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Guns in America; Deadly Battle Still Rages in Ramadi; U.S. Service Member Killed in Afghanistan. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired January 5, 2016 - 10:30   ET

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


[10:29:47] DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, everyone. I'm Deborah Feyerick in for Carol Costello. Thanks for joining me.

President Obama is set to unveil his plans today aimed at gun violence. His expected executive action has now angered many gun owners across the country. CNN's Gary Tuchman went inside one of the largest shows in America to get their perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Organizers refer to it as ` of aisles. You can buy guns here from retail booths and from private dealers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm selling a Mossberg 12-gauge bolt action.

TUCHMAN: How much?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $200.

TUCHMAN: And this gun is what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a Mossberg 16-gauge, bolt action.

TUCHMAN: How much was it sold for?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $150.

TUCHMAN: And business at what is called the nation's gun show in Chantilly, Virginia is good, so good the ATMs have run out of money. There are first-time buyers' galore.

What's made you decide to buy a gun?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's the possibility that our laws might change and we're not going to have that ability to protect ourselves.

TUCHMAN: President Obama taking executive action on guns has alarmed many of the people here. Annette Elliott is the president and owner of the company that puts on the show and about 85 others in the U.S. each year.

What do you think the President of the United States really wants to do when it comes to guns?

ANNETTE ELLIOTT, SNOWMASTERS GUN SHOWS: Well, I think the end game with a lot of Democrats is to confiscate them. I think that --

TUCHMAN: Is that what you think? Is that what you think?

ELLIOTT: That's sure.

TUCHMAN: Is that what you think the President wants to do?

ELLIOTT: Maybe, yes. I think maybe he does.

TUCHMAN: Another show the reason is jammed --

ELLIOTT: The ISIS threat has increased business. That immediately increased business.

OWEN YUMANG, GUN BUYER: I used to be a zero gun, you know, guy, but nowadays you don't even know who your opponents are. You have to be ready.

TUCHMAN: Opinions here are not black and white. There are people here who feel there should be an increase in firearms regulation, but what is extremely prevalent is a deep distrust and suspicion of the motivations of the federal government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a Winchester 300.

TUCHMAN: How much do you want to sell it for?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I want to be about six for it.

TUCHMAN: $600?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TUCHMAN: If you buy a gun from someone in the business of dealing in firearms, federal law requires background checks. And that's what's happening here. The information is then fed into computers before customers are allowed to buy their guns. Police are present to arrest people when the computer checks indicate criminal violations, but the private dealers are not legally required to conduct background checks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would ask you for a Virginia driver's license. That way I know you're from within the state.

TUCHMAN: But if I gave you a fake Virginia driver's license, you would never know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would have no idea.

TUCHMAN: Would you trust me? Do I have an honest face? Would you sell it to me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would trust you. You have an honest face. TUCHMAN: But that being said, sometimes if you don't think

someone has an honest face, you get a bad vibe, you don't sell it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to go with your gut instincts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a competition M1-A. It's a civilian version of the M-14.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an SD 40V Smith and Wesson, 40 caliber. It's a lot like a Glock.

TUCHMAN: Jerry Cochran is one of the retailers doing a booming business here.

JERRY COCHRAN, GUN RETAILER: We sell any kind of gun, any kind of legal gun you can buy.

TUCHMAN: He's also one of the minority of people here who thinks things should be more stringent.

COCHRAN: I'm for expanded background checks. I think with a gun that if somebody is engaging in the business they ought to go through a background check. I've been at this 35 years, I've never sold a gun without a background check.

TUCHMAN: Many here believe the government needs to be more concerned about mental illness than making it harder to buy a gun. But they are aware things are about to change.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's Obama, you know. He wants to do what he thinks is in the best interest of the country. I disagree strongly with him on this issue.

TUCHMAN: Gary Tuchman, CNN, Chantilly, Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: And the President's proposed action would set aside $500 million for mental health care.

Now, according to a recent CNN/ORC poll, the country is truly split -- 48 percent of Americans said they were in favor of stricter gun control laws while 51 percent were opposed. When you break those numbers down among party lines there's a sharp divide with 74 percent of Democrats in favor of stricter laws while just 23 percent of Republicans feel the same way.

With me now to discuss is political commentator Ross Douthat and the director for the Center for Politics at University of Virginia, Larry Sabato.

So Ross, how is Obama's plan going to resonate with voters?

ROSS DOUTHAT, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's actually a very strange move, I think, by the President because on the one hand, the political optics of doing a big -- or what's being cast as a major executive action on guns seems calculated to feed the kind of anxieties that we just saw in the last segment. People who feel like, you know, the President wants to do something big on guns and they better buy guns now because they're going to be confiscated tomorrow.

So you have this sort of the heightening of the political stakes but then the actual impact of the move, as far as I can tell is extremely modest. It basically involves slightly tweaking the distinction between who gets to count as just a private seller, who doesn't need a background check to sell guns, and who counts as a gun dealer, so on. It's hard to imagine it having much of an impact at all on gun sales one way or another.

[10:35:03] So in a sense the gun owners are wrong in a way to worry because this really is a very modest move.

On the other hand, it's a situation where the President is doing something that's inevitably going to look controversial for very little practical reward.

FEYERICK: So, Larry, talk a little bit about that because we've heard words that really sort of don't make it seem as if the proposed executive action has any real teeth to it. The President is doing really what he can, but it's effectively going after the low-hanging fruit.

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Yes, I think that's basically correct. But look, politically it has two effects. It energizes the Democratic base and, therefore, potentially the turnout in a big election year. And it energizes the Republican base and potentially the turnout in a big election year.

So it's another one of these zero sum games that we play with social issues. That whole cluster of social issues -- gun control, abortion, gay rights, immigration -- increasingly, those are the issues that divide us and help to reinforce the basic partisan split that defines the country.

FEYERICK: You talk about, Larry, the basic partisan split. The country is so deeply polarized. Is there any candidate that will emerge as a unifier, effectively, Larry?

SABATO: No. I think -- I can't give you a long answer to that because as I look at the candidates on both sides, quite naturally, they're playing to their party base to get the nomination. Once they get the nomination, they're going to reflect the party platform and the party platform reflects the polarization. So -- no.

FEYERICK: And Ross, when you look -- go ahead, Ross. Last word.

DOUTHAT: I was just going to say, Larry's right that these cluster of culture war issues do divide us but they divide us in different ways and the numbers move in different ways. And gun control has been a losing issue for liberals and Democrats for a little while now in a way that, say, same-sex marriage has not been. And it's true that Obama is sort of mobilizing his own base as

well as the Republican base, but the Republican Party just has many more voters who care deeply about guns than does the Democratic Party. And overall, the country has swung in a more anti-gun control direction over the last 20 years.

So if you're just -- again not every culture war issue is created equal. Some culture war issues liberals are winning, on this one, conservatives and especially gun rights activists are winning and I don't think that this move going to change that.

FEYERICK: All right. Ross Douthat, Larry Sabato -- thank you both so very much, gentlemen. Happy New Year.

DOUTHAT: Happy New Year.

SABATO: Same to you.

FEYERICK: And still to come -- Iraqi forces may have celebrated the liberation of Ramadi last week, but ISIS militants remain and the deadly battle is raging on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:41:18] FEYERICK: The deadly war on ISIS continues in Ramadi. Iraqi forces celebrated the liberation of the key city last week but ISIS militants who first took Ramadi in May -- they remain, along with deadly booby traps.

CNN's senior international correspondent Nima Elbagir is live in Iraq with more on the devastation and the toll that it's had on civilians. Nima -- what do you see?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Deb, it is so hard to get any kind of numbers for the fallout from this, but in one district, on only one day, the clean-up crews, the counter terrorist clean-up crews who were taking the bodies to burial, told us that they counted 50 bodies.

This is what they showed us -- Deb.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELBAGIR: Iraqi helicopters keep a watchful eye in the sky above and all around what remains of Ramadi after six months of ISIS rule.

Driving through here, you just really get hit by the desolation, the devastation that was visited on this city. What the air strikes and the ground offensive didn't destroy, ISIS rigged to blow.

Ramadi fell in May last year and since then, the Iraqi counterterrorist officers have battled to reclaim it, every inch and advance through the unknown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone here -- ok?

ELBAGIR: Yes, here ok.

The only way we can safely walk is in his foot steps. Even though they've cleared this area, even though they've held it for the last few days, there are still areas within this that are booby- trapped.

Ramadi was home to nearly a million people. Today as troops continue their push, we're told possibly over 1,000 families remain trapped facing death amidst the rubble. As the battle for Ramadi has raged, it's been hard to get a sense of the toll on civilians. But in this video filmed for CNN, you can see soldiers race across a sniper alley to escort back a white-flag waving boy and his family. Those who can't walk are carried, all desperate to escape.

This man describes the horror his family faced. "ISIS tried to take us away," he says. "Young, old, ill -- they wanted to take us all."

In this clip, soldiers gather what remains of the dead. Some, like this woman, appear to have been shot; others blown to pieces by IEDs. Much of what was filmed is too graphic to show you, like the remains of a little boy carried to burial.

All over Ramadi, remnants of ISIS' rule still stand. This is what would have been an ISIS suicide car bomb. You can see the keys actually still inside the ignition. They climb in through the top.

There's a hole cut out of the roof around here, around the back, this is where they pack the explosives here in the bed of the pickup truck. Cars like these are what have been coming towards the Iraqi forces every single day since liberation packed full of explosives ready to blow.

The head of Iraq's counter terror force told us the liberation of Ramadi should be celebrated around the world; that this is just the first of the victories to come.

Here in Ramadi, night falls, more rescued families escape.

[10:45:01] This little girl can't stop crying. For her, for now, all that matters is she's safe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELBAGIR: There are hundreds of families just like the ones we showed you there, Deb, still trapped inside Ramadi. And it is dangerous. It is painstaking. It is slow. But Iraqi forces are trying to bring out as many as they can whenever they can.

FEYERICK: It's just remarkable to see the images, the bodies, the families who weathered this time in Ramadi. It's got to almost have the feeling of a ghost town, doesn't it, as you drive through there, Nima?

ELBAGIR: Absolutely. Some kind of abandoned, haunted, extraordinarily macabre town. And then every once in a while you'll hear a voice. You'll see something that makes you remember that people live here. You'll see an abandoned shoe or a kid's notebook.

The hope is -- I mean, we always talk about taking territory and holding territory. I think it's often easy to lose sight of the fact that these were people's homes and that the end goal of this isn't to take and keep and hold. It is to create a reality where people can come home and live their lives.

FEYERICK: And that's going to take quite a long time. Nima Elbagir, thank you so much for that. Stay safe.

And still to come, new demands from that armed protest in Oregon. The sheriff's message this morning for the activists, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FEYERICK: We have breaking news out of southern Afghanistan involving U.S. troops.

[10:50:01] Let's get right to CNN's chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. And Jim -- what are you learning?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Deb -- this is what we're learning now. The deadly fire fight involving U.S. Special Operations Forces, a joint operation with Afghan commandos -- this was in Marja in Helmand Province in the south of Afghanistan, during that fire fight we are told, I'm told by a senior defense official that there was one U.S. soldier killed in action. There were other casualties as well.

After the fire fight a U.S. medevac helicopter landed at the site. While it was on the ground, it was hit by mortar fire, a mortar shell exploding nearby. There was concern that that mortar damaged the rotors of that helicopter -- might have made it difficult for it to take off, but they were able to take off -- the helicopter not in danger.

But this was a deadly fire fight. Let me just repeat again -- one U.S. Soldier killed in action. There are other injuries.

Keep in mind, it was a joint U.S./Afghan operations with possibility those injuries include both U.S. and Afghan soldiers. Initial reports of something worse -- this now looks to be still a deadly fire fight but that the helicopter was not damaged beyond repair. It was able to take off -- Deb.

FEYERICK: All right. Jim Sciutto -- thanks much. We'll let you get back to your sources and get more details for us. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

FEYERICK: And we go to CNN military analyst, Lt. Col. Rick Francona. Colonel, talk to me about U.S. Special Ops in that region. What are they doing and how are they working in concert with the Afghan forces?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Deb, this is part of the ongoing mission in Afghanistan. It's not only to train and advise the Afghan forces. It's also to conduct counterterrorism operations. That's what this was.

They're doing this either alone or in concert with the Afghan forces. This happened to be a join operation. This is aside from the normal mission. So we see this going on every day. This one happened to have a fire fight in which an American soldier, unfortunately, was killed.

FEYERICK: You look at the interaction and obviously we go back to Afghanistan. There's such a debate right now as to whether there should be more troops on the ground. What sort of an impact does something like this have just even in terms of either policy or whether U.S. forces are sent to very hostile regions?

FRANCONA: Yes, this is going to be part of the ongoing debate. It's going to happen very soon. General Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan has said that there's been -- a series of proposals to the Pentagon and that they were not going to sit well in Washington.

We can translate that into meaning that he's going to ask for a higher level of troops than what is scheduled. We're scheduled to draw down at the end of this year to about 5,500 troops. He does not believe that's sufficient.

We have incidents like this and we see the Taliban on the rise, particularly in Helmand Province. This has been a hotbed for Taliban activity. He's going to want more troops and more troops of the Special Forces variety that can conduct these counterterrorism operations to go after the Taliban where they are.

FEYERICK: And just final question, when you look at this, again, with the debate centering on whether troops go in or not, what is the advantage, for example, of having special operations forces on the ground, working with the locals, working with troops friendly to the U.S.?

FRANCONA: Well, it's also -- it's always good to have American forces to do these operations because, of course, our forces are the best and they do this for a living. They've got years and years of experience behind them doing this.

As we try and train the Afghans to do this we find that it's been very difficult to get them up to the level of competence needed to conduct these very, very technical, very, very sensitive operations. So, the more U.S. Special forces troops we have in country, the more effective we can be going after these Taliban resurgences.

FEYERICK: All right. Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, we thank you for jumping so quickly on this for us. We appreciate it.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:57:09] FEYERICK: New demands in that Oregon face-off between

armed protesters and the government. The group's spokesman Ammon Bundy tweeting last night, they won't leave until the Hammonds are freed and the federal government gives up control of the Malheur National Forest.

But now a stunning revelation: Ammon Bundy didn't always detest the government. CNN just learning that in 2010 he received more than $500,000 from a federal loan program.

Paul Vercammen is in Oregon following the latest developments for us. And Paul -- what are you witnessing right now?

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now here at this compound in Malheur, you can see behind me that they had still locked the entrance to it, and then as you also suggested that trickle of information that back in 2010 Ammon Bundy did, indeed, receive a $530,000 loan through the Small Business Administration. That loan for his Valley Fleet Services, that's the truck maintenance company out of Arizona.

Of course, Ammon Bundy, the son of Cliven, well known for the standoff they had in (inaudible) when if suggesting that the federal government get off a lot of this land here. A shameless land grab. He's wants to bring attention to it. He's calling his group the citizens for Constitutional Freedom.

But in the meantime, there has been a side effect to all of this. For example, in Burns, public schools are closed. There seems to be a lot of frustration there. The sheriff said in so many words that he wants Ammon Bundy and the rest of these demonstrators to get out of town.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF DAVID WARD, HARNEY COUNTY, OREGON: You said you were here to help the citizens of Harney County. That help ended when a peaceful protest became an armed occupation. The Hammonds have turned themselves in. It's time for you to leave our community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And the Hammonds are the father and son ranchers from around here who are indicted on arson charges and are serving the rest of their sentence. The Hammonds have distanced themselves from the protesters here, saying, you know, support this move to take over this complex of buildings on the remote Malheur Reserve. Back to you now -- Deborah.

FEYERICK: Yes, Paul. It's just so interesting to see this group, these armed activists kind of walking around. You say you haven't seen any firearms per se. But they're just walking around. It's almost like they're visiting this wildlife refuge, not sort of taking it or occupying it under siege conditions. They say they're ready. They said they're prepared and they said they're willing to wait it out. It's very cold where you are. We see that. Of course, we'll be

following this much more as the days progress. Paul Vercammen -- thank you so much.

That will do it for me. Thank you so much for joining me this Tuesday. I'm Deborah Feyerick for Carol Costello.

"AT THIS HOUR" with Berman and Bolduan starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Hello everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: And I'm John Berman. We do have breaking news this morning. A firefighter -