FBI: Agents tracking dozens of potential copycat terrorists
Counterterrorism experts weigh in on 'The Kelly File'
This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," November 19, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight, a new terror threat against the United States. And a chilling warning from the FBI director himself.
Welcome to "The Kelly File," everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Late today FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke on camera about recent events in Paris. Seeking to reassure the American people that there is no credible threat against America at this time. But it was what happened off camera that caused concern. Away from the microphone, Director Comey told reporters that dozens of people in the U.S. right now are being intently watched by the FBI. People the entire risk for launching copycat attacks to the one that we saw in Paris.
He also noted that pure Americans are trying to join ISIS overseas, which could potentially be so that they can follow the ISIS mandate to now, quote, "kill where you are." The news comes as the Holiday season dawn for America. Shoppers starting to fill malls, tourists' attractions such as New York City's Times Square despite the fact that terrorists have tried to hit this spot before. Sources tell Fox News the Feds will maintain a heightened posture throughout the holiday season. And Americans may notice heavily armed personnel around busy landmarks. Still, authorities want to get one message across, loud and clear. Living in fear lets the terrorist win.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BRATTON, NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: We cannot be intimidated. And that's what terrorists seek to do. They seek to create fear, they seek to intimidate. We will not be intimidated. And we will not live in fear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: But fear is certainly the terrorists' goal. As ISIS releases yet another propaganda video today threatening to destroy the west and specifically to turn the White House black with fire.
In moments we will speak with two of the country's most expected counterterrorism experts, Tim Clemente and Seth Jones are here. But we begin with Trace Gallagher with the very latest from our breaking news desk. Trace?
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, ISIS has singled out major cities like New York and D.C. as attacks target but the entire country is certainly more on edge today than it was a week ago. And that concerns being echoed by the federal government, the FBI, Homeland Security, joint terrorism task forces are all, quote, "heightening their posture" through the holiday season. Because the holidays tend to offer more target rich environments.
So, everyone from travelers to shoppers to sports fans can expect to see a much larger, physical law enforcement presence at highly populated areas. For example, in D.C., residents will see random bag checks with train stations and armguards around the capital. But the real key to the so-called heightened presence is the un-seen law enforcements. The ones monitoring surveillance and gathering intelligence. The FBI is vowing to follow-up every lead and credible tip that comes in which means increasing the number of agents working around the clock at field offices from coast to coast. No easy task. Considering the FBI is now investigating some 900 ISIS related individuals. And of those, "The Kelly File" has learned that quote, "Dozens are being intently watched" because they are believed to be ISIS sympathizers deemed a high risk for a copycat attacks. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: Together, we are watching people of concern using all of our local tools. We will keep watching them, and if we see something, we'll work to disrupt it. That's what we're doing about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: But consider that one day, around the clock surveillance on a single ISIS target might involve 30 agents. The FBI director says, the number of Americans travelling to Syria to join ISIS is dropping. But he admits that might be because ISIS is urging people not to travel so they can kill where they are. So far we're told there is no creditable threat to the homeland but France was also working under the no credible threat umbrella -- Megyn.
KELLY: Uh-hm. Exactly right, Trace. Thank you. So what does this mean for America right now?
Tim Clemente is a retired FBI counterterrorism agent who advised the U.S. military in Iraq. Seth Jones served as advisor to the commanding general, U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan and director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation. Thank you both for being here.
Tim, let me start with you. There's no credible threat. And yet, we see ISIS twice in two days come out with a threat against the United States. It was Washington, DC. It was Times Square. And now today it's specifically the White House and in this message they say, we will destroy your towers, speaking to the U.S. and France. We will destroy your towers. And goes on to say, we have started by you, we will end at the so-called White House which will turn into black with our fires. Your take on it.
TIM CLEMENTE, FORMER FBI COUNTERTERRORISM AGENT: Well, I would say, some of what they're saying Megyn is obviously braggadocios. They're trying to make themselves appear bigger than they are. The threat is obviously very real. As Trace just said in that segment that there was no credible threat before the Paris attacks. We don't necessarily have to have intelligence in order for an attack to occur. It doesn't work that way. It's the other way around. An attack sometimes encourage without intelligence and we used intelligence sometimes to preempt attacks.
In this case, Director Comey wants the American people to be vigilant but not to live in fear. Because vigilance is good. Overwhelming fear causes people to do things that don't necessarily help law enforcement. We don't want hundreds of thousands of calls going to the local police, the federal authorities like the FBI that are suspicious activities that have no credible threat in them. So, people need to be vigilant, be aware of their surroundings and look for things that really matter and then notify authorities.
KELLY: Seth I know your concern because we have brushed ISIS back somewhat, they were in a much more aggressive position a year ago. Ten months ago. And your message is that is when terrorist groups like this sometimes increase the terrorism on their western targets and other targets even more so.
SETH JONES, FORMER SPECIAL OPS ADVISER: Megyn, that's right. I mean, what we've seen in a few cases historically, we've seen it most recently with Al Shabaab, they've actually lost ground in areas and just think for a moment. ISIS is now every major power, every neighboring country is now targeting it in Iraq and Syria. We've seen it with some recent historical patterns like Al Shabaab in Somalia. They increased in these situations, they're terrorists' strikes against malls --
KELLY: Why?
JONES: Against universities. Well, it's because they're not controlling the ground that they're used to. So they're taking those resources and putting it to terrorist attack. They also do it in some cases, we saw it in Spain in 2004, they try to get foreign forces out of their land. And remember in Spain after the Madrid attacks, the Spanish pulled their forces out of Iraq. So, they coerced them.
KELLY: What about this, you know, the FBI director saying they've got 900 ISIS individuals that they're watching. Dozens intensely being watched and dozens of potential copy cats that they're keeping a close look at them. I mean, we were told that the FBI only has the ability to monitor 60 to 70 people 24/7. So, if that's true, you know, the mass suggests there could be others who they are not monitoring 24/7. And what do we do about them? Because I just had Congressman McCaul on the other day and said, what are we doing about increasing the FBI funding and basically the answer was, nothing.
CLEMENTE: Well, the FBI has to work with the resources it has and I'm sure many many agents especially in New York and Washington, are taxed to the hilt. They're probably working round the clock shifts without days off. It happens often times especially around the holidays where there's an increase of awareness or a specific threat. So, the FBI is going to do the best that they can. They're going to try and look at the individual stat, look more suspicious. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean physically, it means their activities, they're a little more active on e-mail or on twitter or dealing with overseas personnel that may be suspicious. So, it's a tough job, it's an impossible job to complete percent effectively but the FBI is doing everything.
KELLY: What about -- we're going to get this later on the show. But now there are reports that ISIS has its eyes set on chemical weapons. How hard would that be Seth? Because we know al Qaeda has been, they'd been shooting for that for 20 years and they haven't as far as we know gotten it and they certainly hadn't been able to launch an attack against the west with it.
JONES: Well, Megyn, we know that ISIS has tried to get their hands on sarin. It's used mustard in the Iraq Syria context. To actually get those materials into the U.S. or to try to get it to conduct an attack in the U.S. using chemical or biological weapons would be pretty difficult. There are very few organizations, one of them is Amsharikio (ph) in Japan that have attempted to do this. They didn't kill a lot of people but they did scare a lot of people. But to actually execute the attack and to get the ingredient and a pure form or to aerosolize them and get them out to a neighborhood does take some level of sophistication. It's not clear that they have it, at least at this point.
KELLY: I just want to say, before we go, and I don't think we say it enough that we ran the stats tonight. Just to remind, folks, you have a much better chance of being killed by a bolt of lightning or by a shark attack than you do of dying in a terrorist attack. And the terrorist win when they instill that fear, fear of going outside. Fear of eating at a cafe or going to a shopping mall. And that's what the FBI director was trying to bring home tonight.
Gentlemen, thank you.
CLEMENTE: Thanks, Megyn.
KELLY: A breaking tonight. Dramatic new fallout after more than three dozen Democrats defy President Obama and vote with the Republicans to slow down the flow of these Syrian refugees coming into the United States. Senator Marco Rubio is here on what may happen, next.
Plus, there's new evidence coming to light that suggests the White House ignored direct warnings about the rise of ISIS and the grave danger it would pose.
Marc Thiessen and Richard Socarides, are next on that.
And as presidential candidate Donald Trump is pressed on setting up a registry for American Muslims in whether he would do that, we are getting new video out of Virginia where some folks are going very public with their opposition to a new mosque.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are terrorists. Every one of you re terrorists. I don't care what you say. You can smile at me. You can say whatever you want, but every Muslim is a terrorist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GLENN BECK, FOUNDER OF THEBLAZE: The fruit cart guy that set himself on fire in Tunisia, the President said that was Rosa Parks. Let me show you how we got to Paris. He sets himself on fire, that trips into the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring, it goes into the collapse of Libya. Because of the collapse in Libya, we have an immigration problem in Spain, Italy and France. The migrants just starts going over. We realized that because all of these things are collapsing, we know that Syria is on the verge of collapse. We start running guns out of Benghazi into Syria. Because we run guns, we create ISIS. All of these decisions the President has championed. That causes the refugee crises in Germany and France and all over Europe and that's how we get to Paris. This guy is wrong every single time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: That was Glenn Beck on "The Kelly File" just a few days ago detailing what he says are series of mistakes by this administration leading up to Friday's terror attacks in Paris. Tonight, the former head of U.S. military intelligence is adding to that saying that his agency specifically warned the White House of the growing ISIS threat and those warnings were ignored. In August, 2012, the Defense Intelligence Agency or DIA, this is a sister to the CIA reported that growing chaos in Syria was giving ISIS' predecessors the space to flourish and potentially established an Islamic State. The DIA warned of the quote, "Grave danger this posts." The man who run that agency under President Obama, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn now reveals publicly that, quote, "This particular report, this was one of those nobody wanted to see. It was disregarded by the White House. Frankly, at the White House, it didn't meet the narrative."
Marc Thiessen is a Fox News contributor and former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Richard Socarides is a former White House senior advisor to President Bill Clinton. Thank you both for being here.
MARC THIESSEN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you, Megyn.
KELLY: Marc, it didn't meet the narrative. What narrative?
THIESSEN: No, that's exactly right. This is the report right here. August 2012, it was delivered to President Obama. What was happening in August, 2012, we were three months away from a president election in which Barack Obama was campaigning on the promise that he had won, ended the war in Iraq. And two, put al Qaeda on the path to defeat. Those are the exact quotes from the President. This DIA report informed the President that one, the war in Iraq was not over, that it could flare up very quickly. And, two, al Qaeda and Iraq was not on the path to defeat. It was rising. President Obama did not want to hear that so he put his head in the sand, he dismissed them as the jayvee team and the results have been disastrous. Everything that the DIA said in that report and more has come to pass.
KELLY: Richard?
RICHARD SOCARIDES, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRES. BILL CLINTON: Well, Megyn, first of all, you know, these are not new allegations from Mr. Flynn. He's not making this in regard to --
KELLY: So, what?
SOCARIDES: -- Paris. I think, you know, he's been saying this for a while. And I think the assertions in that memo are so general, that they're not really actionable. So, I mean, I think it's the equivalent of saying, you know, things could get worse. While things could get worse and I think he made an educated guess and they did get worse.
KELLY: You don't think the fact that this warning came in August of 2012 when he was facing a re-election in November of 2012? That hadn't anything to do with it.
SOCARIDES: No. Because I think the warning, that's nothing you can do with the warning. It's the raffle equivalent of saying, things could get worse and in fact they did get worse but even they ignore anything --
KELLY: But Marc, that was not the only warning. It wasn't just this warning by General Flynn.
THIESSEN: Absolutely not.
SOCARIDES: I don't understand what Mr. Flynn is saying he ignored, what is it that Mr. Flynn is alleging that was ignored?
KELLY: Go ahead, Marc.
THIESSEN: I will tell you what Mr. Flynn is alleging was ignored. And it was not just this DIA report. If it was just one intelligence report and that would be one thing. In 2012, that same year, President Obama's entire National Security team, General Petraeus, Secretary Panetta, Marty Dempsey and even Hillary Clinton came to him and warned him about the threat in Syria and urged him to fund the free Syrian army to have a robust training equip. And Congressman Ed Royce, last summer, revealed that it was not just this National Security team, the Iraqi government was warning him. Since August of 2013, the Iraqi government was begging, begging Barack Obama to carry up bombings next year --
KELLY: Go ahead, Richard.
SOCARIDES: So, this becomes not so much the discussion of this memo of course. But whether or not President Obama has done all the right things to combat this threat.
KELLY: Whether he underestimated the threat. Whether he underestimated the threat, Richard.
SOCARIDES: I mean, listen, in the face of what's happened last week, you can say, we all underestimated the threat. I mean, I think that we obviously have to do more.
KELLY: You think General Flynn underestimated it.
SOCARIDES: But I don't -- what we don't know is what has been prevented. You know, I think this is a very complicated issue and I think, Megyn --
KELLY: We're talking about a president who calls them jayvee, Richard.
SOCARIDES: Megyn --
KELLY: Listen. I give you John Brennan, head of the CIA. And what the status he puts on ISIS, this is what he says President Obama inherited when it came to ISIS. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BRENNAN, CIA DIRECTOR: It was, you know, pretty much decimated, when U.S. forces were there in Iraq. It had maybe, 700 or so adherents left. And then it grew quite a bit in the last several years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: It certainly did.
SOCARIDES: Well, and certainly now we're seeing that it's a very powerful enemy. So, you don't know it now, but what we don't know is what has been preventing. We don't know what has been successful. We know what we're dealing with now is very scary and that people have a right to be scared. And we need to be strong. We need to take more.
KELLY: They are. They are. They also -- right to some accountability, Marc.
SOCARIDES: Well, listen --
THIESSEN: We do know what's been successful, Richard. We do know. We know that ISIS has been successful in taking over territory the size of Great Britain.
SOCARIDES: Well, but what we do not know --
THIESSEN: No, hold on. Let me finish. Hold on. Let me finish.
KELLY: Let him finish, go ahead, Marc.
THIESSEN: They've taken over territory the size of Great Britain. They are bringing in according to the RAND Institution. They're bringing in $1.2 billion. They are the largest wealthiest most powerful terror network in history. And it happened on Barack Obama's watch --
SOCARIDES: Megyn --
THIESSEN: And he was sworned by the DIA, by the CIA, by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by his own secretary of defense.
KELLY: Okay. All right. Go ahead, Richard. Last word.
SOCARIDES: My point is that we don't know what has been prevented. We don't know --
KELLY: Well, you already said that. Make a new point of you want the floor.
(LAUGHTER)
SOCARIDES: Okay. The point is that this is a very complicated enemy and we'll have to be stronger and do more.
KELLY: Richard, you fought too hard to get the airtime back to say just that general nonsense. Come on!
SOCARIDES: What do you mean general nonsense?
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: I want specifics. Let's go. Come on!
SOCARIDES: I mean, I don't know. I don't know what the point is. I mean, do we have to do more? Yes, we have to do more.
KELLY: I'd like to hear what the counter of that is. What is the counter? We don't know what they prevented. People are scared. They're looking for accountability. President Obama wants to take this law the Republican's fault. Look at the history. Glenn Beck went through some of it. He's not all along.
SOCARIDES: That is not the history. To say that President Obama has gotten this all-wrong, I think he's done a lot right. He's prevented. He's clearly prevented. The kind of attack we saw on 9/11 and we'll have to do more to prevent the Paris attack.
KELLY: You had your chance. You mapped it. I got to go. Richard, great to see you.
SOCARIDES: Thank you, Megyn.
THIESSEN: Thanks, Megyn.
KELLY: Also tonight, we have now gone through surveillance video of a terrorist attack on a Paris restaurant last Friday. We will not only show you what we discovered, but we'll speak with two combat veterans about what some folks did that may have saved their lives.
Plus, as presidential candidate Donald Trump suggests some U.S. mosques should be under surveillance. We will speak with Dr. Zuhdi Jasser about what Trump got right and the backlash now being seen across parts of this country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody, nobody, nobody wants your evil cult in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight, new video coming to light showing the refugee issue is not the only thing that has some Americans concerned in the wake of the Paris attacks. A public presentation for a new mosque in Virginia turned hostile when some of the people in the crowd became very vocal about their opposition to the plan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody, nobody, nobody wants your evil cult in this --
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me tell you what. Let me tell you what.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't want it. We don't want it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll do everything in my power to make sure that does not happen
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't want it. Because you're terrorists. Every one of you are terrorists. I don't care what you say. I don't care what you think. You can smile at me. You can say whatever you want. But every Muslim is a terrorist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Hmm. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser is founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and author of "A Battle For the Soul for Islam." Zuhdi, good to see you. I mean, that is just -- the truth is that's how many people feel. It's an evil cult and all Muslims are terrorists. It's getting stirred up now in the wake of Paris.
DR. ZUHDI JASSER, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY: Oh! And Megyn, thanks for having me. You know, I listen to that and I understand the visceral response America's having. I understand that they wondering where the leadership is. And, yes, they have a leadership problem. And as I talked about in my book, we helped build a mosque here in Scottsdale, here in Arizona after 9/11. And there was a similar type of rise up when we asked for permission in November of 2001. But the majority of Americans came to our defense and said, you know, the terrorists want us to have these freedoms taken away. And in countries where you shutdown mosques are countries where radical Islam flourish and countries that are free where you can shed the light of day upon political Islam that radicalizes Muslims. Those ideas begin to dissipate.
KELLY: Explain that. Why is radical Islam flourish when you shutdown mosque and crackdown on, you know, the Muslim community as that man would suggests.
JASSER: Because the Muslim brotherhood thrives on victimization. They thrive on underground networks. Not allowing the truth to happen. They say one thing in public and another thing underground. But just as we (INAUDIBLE) of Ohio. Even our Supreme Court, that as long as openly preaching violence, we can better suppress hate speech as the KKK in that ruling. And the Nazi party by allowing them to exist and shedding the light of day. Europe has a bigger problem with hate speech because of their hate laws, number one.
Secondly Megyn, as the Canadians, like Mark Stein and others, what happens when you start shutting down facilities. The Islamist used those laws against you to shutdown criticism of Islam and Islamism, et cetera. So, it happened a lot of ways.
KELLY: Let me ask you about Donald Trump. Because he was asked, these are not his words. They were put to him by a Yahoo interviewer and he was asked whether his push for increased surveillance on American Muslims could include warrantless searches and whether they could include the requirement that Muslims register in a data base or use special IDs in response to which he said we're going to have to look at a lot of things very closely. We're going to have to do things that we never did before. Your take on that?
JASSER: Well, you know, listen. My parents escaped the fascist regime in Syria to come to freedom in America. Because this is the lavatory that allows us to fit ideas like Islamism and political Islamic theocracy. We can't just be, you know, listen, our leaders need to be precise and accurate when we talk about our laws and what we will do and what we will not do. And yes, our leaders need to identify Islamism as the disease. The organization of Islamic cooperation as the evil empire. But we also need to identify that our environment, our lavatory to counter those ideas as the solution.
So, we can start doing things to Muslims that we won't do to any other group. And start denying the fact that our liberty is the greatest solution that Muslims in this time of history Megyn that the founding fathers were encountering theocracy, where a young faith, young immigrant community were barely 1400 years old as a religion, we're going through cataclysmic reforms. The best solution to that is American liberty. If we start to compromise that, that security of (INAUDIBLE) and it will only get worse. Ask Egypt. Ask the Geekistan, that label (INAUDIBLE) mosques. It doesn't work.
KELLY: It doesn't worked out so well. Zuhdi, good to see you.
JASSER: Thanks, Megyn.
KELLY: As we've mentioned earlier, we are also investigating new reports from U.S. intelligence agencies worried about efforts by this terror group to get its hands on chemical weapons now. And, as ISIS appears to be on the warpath to Syrian refugees left in the terror army's wake are seeking asylum around the world. But what if just one of those Syrians trying to get into the United States has terrorist ambitions. That's what people are worried about. Senator Marco Rubio has some thoughts on it and he joins us, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Earlier today, we received reports from Iraqi and U.S. intelligence officials who are telling the Associated Press that the Islamic state is aggressively seeking to produce chemical weapons. Reportedly using scientist in the Middle East to do research and experimentation.
Trace Gallagher is live in our West Coast newsroom tonight with that story. Trace?
GALLAGHER: Megyn, those who track ISIS say the terror group's current chemical weapons arsenals are made up of things that were scavenge when they overrun parts of Iraq and Syria like chlorine and mustard gas.
And we know in August, ISIS used mustard gas against Kurdish fighters outside of Aleppo. Beyond that, U.S. intelligence officials do not believe ISIS has the capability to develop sophisticated weapon like nerve gas, that post the biggest civilian populations.
Former U.S. Intel agents say al Qaeda tried for years to develop chemical weapons and failed. But experts also point that U.S. intelligence has consistently underestimated the Islamic state. And unlike al Qaeda, ISIS has shown itself to be much more innovative with much better funding.
A senior Iraqi intelligence official who wants to remain anonymous told the Associated Press, quote, "They, meaning ISIS, now have complete freedom to select locations for their labs and production sites and have a wide range of experts, both civilian and military to aid them."
Those experts reportedly include former members of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons program. Iraq has also confirmed issuing its military 1000 protective suits against chemical attacks. And then there was the eye raising statement from the French Prime Minister saying ISIS could replace bullets and bombs with something just as deadly. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANUEL VALLS, FRENCH PRIME MINISTER (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): And I say it with precaution, but we know it today, and we haven't denied, there is also a possible risk of chemical or bacteriological weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: And when your goal is to attack major cities, the pursuit of chemical in any level is alarming on every level. Megyn.
KELLY: Trace, thank you. Well, we also have two very big items tonight on the issue of Syrian refugees. First, the prime -- the French Prime Minister today blasted the European Union over its border control system.
Saying he thinks the Paris attackers used the refugee crisis to slip into Europe, despite the fact that the ringleader was a known jihadist and the subject of an international arrest warrant.
Then, late today, more than three dozen house democrats delivered a stunning blow to President Obama, voting with republicans to slow the flow of Syrians into the United States. The final count was 289 to 137, a big enough margin for the House to override a presidential veto. Despite heavy pushback from President Obama and from Hillary Clinton.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We cannot allow terrorists and to intimidate us into abandoning our values and our humanitarian obligations. That is just not who we are. We are better than that.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The idea of that somehow they pause a more significant threat than all of the tourists who pour into the United States every single day. It just doesn't jive with reality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Joining me now presidential candidate and republican Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio. Senator, good to see you tonight. So, your thoughts on that? The accusation that...
(CROSSTALK)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FLA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.
KELLY: ... as you feel that we should pause the influx of the Syrian refugees is un-American.
RUBIO: The first -- well, the president and Hillary Clinton are completely out of touch of reality, they're taking this incredibly extreme position. That what needs to happen here is that you can't let people that enough they can't pass a background check.
But what's so outrageous about that. This country, the number obligation of the Federal government is to us safe. This is not about slamming the door on anybody. This is about the reality that we should not allow anyone into country unless we know who they are and they can pass a background check.
And in the case of people coming from the Middle East, it is very difficult to conduct an accurate background check. Because this is one of those issues where you allow 10,000 people in, you get 9,999 of them right, but you've missed on one of them, you've allowed an ISIS fighter into the country.
And so that's what the issue is and that's why it doesn't surprise that three dozen democrats broke from the party because the president has taken an extreme position on this.
KELLY: So, the House has enough to override a presidential veto. What's going to happen in the Senate?
RUBIO: Well, as you know in the Senate, we have some peculiar rules including the needs for 60 votes. But I think we can get the democrats, at least 4, or 5, 6, 7, 8 democrats to come on board.
KELLY: Really?
RUBIO: It's clear where the American people are and that's what we're going to need and then of course, we need to veto proof of majority. This makes no sense to me. Why the president is going down this down. All you need to say is it's not that we don't want to allow the people in. It's that we may not be able to because we can't conduct background checks on all of them.
KELLY: Right. But that's what the president says is, you tell me.
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIO: But there is no government you can call.
KELLY: Because what the president says is he came out and mocked the GOP this week saying you're afraid of widows and orphans, but you think you can take on Putin.
RUBIO: But, look, I mean, one thing is a widow and orphan. But the vast majority of people that are applying for entry are not just widows and orphans. It's all sorts of people. Many of whom as I said are -- in fact -- in fact, not most of them are seeking a refuge from oppression or whatever it may be.
But my -- but the problem is that if you just get one or them or two of them or three of them wrong, you've got a big problem. And we know that ISIS is deliberately using the refugee crisis to insert fighters into Europe, why wouldn't they do the same in the United States.
And as own agencies, the federal agencies are telling us there is no way we can conduct the kind of background checks on people from the Middle East that we conduct in other parts of the world.
Because there's just no verification system. There is no database, there is no country -- there is no government we can just call up. Doctor forgeries which are rampant in that part of the world now as evidenced yesterday.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: It in Honduras.
RUBIO: What happened in Honduras.
KELLY: Yes, and in Honduras and what happened in Honduras.
RUBIO: And so -- in Honduras.
KELLY: So, but, here...
RUBIO: Yes?
KELLY: What do you make of the plan of some of the republicans like Senator Cruz had suggested this is an option of letting in the Christians, but not the Muslims, which President Obama and Hillary Clinton, both say, no, that's just, that is playing into the terrorist narrative of, you know, we discriminate against Muslims in the United States.
RUBIO: Well, first of all, that's already part of the law. The law says you have to have a basis for which you are being persecuted. And one of those tests is a religious test. And clearly, Christians are not just persecuted; they're slaughtered in the Middle East.
And so, that is a grounds already. We have already have a religious test than the existing law and that is applied. But even there, you have to be able to pass some level of backgrounds check.
Now perhaps it might be easier on someone that's a well-known member of a Christian community or a well-established community. It might be easier. It's not -- it's not that we're discriminating against anybody. It's that you cannot allow people in this environment unless you know exactly who they are and why they're coming.
And my point is, it is exceedingly difficult to do that with people coming from that part of the world right now.
KELLY: There's been a lot of talk about what we should be doing here in the United States with respect to mosques now. And one of your fellow candidates, Donald Trump is suggesting we may need to close mosques that have problems with radicals at the top. What do you say?
RUBIO: Well, I think we need to target radicalism. A lot of it is actually happening online, not simply in mosques. The vast majority of the mosques in America is not...
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: But the mosques piece is a controversial piece, so where do you stand on that?
RUBIO: Well, I think it's not about closing down mosques. It's about closing down any place. Whether it's a cafe, a diner, an Internet spot. Any place where radicals are being inspired.
And that we have -- the biggest problem we have is our inability to find out what these places are because we've crippled our intelligence programs, both through an authorized disclosure by a traitor, in other words, Snowden, or by some of the things that this president has put in place for the support even of some from my own party to diminish our intelligence capabilities.
So, whatever facilities being used, it's not just a mosques. Any facility that's being used to radicalize and inspire attacks against the United States should be a place that we look at.
KELLY: Senator Marco Rubio, great to see you.
RUBIO: Thank you.
KELLY: Well, also, tonight, we have now gone through surveillance video of the terrorist attack on a Paris restaurant last Friday. And we will not only show you what we discovered next but we will speak with two combat veterans about what some folks did that -- done it that may save their lives. This could be helpful to more than just those. Listen.
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KELLY: Breaking tonight. We are getting an up close look at the horror unleashed on innocent Parisians last Friday night. The Dailymail.com obtaining exclusive video from inside, one of the restaurants targeted by the terrorists. And we must warn you it is disturbing.
It starts at 9.34 p.m. the customers are seen on video outside of a Parisian cafe, eating and laughing, unaware that in moments they will be part of the worst terror attack in French history, 9.34.09 p.m. all hell breaks loose.
The view from three different cameras suddenly obscured as a hail of bullets and flying glass tear into this establishment. Behind the counter two co-workers cling to each other and hide. One of them manages to crawls down nearby stairs.
Those are tables, duck and cover. Within moments, a young woman stumbles into the restaurant. She's been hit and hurls herself behind the bar, where a 20-year-old waitress then cradles her.
Seconds later, another customer races inside. Bulls fly around him, missing him by inches, 11 seconds into the attack, the first glimpse of the attacker. He's carrying an assault rifle is eerily come, he sees something, raises his riffle and shoots.
For a few seconds it seems the gunmen maybe gone. Two people outside run for their lives and then the terrorist reappears. And this is perhaps the most chilling and the miraculous moment of the whole ordeal.
He hovers by the door, but does not come inside. Two women are hiding under an outside table. The terrorist lefts his gun putting it inches from one woman's head. But the gun appears to jammed or ran out of bullets. And the devil walks away, 51 seconds after the first bullet was fired.
A car pulls up and the gunman jumps in. The car drives away from the now shattered restaurant where were hurt, but no one was killed.
joining me now Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL, and Jack Murphy, a former army ranger. They are with the veteran run news site Sofrep.com and the authors of "The ISIS Solution." Guys, thank you very much for being.
BRANDON WEBB, FORMER NAVY SEAL: Thanks for having me.
JACK MURPHY, FORMER ARMY RANGER: Thank you.
KELLY: I mean, it's chilling when you watch that woman who was seconds away from losing her life. And you have some thought on how one can protect oneself. God forbid, there in an active shooter-type situation. Brandon, what would you say as the number one thing?
WEBB: Well, just from watching that video you can see every one that survived that incident ran. And they ran for cover, either whether it's behind the counter or downstairs and you really -- you have to get off the act. As what we call in the -- in the special ops communities so that the point of impact you have to get away from there and create distance.
So, running and hiding behind cover and making some decision rather than just sitting there, I mean, the pure lock that that gun jammed or ran out of bullets. And the other thing to pay attention to is these are very inexperience gunmen usually and they don't know how to change their magazines out when they ran out of bullets. So, listening for that low and fire and then running and creating that space is very important.
KELLY: The other thing is the odds are in your favor if you run.
MURPHY: As heavily in your favor. You have to remember that these people are amateurs at that time of the day. They're not very well-trained. They're just out there freelancing and trying to do their own thing. They're odds of actually hitting you with un-aimed fire is pretty well interaction. Just spraying their weapons. You can see that from the bullet holes on the side of the cafe after the attacks.
KELLY: So, it's very, well, the odds of them actually hitting you if you're running zigzag away.
MURPHY: Especially if you're running away, you're moving. That odds to them hitting a moving target or tremendous with smallest.
WEBB: It's challenging for a sniper to hit a moving target.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: What about somebody like that poor woman who find herself, you know, face to face with the barrel of his rifle. She can't run. A person like, I mean, obviously where terror caper her because God was looking over her. But just -- I mean, if you are face-to-face.
WEBB: You have no other option in that situation other than to fight and confront. I mean, grab the barrel, get out of the way. I live in the city I can't carry a weapon but I carry -- my every day I carry this high lumen flashlight, and just something just like this will flash blind somebody and create enough...
KELLY: And you did it to millions of people.
WEBB: ... and create enough distance to get away at someone stake.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: You told me that years ago and I have one and it does make me feel much better just to give you a couple of extra seconds. I know that you also talked about avoiding a grenade. Like how -- how would you survive if a grenade went off? I mean, that actually happened in Paris. And I guess try to get away. But try to get down.
MURPHY: Yes, grenades tend to explode go upward. The fragmentation going upward to hit the chest or waist or the chest level. So, you want to get low and roll away if possible.
KELLY: And is there any sort of psychological advice? I mean, you're supposed to engage somebody at all.
MURPHY: I mean, for the average civilian who are not prepared enough to actually engage a terrorist in an environment like this. But I think you have to remember that making any decision is better than no decision. So, run left, run left, run right, run forward, run back but don't freeze up.
WEBB: And you can't mentally hurt, switch to teach our sniper students to rehearse this scenario on their heads. Someone could close their eyes and imagine themselves in the scenario and what they would do and rehearse it a few times and see you've already practiced in those...
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: I know you talked about getting behinds something like a concrete wall and not a trash can where -- which a bullet could go through. You need actual cover.
WEBB: Yes.
KELLY: You, guys, thank you. Good luck with the book.
MURPHY: Thanks, Megyn.
WEBB: Thank you.
KELLY: Up next, new details tonight on the woman who became Europe's first female suicide bomber.
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KELLY: Breaking tonight. We are learning more about the young woman involved in that six-hour siege in France. The young woman died an extremist death when she detonated a suicide vest.
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(GUNFIRE)
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Joining me now live from Paris, Jake Wallis Simons, a reporter from the Daily Mail who interviewed a few of this woman's friends. Jake, what did you find out?
JAKE WALLIS SIMONS, THE DAILY MAIL REPORTER: Well, Megyn, thanks for having me back. Over the last couple of days, myself and my colleagues from the Dailymail.com, have been pain -- painstakingly piecing together the background to Hasna Ait Boulahcen, the 26-year-old woman who blew herself up just a couple of days ago in Paris, using a bomb that was so powerful that we're told that her head and her spine flew out of the window and landed on a police car.
And I have to say that the more answers we get, the more questions are raised. We found a selfie that she took recently that was confirmed by five different people who knew her that showed her posing naked in a bubble bath wearing nothing but jewelry.
Now this has not conformed to our expectations of what a conservative Islamic Jihadi is. And tantalizingly, it seems that she wasn't the only one in the terrorist cell who wasn't quite as religious as they appear.
I spoke myself to an eye witness who saw the ringleader of the gang Abdelhamid Abaaoud sitting on his -- on the step of his apartment just a few hours after the attacks in Paris that claimed 129 lives -- drinking from a big bottle of whisky.
And he offered to my eye witness who declined it as he prefers beer, he told me. But this just paints a picture of two people who are very different what you might expect. And the real -- the real question for Americans and Europeans is that, what would background checks actually have shown looking into these people.
We know that Hasna Ait Boulahcen growing up was a terror way. She was tomboy, she was pernicious with many casual sexual partners. She drunk and she smokes and she was a rebel. She only converted to radical Islamic extremism within the last year.
And she only started wearing an Islamic face veil and the niqab, just a few months ago. There seems to be very little for the police to go on and very little evidence that she was an extremist.
KELLY: Yes.
SIMONS: And this is very worrying for a lot of the Americans and Europeans for like we've been speaking to here on the ground.
KELLY: Jake, thank you very much. They say that's how it happens when the women are involved, they know someone who was her cousin.
We'll be right back.
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KELLY: We are all in here talking about that woman and those shocking pictures of this female jihadi.
I love to get your thoughts on it. Go to facebook.com/thekellyfile and share them. Thanks for watching. I'm Megyn Kelly. This is "The Kelly File."
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