -- New York.
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KINKADE: Oh, that does it for this edition of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Lynda Kinkade. for the viewers in the U.S., "NEW DAY" is just ahead. For everyone else, "CNN HEROES" starts in just a moment.
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