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Police Not Ruling Out Terrorism in OSU Case; Police Respond Quickly To OSU Attacker; OSU Student Talks About Being on Campus; Trump Irritated by Conway's Slams on Romney; Trump Meets with Petraeus Today; Trump Tweets About Illegal Votes. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 28, 2016 - 14:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:08] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Here we go. Top of the hour. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me.

We begin with the breaking news of this violent rampage at Ohio State University today. This man has plowed through a crowd of young people with his car before then getting out and armed with a butcher's knife, started stabbing anyone in his path. What we know right now is that ten people were injured, one listed in critical condition, and the campus swiftly went into lockdown.

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CRAIG STONE, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY POLICE CHIEF: About 9:52 a.m., a male suspect drove a vehicle over the curb at West 19th, west of College Avenue, struck pedestrians. He exited the vehicle and used a butcher knife to start cutting pedestrians. Our officer was on scene in less than a minute and he ended the situation less than a minute. He engaged the suspect and he eliminated the threat. The suspect is DOA.

ANDREW THOMAS, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: There were multiple injuries related to lacerations or cuts. Most likely, as the chief said, from the stab wounds, from the butcher knife. Then there were a number of people that had orthopedic and other soft tissue injuries related to being hit by the car initially. It's our understanding from the other hospitals and it's our knowledge here that none of the individuals appear to have life-threatening injuries at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Nearby, students were told of the unfolding emergency with this chilling text message telling them to, quote, "run, hide, fight." One witness described the suspect as just completely silent during that attack with his knife. As the chaos was unfolding earlier this morning, university officials reported that there was an active shooter on campus. Students were quick to barricade themselves in classrooms here. You see a bunch of chairs piled up. This is what some young people were so desperate to have to do. Some say they even heard gunshots, although it appears those shots were those of the officer who ultimately killed this attacker.

So for more on what exactly happened, Deborah Feyerick is with me, CNN national correspondent.

Just, let's start from the beginning. Take me back.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, absolutely. And it's interesting because this did initially come across as an active shooter. But one of the reasons that may be is because the police officer who responded so quickly initially gave the suspect verbal commands, ordered him, it appears, to drop his weapon. And then, when that fail, he opened fire, essentially neutralizing this threat.

But all of this started about 9:52 this morning. This man in his car drove up onto the curb, hitting a number of pedestrians who were going - who were around the vicinity of that chemical engineering building. Then he got out of his car and started waving this huge butcher's knife around. And an eyewitness said he had a crazy look in his eyes and he was chasing people around. He didn't seem to appear focused on one individual. He was just going in all directions. And that's when that police officer drove up to the scene and was able essentially to neutralize the threat.

Now, part of the problem, Brooke, is that they didn't know whether this man was acting alone or whether there were other individuals. And so what you had was you had two different things going on. For those who were in that immediate vicinity, you had a run, hide, fight situation. So you saw those students inside the classroom, they were barricading the door, trying to protect themselves so that if he did want to go in, and if he did have some sort of an assault rifle, which was the big fear, that, in fact, at least they would be able to block him.

The second thing that was going on was for people who were not in that area, they were told to simply shelter in place because the police officers, you had ATF, FBI, sheriff's deputies and the police officers, all of them needed to get to that area and make sure that they were able to secure it before anybody was sort of allowed to go back and resume life as normal. So you had a lot of different things going on, but really they got lucky because it was one individual, but they didn't know that at the time -

BALDWIN: Right.

FEYERICK: But they did basically launch a massive search for a second individual as well in this parking lot. We don't know why it was in that parking lot, though. That hasn't been made public yet.

BALDWIN: Who - who was this young man? Do we know anything about him?

FEYERICK: Well, officials do. Officials apparently have identified who he is. They're not letting us know yet whether he was a student at the college or whether he had an affiliation with the college, whether he was a naturalized citizen, whether he was not. But what it's looking like now is that he seemed to know the area and so they are going and they are looking at his electronics. They're doing - they're running data checks to see whether he was in contact, perhaps, with anybody who might have had a link to some sort of terrorism. They're also looking to see whether, in fact, he was in contact with anybody stateside, who may be part of this because you've got either copycats or you may have something that is more, and they're looking at that right now. But it appears that this threat, this immediate threat, was, in fact, contained.

BALDWIN: Let me bring in one other voice and I want to just keep you, if you will, in the conversation on just the police response and what we know. David Katz is here, former DEA senior special agent.

[14:05:06] So it's good to see you.

But I guess I think we should just pause and give law enforcement there in Ohio credit for responding as phenomenally quickly as they did.

DAVID KATZ, FORMER SENIOR SPECIAL AGENT, DEA: Yes. Absolutely. They were right on scene. There was a threat. They ended the threat. You can't ask for more than that.

You know, it's worth noting that even though it's a stabbing incident, but if you make the parallel to active shooter, 69 percent of all active shooter incidents are over in five minutes or less, half of those in two minutes or less. In 60 percent of the cases, the police never arrive before the incidents over. So in this case, they did a phenomenal job and saved lives.

BALDWIN: What do you make of how he used his car as a weapon and had a knife?

KATZ: Well, you use - you use whatever you have available. And people don't - really, you have to appreciate how deadly a knife is at close range. A knife in close proximity to other people is every bit as deadly as a gun. Sure, you don't have the standoff distance, but you don't have to reload a knife and virtually anybody can stab or slash. So just because it was a knife, clearly it wasn't a - something - an instrumentality that wasn't dangerous. It was. And the car, of course, we saw in France, the same - the same level of lethality.

BALDWIN: Made me think of Nice, and a much, much, much smaller degree.

How do you, when you don't know, as a member of law enforcement, you know, you don't know what's happened. You've heard about a car potentially as a weapon. There's a knife. I mean, overall, how they handled this and also what they're doing right now in terms of putting the pieces together to figure out why he did what he did.

KATZ: Well, two questions. When you get the response - the initial call, hopefully you have some specificity. It's an individual with a description and a location. If you have that, it makes your job easier, of course. If you don't, then, of course, you have to wait until you can identify the assailant.

Second question, what they're doing now is they're going to look back. They're going to look back at who he was communicating with on his cell phone or on his computer, if he has one. Columbus, believe it or not, is a very interesting area. There's a tremendously large number of immigrants from Somalia, for example. And there's a large radicalized segment there. So I'm - but I have no knowledge as to whether that's - that plays into this but -

BALDWIN: Yes, we don't know. We don't know.

KATZ: But -

BALDWIN: They may know, to Deb's point, they may know, but we don't know.

KATZ: Yes, they - I'm sure they do. They certainly know. But, in any case, they're checking to see who he was in contact with and if he, in fact, was either directed or acted alone.

BALDWIN: Yes.

FEYERICK: Yes, and one other very important thing is that when the police officer arrived, he did try to give him individual commands, verbal commands. And that's really the way it's supposed to play out. You don't just open fire. You try to neutralize - you basically try to de-escalate the situation. By de-escalating it, you tell somebody to drop their weapon. You want to make sure that the people who are in the vicinity get out and that they're secure, that they're safe. Give them some time. And according to an eyewitness, apparently once the area around the attacker was clear, only then did that police officer open fire. You want to make very sure that there aren't -

BALDWIN: Yes.

FEYERICK: There's no collateral damage. That there isn't somebody who's running past the gun - in this particular case the attacker or that there's somebody behind. So the police officer did give the verbal commands, make sure the area around the attacker was clear and it appears that then is when he opened fire.

BALDWIN: Let me bring in Addison O'Connor. Addison is on the phone, an Ohio State freshman.

Addison, are you OK?

ADDISON O'CONNOR, FRESHMAN, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY (via telephone): Yes, I'm good. We're a little - it's a little scary around here, but we're all safe, so -

BALDWIN: I'm so happy to hear that. I'm just so sorry for what had to happen this morning. What - where were you? Did you see or hear anything?

O'CONNOR: Actually, I was walking to the bus station, there's a bus stop next to my building, to go to class, and I ended up missing it by a few minutes. And right when I got to the stop, I got the Buckeye Alert, which said about the shooter, and I still wasn't sure if I should go to class or not. But a professor came up to me and said, no, go back into your building and stay inside and stay safe. And it was just really crazy because if I hadn't missed my bus, my class was right next to Watts Hall.

BALDWIN: So instead -

O'CONNOR: So I was really lucky.

BALDWIN: Very lucky. Very lucky, Addison. Tell me - tell me what you did instead and how long you were there?

O'CONNOR: What I did instead of going to class?

BALDWIN: Did you go - want to go back to your dorm room?

O'CONNOR: Yes, I went back to my dorm room. Honestly, the Buckeye Alert, I was really thankful for that because if I didn't receive that text, I wouldn't have known about the shooting going on and I probably would have just walked to class instead of take the bus.

BALDWIN: Good on Ohio State - good on Ohio State for doing that as quickly as they did.

Addison, thank you so much. Thinking about you, and, of course, everyone there in college. Cannot imagine how shaken I would feel as a college freshman.

Addison, thank you so much.

David and Deb, I appreciate it. The latest here out of Columbus, Ohio.

Let's move along, though. Coming up next, a busy day at Trump Tower as the president-elect interviews multiple people for potential cabinet spots, including retired General David Petraeus, who we're told just walked into those front doors there on Fifth Avenue. All of this as Trump's inner circle is speaking quite vocally, quite publicly, about who they think he should or should not be choosing for secretary of state and how Trump is reacting to all of this in private.

[14:10:16] Plus, a major development today in the shooter in that Charleston shooting from two Junes ago. He's facing murder and hate crime charges in the shooting death of nine people at that Mother Emanuel AME Church. The defendant's unusual move today in court and how it could dramatically impact the trial and the loved ones affected.

You're watching CNN.

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BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Of course we're staying on top of the breaking news, an attack on the campus of Ohio State University and what we're learning about this suspect.

Meantime, in politics, we're talking about Donald Trump, the president-elect. His transition team says that Mr. Trump is also watching developments from Columbus. As he is monitoring the situation there, he is also working to shape his future cabinet. He has got a full agenda today, meeting with more than eight potential hires, including General David Petraeus, who just walked into Trump Tower.

[14:15:01] The former CIA director, whose career ended in a scandal, has become a dark horse potentially in the race for Trump's secretary of state choice. General Petraeus may turn out to be the alternative to Trump's allies who are pushing for fellow loyalist and a former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, and establishment Republicans who back former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Governor Romney is scheduled to be Trump's final meeting of the day tomorrow.

So, let's go to our CNN chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, who has the scoop.

First to you, you know, when I was watching you on "State of the Union," you know, Kellyanne Conway made some - made some news talking about her - the negative feedback and really making all of this so public, this feud. Let's listen to a little bit of what she had to say about Governor Romney.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP'S SENIOR ADVISER: I'm all for party unity, but I'm not sure that we have to pay for that with the secretary of state position. But, again, let me repeat, what Donald Trump decides, Kellyanne Conway and everybody else will respect. It's just the backlash from the grassroots. I'm hearing from people who say, hey, my parents died penniless, but I gave $216 to Donald Trump's campaign and I would feel betrayed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This is stunning to see how public this internal feud is becoming. What are your sources telling you about how Mr. Trump is feeling?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously, you know, conflicted about - just about the secretary of state position. The fact that both - that Rudy Giuliani, somebody who was incredibly loyal to him, even when the "Access Hollywood" tape came on, remember, he was the only one to still go on TV -

BALDWIN: Right.

BASH: And defend Donald Trump. He's been publicly lobbying for the job. And then, of course, you have some inside the Trump camp who want Mitt Romney. And you're absolutely right, Brooke, I mean, I've never seen anything like this before. Just put that on the very long list of things we've never seen anything like when it comes, not just to the Trump campaign, but now the Trump transition and soon-to-be presidency, meaning that she clearly has given advice to Donald Trump in private, but to say this in public kind of gives you a sense of where things stand, not just with - as she was talking about, the base being very upset and, more importantly, Trump's loyal supporters being upset at the notion of him picking somebody who is so publicly brutally critical of him, but also about the fact that it just seems as though, given the fact that she's saying so publicly, seems to be some of the internal struggles within Trump world right now. Reince Priebus, the incoming chief of staff, and maybe some of the old loyalists are trying to figure out what to do.

I will tell you that I was told this morning by a Trump source that Mr. Trump himself was irritated by that public criticism, but then Kellyanne Conway herself told me earlier today, Brooke, that she did not get that from Trump. That they've spoken several times yesterday and this morning and that he understands that she is just incredibly loyal and that that is what is coming out in her criticism of Romney.

BALDWIN: OK, I'm trying to - I'm trying to follow you and connect all of the dots and how who feels about what. But, you know, I know that Kellyanne has a direct line to the president-elect.

BASH: Yes, she does.

BALDWIN: And so I'm befuddled. Let me just read for you the David Axelrod tweet as we are in the land of the unprecedented. David Axelrod sort of floated this out there. This is the alternative theory. "Kellyanne was assigned the role of trashing Mitt Romney, otherwise it's an unbelievable breach." I mean is that so far-fetched to think that this could be just choreographed?

BASH: You mean like kabuki theater?

BALDWIN: Yes.

BASH: Is it far-fetched? No, it's not far-fetched. I don't - I don't necessarily think it is. I think that there really is a tug of war over whether to go with somebody like Mitt Romney or whether to go with somebody who is more of a Trump loyalist, like Rudy Giuliani, who, you know, could have some - he certainly has support in the Senate, but could have some hurdles.

I think it's very telling that David Petraeus walked into Trump Tower, that you showed that picture before, because, you know, that move and the move to bring in Senator Bob Corker, who is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who is also somebody who has a lot of respect on the world stage and is a lot less controversial than Romney or Giuliani, that that tells you that perhaps the - the internal tug of war of Romney versus Giuliani may be solved with just an alternative person altogether.

BALDWIN: Maybe - maybe a Petraeus, maybe a Corker.

BASH: Exactly.

BALDWIN: But before I let you go, we just - we just have to juxtapose, you know, what's happening in the east and at Trump Tower with, you know, Governor Romney's wholesome, Brooks Brother catalogue-esque, you know, Twitter photos of his family out in San Diego over the weekend that we have, and we'll throw up on the screen. And I just keep wondering, what is - what is Mitt Romney thinking when he's seeing and hearing all of this feuding so publicly? BASH: You know, for the most part, people who are close to him insist

that he's kind of zen. I think what that picture shows is like, I'll be fine. I'm good. I've got an awesome family.

[14:20:08] BALDWIN: I've got my family. Yes.

BASH: I've got an awesome life. I've got a lot of money. I've got a lot of houses. I've got a lot of tremendous grandchildren and I'm good. I'm OK.

BALDWIN: Yes.

BASH: I think that's very much what that tweet was probably intended to show, in addition to just, like, it's Thanksgiving and I'm - here I am with my family.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

BASH: It's pretty clear.

BALDWIN: OK. Dana, thank you. Welcome back, by the way. We missed you.

BASH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

Next, Green Party nominee Jill Stein, she is launching this recount effort in three states. We talked about that. What's new is now the Clinton campaign has signed on. The president-elect is calling the whole thing a scam, but then fires off his own baseless allegations of voter fraud. We'll discuss all of it, next.

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[14:25:18] BALDWIN: While there is absolutely no evidence of hacking, the recount is to begin near the end of this week in the state of Wisconsin. Election officials there are promising a fair process, but turned down a request to count the ballots by hand. They are responding specifically to this request from Green Party candidate Jill Stein who asked for a recount because of some reported statistical anomalies in the vote tally.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has also signed on to participate in that recount effort. All of this has now rattled the president-elect, who called out Hillary Clinton for taking part. But he himself has now cast a dark shadow over the presidential ballot, tweeting this, "in addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." Trump, at this point, is about 2 million votes behind Clinton in the popular vote.

So, to our senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny we go.

Jeff, first and foremost, this is false. Let's just go ahead and say, you know, the Trump claim is false.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BALDWIN: Why is he doing this? He won.

ZELENY: Great question. And, Brooke, I can tell you, just the Republicans I've talked to today who are, you know, preparing for a Trump administration have no idea why he's doing this. They think, in one respect, perhaps he's trying to hang yet another shiny object out there so a lot of us are talking about this and not talking about some of the other things in the news, conflicts of interest, et cetera.

But he certainly does not have any evidence to back up his claim of millions of people voting illegally, for one. And if he did, some other people, you know, sort ask, well, then why wouldn't you want there to be a recount? And there actually is going to be a recount now. Most likely in the state of Wisconsin because Green Party candidate Jill Stein has requested it. She's going to pay for it.

So the Wisconsin board of elections met this morning, the election commissioners, and they denied her request for a hand recount of every ballot in all 72 counties. They said counties can hand recount them if they want, but they are going to re-tabulate all of them. And they say they will have that done by December 12th if she pays the tab of $1 million by tomorrow. So that is something that is going forward.

But the election commissioner in Wisconsin, the head of this bipartisan election board, he really chastised Donald Trump today at a meeting in Madison. And he said, look, elections are run by individual people, Republicans and Democrats, who uphold this system here. So how dare you say that, you know, people are voting illegally here. So a lot of people on both sides of the aisle have no idea what he's talking about and frankly wish he would move on to building his cabinet and other things.

BALDWIN: Well, I think it's really important to go back half a step because I want you to tell me, where is Trump getting this information from, this false claim about millions of people illegally voting for Secretary Clinton?

ZELENY: It's a great question. I don't have an exact answer to that. There are a lot of conspiracy theories out there on info wars and some other websites and things.

BALDWIN: Conspiracy theories?

ZELENY: Exactly, that aren't, you know, just legitimate, quite frankly. So there is no evidence of this. And the thing about elections, we talked about this before the Election Day so often, they're run by Republicans and Democrats. So by doing this, he is also besmirching the integrity of election officials from his own party here. So there's no evidence of this at all. In fact, his officials, his aides were asked about this on a transition conference call this morning and they could not provide any evidence and, frankly, just wanted to move on, move off this topic onto something else here.

So, we've not heard him talk about it, you know, in several hours.

BALDWIN: Right.

ZELENY: We'll see if he sort of mentions it again. But as of now, Brooke, it's one of those tweets he sends out, sort of hangs there. He's still doing it as president-elect.

BALDWIN: It's just an - it's an important question to ask. He's our president-elect and we should see where he gets his news from.

ZELENY: Right.

BALDWIN: Jeff Zeleny, thank you.

ZELENY: Thanks, Brooke.

[14:29:14] BALDWIN: Coming up next, the accused gunman in that Charleston church shooting will represent himself at his murder trial. I mean, just imagine this, for loved ones who will be testifying, being questioned, cross-examined by him. We will talk to someone who was inside the courtroom this morning for this process. Some potential jurors were questioned. Do not miss this.

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