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GOP Jitters Over Trump Muslim Exclusion Proposal; California Terror Attack: Investigating the Shooters; MLB Recommends Safety Netting for Fans. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired December 10, 2015 - 05:00   ET

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


DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I know how to win. I intend to win. It's the best way to beat the Democrats if I get the nomination. In the FOX poll that I'm sure you saw, I'm way ahead of Hillary.

[05:00:03] Head to head, I'm ahead of Hillary. I will beat Hillary.

The one person that Hillary doesn't want to run against and I know a lot of people inside, because I get along with Democrats, with Republicans, with liberals, with everybody, the one person that they don't want to run against is me.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I just want this plain spoken for the viewers.

TRUMP: Go ahead.

LEMON: What do you mean when you say if they break this pledge then you'll break the pledge? What do you mean by that?

TRUMP: Well, if they don't treatment me with a certain amount of decorum and respect, if they don't treat me as the frontrunner, by far the frontrunner, if the playing field is not level, then certainly, all options are open. But that's nothing I want to do.

LEMON: How will you know that? What determines that?

TRUMP: Well, I think I'll know what over a period of a number of months. We'll go through the primaries. We'll see what happens. And I make a determination. But I would imagine they would treat me properly, because I'm leading by a lot.

LEMON: So, the pledge is you keep your word if they keep their word.

TRUMP: Don, I want to run as a Republican.

LEMON: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR: For more on the jitters the Trump campaign is causing the GOP, let's bring in senior Washington correspondent, Jeff Zeleny. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Alison, Donald Trump is on a roll so far, an unstoppable one. And that's precisely what worries many Republicans. The GOP ranks are rattled over Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country, afraid it could cause Republicans the White House and threaten their congressional majority.

Now, the international outcry also is intensifying. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he rejects Trump's plan to block Muslims. Now, Trump is set to meet with Netanyahu later this month in Jerusalem this month in Jerusalem. The prime minister is now facing pressure to cancel that meeting.

But back in the U.S., Republican leaders across the country fear Trump at the top of the ticket could doom their party.

Matt Borges is the chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. He said he worries about the fallout.

MATT BORGES, OHIO REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIRMAN: We're going to have to distance ourselves from those kind of message. It's not going to help us win a national election. It's not going to help us win the general election in November. We wouldn't win Ohio with that kind of message. And we realize that.

ZELENY: Now, he and other Republican leaders are afraid Trump could damage the party's chances of holding onto the Senate in particular, and even more, winning back the White House.

But at the same time, Trump supporters have been nothing but loyal. And that loyalty could help him win a Republican primary, the Iowa caucuses now only 53 days away -- Christine and Alison.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Jeff Zeleny, thanks for that.

Now, to break down the GOP jitters over Trump and all the day's political news and there's a lot of it. I want to bring in CNN politics reporter Eric Bradner.

Eric, you know, Donald Trump, as we know, he has his own playbook. He has written his own political playbook that the rest of the world, the rest of the Republican field, has been watching and following in some cases. And in many cases, he sets his own -- he has a different set of standards for himself.

Let me explain what I mean by that. He demands to be treated with respect by the Republican field. Yet, he does not treat the office of the presidency or president of the United States with respect at all.

I want you to listen to something he told our Don Lemon last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We can't be politically correct stupid people. We have a president -- I think he's a stupid person, because there's no way a normal president can make the speech he made the other night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Republican frontrunner called the sitting president of the United States twice elected a stupid person. My question to you is, this disdain for the president and some would say hatred for the president, is something that plays right to the core of his base, isn't it?

ERIC BRADNER, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Oh, it absolutely does. I mean, he has not been particularly nice to a lot of Republicans either. I mean, don't forget -- he sort of entered the race insulting John McCain. He's called others losers, low energy. He's had some pretty sharp names for all of them.

And so, when you get back to this context of is he being treated fairly? Well, the question is, by whom? And he doesn't have an answer. Does he mean by the Republican National Committee and the states that are orchestrating these elections or does he mean by the GOP establishment? Which is a class of like donors and operatives that aren't necessarily aligned with the official party, right?

So, it's kind of tough to figure out what he means. He's sort of setting his own standards, setting his own rules here. Yes, he has been really mean to the president. He's been pretty --

ROMANS: But he talks about respect as if he is owed respect. But has he shown respect in any of the political process?

BRADNER: Well, no. I mean, no is the short answer. He is not felt particularly compelled, especially if someone is mean to him. He has been respectful for example of Ted Cruz, who has been sort of parroting some of Trump's lines throughout the entire campaign and is hoping to win over Trump supporters at some point along the line.

But no, he is not respectful to his opponents. And it seems like just a critical word is enough for him to turn on someone.

[05:05:01] ROMANS: Right.

BRADNER: So, no -- I mean, he is not treated the way you would think he would like to be -- he is not treating the president the way he wanted to be treated if he won the presidency.

ROMANS: Yes, I think it's not surprise. I mean, he has the question's birthplace. He has been critical of some would say disrespectful of the president for some time. It's not as if this is new.

KOSIK: And, you know, he's really an astute politician here. I mean, he is managing to really turn it around. You've got, you know, the entire Republican Party pretty much, you know, bashing him about his policy to ban Muslims from the U.S. But he is finding a way to turn this around in his favor.

I want you to listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm doing good for the Muslims. I was just called by one of the most important people in the Middle East. He said, Donald, you have done a tremendous service to the Muslims.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Here's the thing. You know, you look at what is happening here. His penchant for controversy is eclipsing what other candidates are talking about.

ROMANS: Yes.

KOSIK: They can't get out there. All the reporters are focusing on is Trump. You know, you've got all of the candidates trekking through Iowa and nobody has any clue what they are talking about because the focus is on Trump.

BRADNER: Yes, totally. This is Trump's playbook. He says something controversial and he is criticized for it and defends it by saying, well, I'm getting all of the phone calls and tweets backing me up. So, what this becomes is Donald Trump's Republican world with the rest of the candidates just living in it, right?

They are totally off-message, being forced to respond to things that seem to actually surprise them in a lot of instances. They are not able to stick to their core campaign elements. The messages they hope to address.

This is sort of the opposite of what Republicans wanted to see happen after 2012 when the party said, you know, look, we need to be more inclusive. We need to sort of stop with the negative rhetoric. Tone it down a bit.

But Donald Trump is totally controlling every news cycle. I mean, Hillary Clinton who has been covered ad nauseam forever, even she is struggling to break through with a lot of her policy proposals because Donald Trump is sucking in all the oxygen. Everyone else is having to react to what he is doing.

It's more bombastic, more surprising and more controversial than anything any other candidates seem to be able to do.

ROMANS: And yet, some of the other candidates trying to break through and point out there is bombast, but there's not policy -- real policy prescriptions or at least constitutional and actionable prescriptions behind some of these ideas.

Listen to what Jeb Bush had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He is a gifted politician. I'm not saying that as a compliment. A gifted politician, he knows how to prey on people's fears and their angst. And he is gifted beyond belief in doing this, and he's a great entertainer.

But he hasn't -- he's been the front-running candidate now for five months, and he hasn't said, well, I might be president. I might have to learn who is the head of the Quds forces or why it matters? Or, how are we going to create a strategy to unify the world against ISIS? He is not taking it to the next level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So what does the GOP do about its Donald Trump problem?

BRADNER: Yes. So, a recent "USA Today"/Suffolk poll showed that 68 percent of Trump supporters would follow him if he ran as an independent. They would abandon the GOP.

So, what that means is these people are really with him. He is inspiring a tremendous degree of loyalty with the segment of the Republican base. And just wishing it away is not going to work.

ROMANS: Right.

BRADNER: The question is, whether the establishment, whether more moderate Republicans could sort of coalesce around a Trump alternative and that just doesn't seem to have happened with Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and Chris Christie and candidates like them, sort of fighting for a small segment of it. It just hasn't happened and the questions whether --

(CROSSTALK)

BRADNER: Yes?

KOSIK: I was just going to say the more the media bashes him and the more Republicans bash him, the more empowered Donald Trump gets.

BRADNER: Right. It's like he inoculated against the criticism, because his supporters are distrustful of the media and they're distrustful of the establishment.

KOSIK: Right.

BRADNER: So, being attacked, being criticized from those politicians or from news organizations --

ROMANS: It's oxygen. It's oxygen to him.

BRADNER: It absolutely is. It helps him.

ROMANS: All right. Eric Bradner, really interesting. We'll talk to you. Thanks for getting up early for us. We'll talk to maybe in a half hour or so. So, stick around.

BRADNER: Sounds good.

ROMANS: Thanks, Eric.

KOSIK: New information revealed about the San Bernardino shooters. When they were radicalized and their ties to the friend's guns they used in the attack.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:13:57] KOSIK: New information to bring to you this morning on the San Bernardino terror shootings, as investigators dig deeper into the background of the couple who killed those 14 people. Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik.

Now, Malik's father is speaking from Saudi Arabia. He lives there. Gulzar Ahmad Malik telling "The Associated Press," quote, "Only God knows why did it happen."

Meantime, the head of the FBI says both shooters were radicalized before they met and married.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Was the woman shooter in San Bernardino radicalized before she came to America?

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: It looks like she was. So far, what data we collected, the intelligence, indicates that she was before she connected with the other killer and came here.

GRAHAM: Is there any evidence this marriage was arranged by a terrorist organization or terrorist operative? Or was it just a meeting on the Internet?

COMEY: I don't know the answer to that yet.

GRAHAM: Do you agree with me that if it was arranged by a terrorist operative or organization, that is a game changer?

[05:15:14] COMEY: It would be a very, very important thing to know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: There are also new questions troubling questions about the man who bought some of the assault rifles used in that massacre. His name is Enrique Marquez. He tells the FBI he and Farook planned and dropped an earlier attack. Officials cautioning that Marquez may be lying for some reason to cover up his role buying the weapons used in last week's attack.

CNN's Kyung Lah has the latest for us this morning from San Bernardino.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Alison and Christine, investigators are focusing on the man who purchased the weapons that would be used, two of those long guns that would be used in the San Bernardino massacre, Enrique Marquez. They have been interviewing him.

And U.S. officials tell CNN that Marquez says that he and Farook hatched a 2012 terror plot. They abandoned it because they got spooked. The FBI at that time had made another terror arrest. So, they gave up on this plan.

Marquez also telling U.S. officials that he and Farook had been radicalized as far back as 2011. There are new questions about the visa application process. How Tashfeen Malik, the wife, was able to enter the United States without being detected. She applied for a fiancee visa in Pakistan. Well, now, a senior State Department official is telling that Malik was not questioned about her jihadist leanings. She had already been radicalized but was able to enter the United States without raising any red flags -- Alison, Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSIK: OK, Kyung, thanks for that.

And here we go again. The House will vote Friday on a stop-gap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. Now, it's only going to give lawmakers an additional few days to hammer out a deal. Negotiations on the $1.1 trillion budget plans are stalled because both parties are fighting over riders to the bill. President Obama threatening not to sign the short-term extension tomorrow unless there's a hard and fast agreement with procedural matters to clean up.

ROMANS: The future of the affirmative action is in the hands of the Supreme Court. The justices hearing the case of Abigail Fisher seven years after rejected by the University of Texas-Austin. She claims she was denied admission because she is white.

After a long tense argument Wednesday, many observers believe the court could rule affirmative action unconstitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia remarking that minority students with inferior credentials may be better off at less advanced schools.

KOSIK: President Obama expected to sign a sweeping overhaul of No Child Left Behind into law today. Yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan bill that gives state and local school officials more control over school performance and accountability. No Child Left Behind was a signature law of the George W. Bush administration. Critics said it unfairly punished struggling school.

ROMANS: All right. It's about 18 minutes past the hour. Time for an early start on your money this Thursday morning.

Stock markets down around the world. U.S. stock futures, though, are slightly higher after a loss for the Dow yesterday, another loss. The Dow extended its losing streak. It fell 75 points. The S&P 500 fell almost 1 percent, putting it in negative territory for the year.

So, what's the problem here in the stock markets? Low oil prices. Oil price has been at the lowest in seven years, thanks to OPEC keeping output high. There are a lot of concerns about global demand. Oil prices are the lowest since the recession, does that mean global demand is slowing and does that have bigger ramification about the overall economy.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will fight to protect Muslim users. He posted on his Facebook yesterday, "If you are a Muslim in this community, as a leader of Facebook, I want you to know you are always welcome here and we will fight to protect your rights and create a peaceful and safe environment for you."

He does not mention Donald Trump by named but the Facebook says he was inspired to speak up after the, quote, "hate" seen this week. Trump said he would ban Muslims from entering the United States temporarily.

KOSIK: Did you see? There's a whole lot of NBA action last night. Memphis trailing Detroit in the final moments when the Grizzlies throws up a prayer from midcourt for the win. Was that prayer answered?

Andy Scholes with this morning's bleacher report, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:23:48] KOSIK: Major League Baseball attempting to make the game safer for fans, recommending every team extends the netting behind home plate.

ROMANS: Andy Scholes has more on this morning's bleacher report.

Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, guys.

You know, last season, we saw many fans get injured by foul balls and bats flying into the stands. Well, Major League Baseball hopes this recommendation will make the game safer for the fans setting directly behind the dugouts.

Traditionally, the netting behind home plate, it runs between the batting circles. And on Wednesday, MLB suggested that all teams extend the netting 70 feet from home plate. Red Sox, Dodgers and Phillies all said that they will follow the recommendations and extend their netting. Other teams meanwhile say they already have sufficient netting in place.

All right. Basketball's legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar speaking out against Donald Trump's comments on Muslims. In an essay for TIME Magazine, Jabbar said, quote, "Trump is ISIS' greatest triumph, the perfect Manchurian candidate who instead of offering specific and realistic policies, preys on the fears of the public, doing ISIS job for them."

Donald Trump has not responded to Jabbar's comments.

All right. In the NBA last night, Grizzlies the Pistons by two, as time winding down.

[05:25:01] And Matt Barnes going to get the ball and he's going to take a running shot from half-court. Guess what? It goes in with a second left on the clock. Memphis would get to win, 93-92.

And if you thought that shot was good, check this one out from a Minnesota high school game. Trailing by two with a second left. On the missed free throw. The player chucked it the length of the court. And it goes in. The crowd goes nuts.

ROMANS: No way!

SCHOLES: The player gets tackled by his teammates. Guess what, guys? That kid's name is Oman Oman. Or o-man o-man, which I'm guessing is what his opponents were saying. And you know what? If he tries that shot 100 times, probably only make it once. But he made it the time it counted.

ROMANS: Wow. What a great story. I love that.

KOSIK: A lot of luck on his side for that one.

ROMANS: Last time you brought me a shot like that, she didn't make it. Remember? I'm glad.

SCHOLES: Yes.

ROMANS: Thanks so much. Nice for you, Andy.

SCHOLES: All right.

KOSIK: All right. Donald Trump defending his controversial proposal to stop Muslims from entering the U.S. and warning Republicans to treat him with respect or else.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)