Transcripts For MSNBCW Melissa Harris-Perry 20151205

broadcast two of its followers carried out the attacks, according to reuters. did not claim it directed the attack. and u.s. officials say there's no evidence they did so. the attackers, syed farouk and tashfeen malik, were killed by police. announced that the fbi is investigating the shooting as an act of terror. >> as of today, based on the information and the facts as we know them, we are now investigating these horrific acts as an act of terrorism. >> the director of the fbi, james comey, on the possible terror connections in the case. >> the investigation so far has developed indications of radicalization by the killers and of a potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations. so far, we have no indication these killers are part of an organized larger group or form part of a cell. there's no indication that they are part of a network. >> he also said the suspects had not been on the fbi's radar. law enforcement sources told nbc news one of the suspects, malik, posted an oath of allegiance on the islamic state on facebook just before the shooting. joining us now for the very latest is nbc's chris jansing. chris, where is the investigation? >> this is a very hard focus on the electronic evidence. one of the things we heard from correct comey is they have a large volume of it. two cell phones were found smashed and in a nearby garbage can. they have flown those to quantico, virginia. the fbi has highly sophisticated labs including the operational technology division that has a number of sub units. each of them are focused on retrieving evidence from these kinds of situations. it's not uncommon someone tried to destroy anything that might be part of a digital footprint. they also have somebody called the computer analysis lab. they will look very specifically at what they can extract. gps components will be very important to where they traveled. would that lead them to people or places where they got some of the equipment we know now is inside their home that looked like a virtual bomb factory. any kind of records that would give them indication of how this came together. the one big question which they don't have the answer to, which is motive. this is a couple leading essentially a double life. we haven't found anyone who seemed to have any inclination to suggest they were in any way unhappy, had been radicalized or had been doing anything but living the american dream here. yesterday, when we talked to the husband's sister, she clearly was in a state of shock, talking about a couple who was celebrating the fact they had a 6-month-old baby, how he would play with that baby for hours at a time. and then the questions about the disconnect between what they clearly did in this building behind me and what happened in the days leading up to it. there was a scare yesterday at a local u.p.s. facility because there was a package addressed to them. it turned out there were clothes in it they had ordered online. do you order clothes online if you are planning to commit a terrorist attack? a lot of things that just don't make sense. one of the ways the director put it, it a lot of evidence in this case that doesn't quite make sense. so they really are in the early stages of this. but hundreds of investigators literally all around the world who are looking into this motive and what really happened here. >> thank you, to chris jansing in san bernardino, california. it took about 48 hours after wednesday's shooting for the fbi to declare it is investigating the shooting of an act of terrorism. authorities were previously unsure, saying the shootings may have been motivated by something more mundane, namely a workplace dispute. one of the shooters had for years worked at the department. the investigation continued and the fbi increasingly suspected tear is. >> there's a number of pieces of evidence that has essentially pushed us off the cliff to say we're now investigating this as an act of terrorism. >> joining me, the executive director of the terror project and author of the upcoming back, defeating isis, who they are, how they fight and what they believe. we heard from chris there there's confusion. that there seem to be things that don't add up. what are you seeing? >> there are many things about this story that don't add up. let's walk it back to the initial attack. if these people were radicalized, they had tactical equipment, they had very long high caliber weapons. they went to this party, they carried out this massacre. which would make you ask the initial question, why wouldn't they have gone to a bigger target, a better target? why would they have such a personally focused target? so that's question number one. question number two is most people who do this sort of thing, they will carry out an attack and they generally won't leave a 6-month-old baby behind. we've seen it in nigeria boca more rom, they killed their baby before the attack. i've seen it in iraq, people use their baby as their bomb. but we've never seen one where they hand the baby off to the mother, i'm going to the doctor, and then carry out at terrorist attack. it's a hybrid. it's almost a combination between a workplace violence incident, which may have precipitated and stopped a much more larger attack on a target in the area. >> something else in the context. we also heard there that hundreds of investigators are looking at evidence. the big thing that happened on air yesterday though was that dozens of members of the american media including some of my colleagues, went into the home where this couple was living after apparently the fbi had already been through. walked through. there was like a live feed of us watching these things. i guess i am wondering in a moment like that for me, both whether or not there's any sense there would be valuable evidence that media would uncover but i keep hearing this radicalization. i found those images very hard to watch. i wonder whether those images become troubling images for the rest of the world. >> well, they could actually become troubling images. it depends on the media team of isis who are very, very good at exploiting propaganda. believe me, we have not yet seen the isis video that will come out in the next few days where they probably will take claims for this attack and show how these lives of people afterwards were ripped apart by the news media. you watched them going through the baby crib. you watched them checking the pampers. granted, the news media, sort of its own intelligence collection information and you wanted to know something other people didn't know and it generally wasn't going to be left behind but perhaps this could have been handled better. >> something the president said about preventing ideology from taking hold. >> even as we work to prevent attacks, all of us, government, law enforcement, communities, faith leaders, need to work together to prevent people from falling victim to these hateful ideologies. >> what do you make of this language? when we're not quite sure yet when the motivations are? >> i think the president speaking in a much grander sense, you know. in terms of he of course is the person who is briefed of either aspect of this. there are intelligence factors here which may have been briefed to him from a national security level. so things we may not know about happening in syria, he may have on his desk. the ideology here clearly played itself out in the way they carried out the attack. we see indicators of the ideology in the way they carved out their family and abandoned their family. that's a core ideological factor. part of the dogma of al qaeda and isis ideology, which is leave your family behind and emigrate either mentally or physically to the place where jihadists operate. so i think the president himself understands that. to do something, you have to call upon the community to at least give you any indicator but this ideology works without indications in many circumstances because they're not islamic, they leave islam behind. the painful part is the muslim community around the states and around the world are going to suffer for that. >> that's a critical point. because i think the way we often talk about as though this is an outbirth of islam. >> no, this is a cult. islam has had five different cults in its history. in 644. in the 11th century. and then this one who seized the grand mosque in mecca in 1979 and those survivors went into al qaeda. this ideology is so unislamic it's anti-islamic. they consider the muslim world their victim base. >> malcolm nans is going to be with us next back on the program. next, the surgeance of guns. so jill, i know the markets have taken a hit lately. mmm hmm. just wanted to touch base. we came to manage over $800 billion in assets, through face time when you really need it. it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. erectile dysfunction get and ya kkeep an erection. guys with talk to your doctor about viagra. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension. your blood pressure could drop to an unsafe level. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. ask your doctor about viagra. count on being slammed this hwith orders. we're getting slammed with orders. and my customers knowing right when their packages arrive. totally slammed! introducing real-time delivery notifications. one more reason this is our season. i absolutely love my new but the rent is outrageous. good thing geico offers affordable renters insurance. with great coverage it protects my personal belongings should they get damaged, stolen or destroyed. [doorbell] uh, excuse me. delivery. hey. lo mein, szechwan chicken, chopsticks, soy sauce and you got some fortune cookies. have a good one. ah, these small new york apartments... protect your belongings. let geico help you with renters insurance. i'm a senior field technician for pg&e here in san jose. pg&e is using new technology to improve our system, replacing pipelines throughout the city of san jose, to provide safe and reliable services. raising a family here in the city of san jose has been a wonderful experience. my oldest son now works for pg&e. when i do get a chance, an opportunity to work with him, it's always a pleasure. i love my job and i care about the work i do. i know how hard our crews work for our customers. i want them to know that they do have a safe and reliable system. together, we're building a better california. many americans choose not to do holiday shopping on thanksgiving weekend. retail spending dropped 11% over the thanksgiving weekend. sales at retail stores on black friday were down $1.2 billion. the two key factors, more people shopping online and more stores offering their so-called black friday deals actually over the course of several days. now, it's too soon to tell but maybe this is the beginning of the end of the tradition of a single day of massive spike in sales to feed our frenzy of consumerism. black friday is just not the day for shopping it once was. unless you're in the market for a gun. apparently black friday was the day for you. even as a shooting rampage played out, the "new york times" reports that the fbi was busy processing about 2 firearm background checking per second. all told, "the times" reports that, quote, the agency ran a record 185,345 background checks on friday. about 5% more than the number processed through the national criminal background check system on that same day in 2014. throughout the year, month after month after month has seen a record number of background checks for gun purchases. according to the bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms. gun manufacturing is up, way up. a report released showed gun manufacturing in america started climbing in '09. the first year president obama was in office. by 2013 had doubled. that's how many guns were made in the united states in 2013. the last year for which we have data. according to the national shooting sports foundation companies in the united states that manufacture distribute and sell firearms and hunting equipment employ as many as 128,000 people in the country. and generate an additional 133,000 jobs in supplier industries. the nssf puts the total economic impact of making and selling guns ammunition and hunting equipment at 42.9 billion. billion. with a "b." in 2014. and the gunmakers well let's just look. it's more than half a billion dollars in sales last year. smith & wesson's stock price is up 93% this year. in its latest conference call, the company said the reason for strong sales is simple, high demand. shooting after shooting. body after body. the inaction is staggering. and the polling shows us that america is near evenly split between those who say it's more important to control gun ownership versus those who prioritize the protection of gun rights. and we think the political divide on the issue or the power of the nra and it's $250 million operating budget leads to its lack of political will to enact meaningful gun reform. maybe. just maybe the economic impact of $42.9 billion thanks to the manufacturing and sale of guns in america is playing part in that politics too. it was epic. i can't believe i got it. that's my boy. woah! look! that's my boy. you're proud to give each other your best every day. and at banquet, we want to give you our best. that's why we're adding 20% more chicken to our chicken pot pies with golden, flaky crusts. that's my mom. now serving... a better banquet. iand quit a lot,t but ended up nowhere. now i use this. the nicoderm cq patch, with unique extended release technology, helps prevent the urge to smoke all day. i want this time to be my last time. that's why i choose nicoderm cq. it takesi'm on the move.. to all day long...ss. and sometimes, i just don't eat the way i should. so i drink boost to get the nutrition that i'm missing. boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a great taste. i don't plan on slowing down any time soon. stay strong. stay active with boost. now try new boost® compact and 100 calories. some of these experimentse're notmay not work.il. but a few might shape the future. like turning algae into biofuel... ...new technology for capturing co2 emissions... ...and cars twice as efficient as the average car today. ideas exxonmobil scientists are working on to make energy go further... ...no matter how many tries it takes. energy lives here. at ally bank no branches equals great rates. it's a fact. kind of like shopping hungry equals overshopping. in the immediate aftermath of the shootings, before we knew about the suspects involved, we knew we'd hear one thing. that we've come to expect. an offering of thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families. politicians and others took to social media and air waves to say essentially the same thing even if the words were different. it's a common reaction. but this time there was also a sense that thoughts and prayers may not be enough. headlines like this one from the huffington post. another mass shooting. another deluge of prayers. as the motive was under investigation, some focused on the deadly weapons. noting that prayer in the absence of meaningful gun policy change is insufficient. in connecticut, 20 children were shot and killed in newtown in 2012, tweeted this message, your thoughts should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. your prayers should be for forgiveness if you do nothing again. the "new york daily news" put it bluntly with the cover reading, god is not fixing this. as we learn more about the motives, it appears many are re-examining the role of prayer in our response. joining me now, the president of auburn theological seminary. and you lone da pierce, associate professor at a seminary. because of the work of auburn, is it about the public discourse about religion, so when we tweet prayers, when we say i'm praying for you, what are we saying, what is the context of that? >> i think what we're saying is we're aligning ourselves with those suffering and we're also beingaging it's not just humaning doing this but god is grieved and we believe god suffered with all of those in this case those who have lost family members in these shootings. so it's aligning us with the role of god. it's aligning us with all those other people who are grieving and with those who are suffering. i think that the recent conversation you're referring to about prayer is very important because i think what the public was reacting to was the sense that prayer alone can be shallow, that it doesn't ring true, and there were some of us after charleston, for example, who picked up the hash tag prophetic grief. not pathetic grief where you're not going to do anything and not just empathetic grief which is compassion, important. but prophetic grief where you commit to doing something. >> part of what i find fascinating, about what has now been called prayer shaming in response to the kind of prayers offered, is this idea they are somehow divided, there's either praying or doing something as opposed to a social movement tradition in which both were happening. >> right. and i think that's the important piece to really focus on. people don't know what to say when people are hurting and grieving. so prayers and thoughts is sort of what they immediately say. i think the critique is when your prayers and thoughts are contradictory to your actions, right, so i am praying that there won't be any more gun violence even as i am actually doing something that is the opposite, promoting more gun violence, right. so how do we deal with the hypocrisy. people are tired of saying, well, we're waiting on something supernatural to happen. we could end gun violence if we wanted to. we as humans have the tools at our disposal to end these things that grieve us so. so many people are objecting to this notion that, well, what are we waiting for, right, if we're only seeing prayers and thoughts when we have the capacity to make a difference right now. >> let me ask about one other aspect of the politics of this prayer question. so prayer, multiple times a day and often publicly is a pillar of islam. it is one of the ways that islam is kind of an identifiable public practice, right, is this notion of multiple times a day of prayer. maybe i'm reading this wrong. check me if i'm wrong on this. i keep feeling that we think we're praying to some kind of dog that is anti-muslim, counterislamic, and we consistently will see muslims in prayer as somehow dangerous, threatening, as opposed to prayerful and practice. >> i think that in mity traditi we say pray without ceasing and prayer is always in season so our prayer actually connects us to all those other people, muslims jews and others in the world who are also praying. i was in a cab last night and my cab driver was a muslim and i was tweeting away and he wanted to really engage me in a conversation, a conversation about prayer, a conversation about his grief, my grief. and his love of america, my love of america. i think that sort of through our conversation about prayer, we figured out what our shared values were. and i think that, you know, he was demonstrating it's our connections with each other that are in the end love, shall we say, for each other, and will be the only thing that will save us. >> i'm going to stop you here only because i know you're going to be back with us. we will talk more through this. thank you to the reverend. yolanda is sticking around. but up next, we're going to go to chicago. and what we mean when we say accountability. thousands of people came out today to run the race for retirement. so we asked them... are you completely prepared for retirement? okay, mostly prepared? could you save 1% more of your income? it doesn't sound like much, but saving an additional 1% now, could make a big difference over time. i'm going to be even better about saving. you can do it, it helps in the long run. prudential bring your challenges i love working in the salinas area becauseriselda zendejas. i always wanted to do something where i could help people around me. so being a construction supervisor for pg&e gives me the opportunity to give a little bit back to my community. i have three boys. they're what keep me going every day. our friends, families live in the area. and it is important for all of us that we keep our community safe. together, we're building a better california. if you have high blood pressure many cold medicines may raise your blood pressure. that's why there's coricidin® hbp. it relieves cold symptoms without raising blood pressure. so look for powerful cold medicine with a heart. coricidin® hbp. a question of accountability has hounded chicago mayor rahm emanuel since the video showing the police shooting death of laquan mcdonald prompted a demand for answers about why it took 13 months and a court order to force the city of chicago to release the footage. and bring charges against the officer who shot mcdonald 16 times. when asked about the delay and his decision up until a week ago not to watch the video despite having previously been aware of its contents, mayor emanuel said this. >> we have a practice not unique to chicago that you don't do anything as relates to material evidence that would hamper, hinder, compromise an investigation. i don't look at material in a criminal investigation, any of them. and if i had looked at that video, your question before over the next several months is why do you get to see it and nobody else does. i would see it when everybody else would see it. >> the mayor gave that response to his critics in a tuesday press conference where he announced that he requested the resignation of chicago police superintendant gary mccarthy. his removal was a partial victory for activists who demanded his resignation, mayor emanuel and cook county state attorney anita alvarez and also partial response to the calls for accountability. from the institution that the police represent. mayor emanuel addressed some of those concerns with the announcement of a police accountability task force. the expanded use of body cameras. as the chicago tribune pointed out, emanuel's narrative comes against a backdrop of decades worth of chicago police torture and corruption and infect wall practices. time and again, the police department has quickly cleared officers of allegations only to have civil litigation later reveal video and other evidence that painted a much darker picture of police misconduct. it is an indictment that implicates not only individual policies and people but the entire culture of policing in chicago. given the last year in which chicago, ferguson, baltimore and other cities have stood as a testament to the consequences of what kind of culture and what kind of meaningful accountability can there be in these circumstances. joining me now is russell brandon, reporter, yolanda, theological seminary, dorian warren, msnbc contributor, and from chicago is eugene o'donnell, professor of law and police studies at john j. college of criminal justice and a former officer with the nypd. i want to start with you, eugene. just to ask the very simple question of whether or not it makes a difference in a department who the police chief is or whether or not the chief is kind of far enough away that they don't actually impact the culture of what happened on the ground. >> well, these are political failures. all these are political failures. that's where the start is. political people like to point out, down and around but don't want to be held accountable themselves almost invariably. the more you look at chicago, the more it looks like they need a nap commission like you had in new york in the early 1970s. they had systemic corruption. they assumed that 80% of the people wanted to be good, 10% of the people were good and 10% of the people were bad and you had to lib rat the agency for the good people. you had to rearrange the whole organization. it was muscular. it was -- they had to be for the whole criminal justice system. it has to be people that are credible and strong and willing to go where they have to go. ultimately, because what we're talking about is ending wrongdoing. we need to do that of course, we also in chicago urgently have to create right doing. a culture of right doing in their police department. they need to really be aggressive. a federal overseer is a piece but it's only a tiny piece. there needs to be a radical reform. >> i want to ask you the question of whether or not it is even conceivable to have radical reform while the same mayor is in -- >> no and the mayor has to go. the state attorney has to go, alvarez, and frankly i think we need to start asking some questions about the city council which voted on the $5 million settlement for the mcdonald family. >> apparently without seeing the video. >> maybe some did, maybe some didn't. maybe some actually read through it. maybe some didn't. that goes to the incompetence of the entire city council and particularly the black caucus. we need to ask questions of all those political leaders, from the mayor on down. and we need some viable reformers. there is a question, we were talking before. >> right, does someone show up and change this. >> final thing on rahm emanuel, when you are exposing the inspector general of the city, going to court to fight against the inspector general, who is one mechanism of bltability, from seeing public documents, what is the level of corruption at the highest levels. the lack of transparency, of accountability. >> are those documents public? you have this great piece that have all of us kind of debating this in part because i'm thinking, all right, that's the police, that's people, my tax dollars, what are they got, that's actually my stuff, right, from the perspective of living in a city. so why would it take 13 months? your piece helps me understand, we got it out of the budget, that's ours. >> in some sense, it's public so they can't get rid of the video. but once it's in the system, that's very much under police control the same way, you know, i think they see something, you know, if it's in the evidence locker, something like that, you know, there very -- these are all systems both and paid for, coming out of the police budget. they want to buy a system that will give them control of the video. >> in part, yolanda, this for me is the challenge, you know, body cameras have been part of what black lives matter, other activists have been asking for in part because it does feel like once we see the video, as we did in the mcdonald case, it can change our -- on the other hand, doesn't it create more surveillance? the very fact police want them makes me a little nervous -- >> it's a couple of things. one is the surveillance is always pointed at the people who are supposed to be the potential criminals, the potential trespassers. and who's watching the watchers? that's the question people are talking about. on one hand, these body cams which gives us evidence we otherwise would not have had and have disrupted the narrative we got from police officers about these particular cases that's so crucial but it's pointed outward. people are asking the question, who's pointing certain cameras inward so we can see when the violation is actually happening among law enforcement. so we see this with the missing minutes, right, the missing footage. if we did not have other footage that showed us a video was missing these minutes, how would we have ever known that? so body cams are not enough. i think black lives matter activists and other grassroots have always said that, it's not enough. >> your point about who's watching is so important. because the answer is supposed to be that independent media are meant to be able to have a sense of -- that we are supposed to be able to hold these organizations accountable. but then i wonder about the ways in which people wonder if we are even accountable, right, whether or not we can make those -- we'll talk much more about all of that when we come back. this . a chance to live longer with... opdivo, nivolumab. opdivo is the first and only immunotherapy fda approved based on a clinical trial demonstrating longer life... ...for these patients. in fact, opdivo significantly increased the chance of living longer versus chemotherapy. opdivo is different. it works with your immune system. opdivo can cause your immune system to attack normal organs and tissues in your body and affect how they work. this may happen any time during or after treatment has ended, and may become serious and lead to death. see your doctor right away if you experience new or worsening cough; chest pain; shortness of breath; diarrhea; severe stomach pain or tenderness; severe nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite;... ...swollen ankles; extreme fatigue; constipation; rash; or muscle or joint pain, as this may keep these problems from becoming more serious. these are not all the possible side effects of opdivo. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions including immune system problems or if you've had an organ transplant, or lung, breathing or liver problems. a chance to live longer. ask your doctor if opdivo is right for you. bristol-myers squibb thanks the patients and physicians who participated in the opdivo clinical trial. a dry mouth can be a common side effect. that's why there's biotene. it comes in oral rinse, spray or gel so there's moisturizing relief for everyone. biotene, for people who suffer from dry mouth. directv is so advanced that you could put tvs anywhere without looking at cable wires and boxes in every room. how are they always one step ahead of us? well, because their technology is far superior. or because they have someone on the inside. is that right, gil? sir, i would never... he's with them! he's wearing a wire. take off his shirt! take off his shirt! oh! ah! alright, i'm putting you in charge of the holiday party. (vo) get rid of cable and upgrade to directv. call 1-800-directv. it may feel familiar with the city expected to allow the release of another dash cam video showing another police officer shooting and killing another african-american man. this video is also more than a year old. the family of 25-year-old ronald johnson iii has been fighting for the release of the video since he was shot and killed on october 2014, just eight days before the laquan mcdonald shooting. said that he shot johnson after he turned toward him while holding a gun. johnson's mother, dorothy holmes, says she has watched the video and in a tuesday press conference she talked about what she saw and her decision to turn down a settlement offer that she says was proposed to her by the city. >> he didn't have a gun in his hand. because i also seen the video. i looked at the video twice. my main concern is my son has a price tag. and if whatever money recover, because they murder my son, they keep. it's still dirty money. it's not going to bring him back. it's not going to. i don't want it. >> miss holmes was joined by her attorney who discussed the family's motivations for pursuing the release of the video. >> taxpayers have paid for those dash cams. they have paid for those cars. what the city has done is taken that video, taken the important evidence in this case, and denied the public from seeing it. the public has the right to see it. that's one of the reasons we're here. >> i got so many different things on this. let me real quick come to you on what we talked about before, which is what can sometimes feel like an unholy alliance between media and these reportings. so the police say such and such and such and such and then media report on it. the police said such and such and such. here's a mother who says a compelling thing, no, i saw it and that's not what i saw. we often take kind of what the police report is as though it just is what happened. >> never again, at least in the city of chicago, and probably most other cities. we can add minneapolis, baltimore. let's add to the list. no longer can we take a police report for granted as the truth. let's be very clear. they lie. on the police report. and but for independent journalists not even from the tribune or sun times, independence journalists who probably are going to be black listed for this, but for them to do the request to get access to the autopsy report and the video cam from the dashboard, we wouldn't have known that the police lied and everybody all the way up to ram emanuel knew about this. >> here we are again. this young man shot eight days before laquan mcdonald. all these months passed. we still don't have the video. will video save us? we talked in the break, the burger king was the hero of the laquan mcdonald case. is video enough to bring about accountability and justice? >> i think we have seen video, just hasn't been police video. that's what we saw with walter scott. i think if you want to hold police accountability with video, the answer isn't, you know, lobbying for buying body cameras, it's protecting the rights of citizens to film the police. then we don't have to have this year long legal case. we don't have to be playing political football over who deserves -- >> right, it's my video, we're releasing it, that's it. >> frustrating about this is the way we position grieving hurting people as the people who are responsible for bringing justice. i was watching the clip of ronald johnson's mother. i'm near tears. she has to take on the responsibility of making sure that justice can be done. and that's what's unfair. that's what should challenge us. we were talking earlier about prayer, right, that's where we have to say it's enough. it should not be the responsibility of a mother who has just lost her child to have to pursue this to the ends of the earth, whether it's through the body cam or whether it's through bystander video. where is justice for her and why is it on her grieving body? >> i thought about this is often when all of us of course fell for the vice president when he talked about the grief he had and how difficult it was to think about running for office. while feeling that, i also thought about all the other mothers who lost children and immediately found themselves, not public people before that, suddenly basically having to run political campaigns in order to just get justice for their kid. you talked about not only stopping wrongdoing but beginning right doing. it seeps part of what part of what we're saying is it seems to be police officers most interested in the question of justice, most interested in being sure when they are policing that when they are engaging they are, in fact, protecting and serving. why isn't it the police who are saying let's find these videos and let's investigate? >> which is so important. people are most interested in hearing about right now, i want to hear what the cops say, the goodp cops, what they feel their job is about and the community, what the community wants. i think there will be surprises in that conversation. no question, this whole -- the issue with these body cameras, police chiefs love these body cameras. it takes systemic failures and short comings and problems and it pushes them on the lowest possible level. in this laquan case. i'm not a big fan of tasers but i'm a big fan of saving life. how is it nobody had a taser there? very large questions that need to be raised. in a gotcha culture, not only bad in terms of ultimately we're just trying to penalize the police. your losing lives. you have two dead people. it's too late now. we need to be doing systemic proactive reforring. >> i want to underline that. i think that's not a small point. that it becomes overwhelmingly easy to look at the person who is the shooter, right, not that there isn't responsibility there. but the ways in which we have all of these that create these bad acts but often not walking back up the chain and saying where do these incentives come from, what kind of messages are people getting and quite honestly this idea of good officers but still part of a culture who, like where you just don't speak against your boss, right, or you don't speak about the blue code. >> there should be accountability but we also have to remember, what you were talking about earlier in the show, seven people are shot in chicago every single day on average. if you did a shooting map of this city and many other cities in america for 5 or 10 years, you can't see the city. the city is covered with dots. i believe it's 5,000. several. pardon me, it's 10,000, 12,000 shootings in five years. since this mayor took office. how do these kids, how do these children for the most part, how are they able to access firearms? how are firearms so readily available? >> thank you, eugene o'donnell, in chicago, you've raised deeply important questions for us. the issues of the actions of police and who's responsible. we're going to talk to somebody who was responsible as soon as we come back. this winter, take advantage of our season's best offers on the latest generation of cadillacs. the 2016 cadillac srx. get this low-mileage lease from around $339 per month, or purchase with 0% apr financing. the wolf was huffing and puffing. like you do sometimes, grandpa? well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. so i talked to my doctor. she said... symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. symbicort helps provide significant improvement of your lung function. symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. you should tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. symbicort could mean a day with better breathing. watch out, piggies! (children giggle) symbicort. breathe better starting within 5 minutes. call or go online to learn more about a free trial offer. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. thinking of new ways to make treat time fun. (vo) at the friskies playhouse, the cats and us are always busy. that's how we came up with new friskies pull 'n play. with tender string treats cats can eat. that part was their idea. lucy always thought strings should be edible. chloe thought the same. and charlie, well, he's up for anything as long it's fun. new friskies pull 'n play with tender strings. the whole new way to treat 'n play. it's gotten squarer. over the years. brighter. bigger. thinner. even curvier. but what's next? for all binge watchers. movie geeks. sports freaks. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. >> thank you, in new orleans. the latest on the investigations san bernardino shooting as well as understanding what it means when our secretary of defense says we're a nation at war. we didn't need a loan. we needed short-term funding fast. building 18 homes in 4 ½ months? that was a leap. but i knew i could rely on american express to help me buy those building materials. amex helped me buy the inventory i needed. our amex helped us fill the orders. just like that. another step on the journey. will you be ready when growth presents itself? realize your buying power at open.com it's how i try to live... how i stay active. so i need nutrition... that won't weigh me down. for the nutrition you want without the calories you don't... introducing boost 100 calories. each delicious snack size drink gives you... 25 vitamins and minerals and 10 grams of protein. so it's big in nutrition and small in calories. i'm not about to swim in the slow lane. stay strong. stay active with boost®. don't let it conquer you.. with the capability and adaptability of lexus all-weather drive. this is the pursuit of perfection. tcount on someone's kid mistaking me for santa. i'm so sorry. come on sweetie. it's okay. and knowing right when my packages arrive. introducing real-time delivery notifications. one more reason this is our season. oh no... (under his breath) hey man! hey peter. (unenthusiastic) oh... ha ha ha! joanne? is that you? it's me... you don't look a day over 70. am i right? jingle jingle. if you're peter pan, you stay young forever. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. ♪ you make me feel so young... it's what you do. ♪ you make me feel ♪ so spring has sprung. toto the nation's capitalut to support an important cause that can change the way you live for years to come. how can you help? by giving a little more, to yourself. i am running for my future. people sometimes forget to help themselves. the cause is retirement, and today thousands of people came to race for retirement and pledge to save an additional one percent of their income. if we all do that we can all win. prudential bring your challenges® good morning, i'm melissa harris perry. latest details on the mass shooting in san bernardino, california, which the fbi is now investigating as an act of terrorism. rueters is reporting that isis said in an online radio broadcast that followers the group carried out the attacks that killed 14 people. the fbi says there's no evidence the attack was directed by isis. officials say one of the suspects tashfeen malik pledged allegiance to isis in a face book post. president obama had this to say about the investigation. >> it's important to let the investigators do their jobs. we need to know all the facts. at my direction, federal law enforcement is helping in every way that they can. we're going to get to the bottom of this. it is entirely possible these two attackers were radicalized to commit this attack of terror. it would underscore a threat we've been focused on for years, the danger of people succumbing to violent extremist ideologies. >> joining us is nbc's chris jansing. what kind of evidence are investigators focused on? >> one of the key questions is where did this come from, was this a lone wolf kind of attack, were they self-radicalized or were they in touch with other people? we said this morning there was some confirmation that right before this attack took place or almost simultaneously, the wife of this couple posted online that there was -- that she was connected -- not connected to but she pledged allegiance to isis. now our partners at flash point are saying to us isis is clearly saying we did not direct this attack. very important distinction between directing an attack and inspiring an attack. they seem to be trying to send the message that this was, indeed, a self-radicalization situation. much of the evidence that the fbi is looking at right now has to do with electronics. also the couple tried to destroy it. we heard from fbi director comey yesterday about how critical this evidence is. much of it has already been flown back to quantico where the fbi has a number of labs, sub units, that do nothing but look at this kind of electronic evidence. two cell phones in particular that were smashed and thrown into the garbage cannot far from their home. at least one computer hard drive taken from their home. they'll look at what kind of records there might be. where did they get, for example, much of this bomb making material? they had a virtual bomb making factory inside that suburban home. photos. is there anything that can tell them about location. in particular, with the cell phones, the gps, where did they travel to? would that give them indication of where they bought some of this stuff or who they might have met? as director comey said yesterday, there's a lot of evidence that just doesn't make sense and much of that is personal. the 6-month-old child. the family that seemed to be live the american dream. why would you just walk away from all that. yesterday, there was a scare at a local u.p.s. facility and it turned out this package addressed to them was just some clothes they had ordered online. why would you order clothes online if you knew you were going to mount an attack? a lot of evidence that they are looking at but so far the key question that is hanging out there is what was their motive and that answer is elusive right now, melissa. >> thank you to nbc's chris jansing in san bernardino, california. the shootings came less than a week after a gunman opened fire at a planned parenthood clinic in colorado killing three people. according to the database, shooting tracker.com, it was at least 353rd mass shooting of the year. with mass shootings defined as four or more people killed or injured. by that scale, that's more than one a day in the united states. but other databases using other criteria cite much lower numbers. according to mother jones, san bernardino shooting was the fourth mass shooting of the year. despite these recent premeditated attacks, the overall number of americans killed by gun violence is actually on the decrease. according to analysis from the pew research center, the rate of homicides by firearms was cut in half between 1993 and 2013. but the impact of these incidents is not just about the numbers. it's also about perception. with each report of a mass shooting, americans are pushed into a cycle of fear and grief and mounting anger and frustration over our inability to make them stop. and now add to the mix the specter of terrorism and you can understand why the american psyche may in fact be under duress. joining me now are malcolm nance, executive director of the terror project, linda, executive director of the arab-american association of new york, msnbc military analyst jack joacobs. and joining me from miami, dr. metzel, director of health and society at vanderbilt society and director of the state project which focuses on gun violence as a public health issue. i want to ask you this question, how is it that fear affects our individual psyche? is there kind of a collective aspect to that as well? >> i think it's a great question. it's a question many people are asking at the present moment. i think partially it's because in the aftermath of acts of terror, there is something incredibly unpredictable in a way. we can't predict mass shootings. very often, we hear these shootings of, you know, this person was living the american dream as the reporter before said. so there's this sense that we can't keep our family safe, that how can we predict this if we're not safe at movie theaters, in churches, in places of work and holiday parties? it's important to remember that even though it's very hard to predict mass shootings in advance, that we're here in part because of decisions we've made as a society. we're not just anxious and less safe because of mass shootings, we're also less safe because the bigger lessons of mass shootings are that it's far easier to amass a personal arsenal and that's legal in many ways. so we've made society decisions that made it much easier for people to get guns, to amaze ammunition, to do all these factors. the other thing is we've also increased, you know, weapons in seemingly safe spaces like parks and churches and bars. so in a way, the way we think we can address our society even after we ask these hard questions is to also step back and say what are the policy decision decisi decisions, how can we step back and reverse some of those. >> also, living in a time where there are many different ways in which gun violence enters into our lives. and yet the language of heroism or mass shootings of strangers in public places, let me think of it that way, leads to aki ki of frenzy that i think creates all kinds of poor chooses. i think we saw this in some of the policy making we made in a post-9/11 world. i think we saw that in some of the decision making by the media yesterday. a kind of frenzy that led us to decisions we might have otherwise not made. >> i think it's a mistake because we even heard it in some of the statements before, is this shooting was driven by ideology, therefore, it must be driven by terrorism. i think it's important to remember that many mass shootings are driven by ideology. that distinction is a weak one in a way. look at the charleston shooting. how could you possibly think that wasn't driven by some kind of ideology. in that sense, i think there's a bigger question about our society and really i think we're starting to ask that now. i think this is an important conversation we're having. which is what are the frames we put around these issues and how are they linked to broader society stigmatizization in a way that helps us address some of these issues. >> what are the frames that make sense? what i don't want to do is say we shouldn't use a terrorism frame because that leads us to not being able to identify things that are meaningfully different than, for example, interpersonnel violence that might lead to gun violence. i am worried about what we call terrorism and what we call don't. >> terrorism is clearly defined. it's an act of violence which impacts an audience outside of the meimmediate victim. we won't know until the fbi does forensic analyst. we have an indicator that someone may have pledged their loyalty to isis. well, then that would take it outside of the frame of what workplace violence and outside of the frame of regular violence and would bring it clearly into the definition of terrorism. >> as clear as that definition is, when you say it, it sounds like, yes, that makes perfect sense to me. we are the resistance to using terrorism, for example, to talk about charleston or to talk about even the planned parenthood shooting. versus the willingness to talk about it in context when, in fact, shooters are also people who are muslims. >> deja vu every time the per n perpetrators end up being muslim. by the way, multiple witnesses. and then you were talking about gun control and progress and thoughts and prayers, the laws. then we find out they're muslim. bam, gun violence is out of the question. we start talking about terrorism. i'm extremely disturbed. i looked at the new york times cover today. right next to it is pictures from the apartment of things i have in my house. these are things that they had in their house. there's nothing about that that tells you a story about what terrorism looks like. you're telling me when my friend bhos are not muslim come into my home and see a koran or see frames on the wall with a scripture from my religion, is that supposed to tell you something? it's absolutely outrageous. we would never do that to anyone. we didn't do that. i'm tired of the double standards -- >> that image and then also right next to it is image of the shooter, the suspect, in the hijab. the idea that this is what terrorism looks like. for me, that is a difference. it is a material and meaningful difference. on the one hand, i want to be able to talk about what the thing is that is terrorism. on the other hand, this happened only for a specific community. some people are terrorists and some people are not. some people get searched with extra scrutiny at the airport and some people do not. i think we have to talk about the inconsistency. the double standards. i also think we have to talk about our cultural amnesia. it goes away and we forget. then it happens again and we have the frenzy again. what does it mean to have a sustained conversation in our country about gun violence? or about the acts of disparity when it comes to cultures who are under scrutiny and not simply wait for the frenzy to happen but to have something sustained so we can actually make some changes, actually unacceptable to frame people of one religious group, acting more terroristic of other religious groups. >> when we come back, the fbi director talks about this issue and how are we to react in the face of terror. looks like some folks have had it with their airline credit card miles. sometimes those seats cost a ridiculous number of miles... or there's a fee to use them. i know. it's so frustrating. they'd be a lot happier with the capital one venture card. and you would, too! why? it's so easy with venture. you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, every day. just book any flight you want then use your miles to cover the cost. now, that's more like it. what's in your wallet? this holiday, i can count on my going off list.again, and knowing right when my packages arrive. so that's two things. introducing real time delivery notifications. sign up at myusps.com i love working in the salinas area becauseriselda zendejas. i always wanted to do something where i could help people around me. so being a construction supervisor for pg&e gives me the opportunity to give a little bit back to my community. i have three boys. they're what keep me going every day. our friends, families live in the area. and it is important for all of us that we keep our community safe. together, we're building a better california. we know this is very unsettling for the people of the united states. what we hope you will do is not let fear become disabling but channel it into an awareness of your surroundings, to get you to a place where you are living your life but if you see something that doesn't make sense, you see something to somebody. >> that was fbi director james comey on friday commenting on the terror investigation in the san bernardino shootings and how the public should respond. it was interesting for me he was saying you shouldn't get sort of so worked up and afraid even though this is terrorism. especially considering what he said about police officers and youtube earlier in the year. let's take a listen. >> officers reluctant to get out of their cars and do the work that controls violent claim. officers answering 911 calls but avoiding the informal contact that keeps bad guys from standing around especially with guns. the question that's been asked of me is are these kinds of things challenging police behavior all over the country. could have a strong sense some part of the explanation is the chill wind blown through law enforcement over the last year and that wind is clearly changing behavior. >> i don't know, police officers are too afraid of youtube to do their jobs? >> i doubt it. i think that was a knee-jerk response to what was at that time something of a frenzy. you know, we're in the middle of probably the biggest revolution, distribution of information since the invention of the printing press and i think none of us knows exactly where it's going to go. that's why reactions like the director had. immediately in the aftermath of that saying, well, everybody's going to be scared to do their job. seemed like a good idea at the time. seemed like it was perceptive at the time. part of it's because we don't know the full reach of information in a way it's changing. but i don't think -- i mean, i'm not a cop and i don't know, but i spent a lot of time in combat and i wouldn't have acted any different and you have too. i wouldn't have acted any different if i had a camera on or i didn't have a camera on in the middle of combat. i would go ahead and do my job. >> i want to come to you jonathan, because in a moment like this, you know, there can be an effort to either link the shooters in san bernardino to a broader set of cultural religious, you know, community questions by trying to make this argument about isis or one can say there's individuals who are deranged, crazy. we should think of them as individuals with mental illnesses. honestly, i'm not sure which one i find more troubling as a kind of tarot type. stereotype. talk to me about this versus broader connections. >> we live in a very scary time. it does seem like there's a repetitive death cycle on the news. shootings all the time. we live in an era of great uncertainty. does almost feel like, you know, who's in control, who's going to keep us safe. in an that sense, there's a disseminated sense of anxiety, especially given these events, why gun violence and issues like this are presented as the fbi director was saying, kind of beware, observe external threats. i think it's important to note if you look at trends in gun violence in the united states, that you're far more likely to get shot by a relative, a neighbor, a sister, you know, a domestic violence kind of thing. we also have 20,000 gun suicides a year in the united states. you're in danger of yourself in a particular way. so ex-sternalizing this threat, which is again on one hand understandable, kind of efaces the real threat of gun violence which is that gun violence very often happens in social networks. i agree with the comment before, which is we need to have a sustained -- a sustained conversation in this country about the broader implications. not just of gun violence but of the increasing kind of mill taization of our society, because i do think that's contributing to a sense of anxiety. >> we talked earlier about the surveillance, talking about policing, but when i hear the fbi director say be aware of your surroundings and if you see something threatening, in this moment, you look threatening, because what we have done on the front page is to put someone who looks like you on it and i certainly know something about sort of living in that world where on any living day, looking threatening in the world. i wonder about what we should do, keeping ourselves safe, is look around us, look at who looks suspicious, when we know there's so much bias in that. >> i'm watching american muslims, particularly young american muslims, who are also shocked and mourning, loss of life. we just came out of paris, we came out of beirut, kenya and nigeria and every day, you know, we're experiencing these things. and here are american muslims telling each other, here are five self-defense, you know, tactics that you should learn. woman in jihab, don't take your jihab off but maybe you could wear a hat. don't stand too close on the train platform. wait until the train gets there until you get on the train. we don't trust our fellow americans, that they can look at us as fellow americans, that we are just as horrified as anybody else on these shootings. one of the woman who was shot was a social worker. these terrorists when they do this, i don't care -- look, terrorists are all kinds of people for me. they don't care who they're shooting. we talked about isis with you before. the largest group of isis are muslims. no one wants to talk about that. here are young people born and raised in this country who are fearful and don't feel like they belong in a country that has muslim lineage from the days of its founding and it breaks my heart every day, my children included. >> malcolm, i have more for you on this but they'll make me take a commercial. we know profiling leads to a bunch of bad outcomes in local policing. i wonder about what it keeps us from doing well when we talk about counterterrorism as well. up next, we are at war. that is what the united states and secretary of defense told our congress this week. i tried depend last weekend. it really made the difference between a morning around the house and getting a little exercise. only depend underwear has new confidence core technology for fast absorption and the smooth, comfortable fit of fit-flex™ protection. get a coupon at depend.com at ally bank no branches equals great rates. it's a fact. kind of like ordering wine equals pretending to know wine. pinot noir, which means peanut of the night. the wolf was huffing and puffing. like you do sometimes, grandpa? well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. so i talked to my doctor. she said... symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. symbicort helps provide significant improvement of your lung function. symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. you should tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. symbicort could mean a day with better breathing. watch out, piggies! (children giggle) symbicort. breathe better starting within 5 minutes. call or go online to learn more about a free trial offer. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. iand quit a lot,t but ended up nowhere. now i use this. the nicoderm cq patch, with unique extended release technology, helps prevent the urge to smoke all day. i want this time to be my last time. that's why i choose nicoderm cq. this week, the u.s. raised the stakes in its fight against isis. defense secretary ash carter told a house hearing the pentagon will expand into the special operations force in iraq. to fight islamic state militants in iraq and syria. >> we're at war. we're using the might of the finest fighting force the world has ever known. these special operators will, over time, be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence, and capture leaders. >> the new deployment will build upon the 3,500 troops already in iraq and is being called, quote, a specialized expeditionary targeting force. the raids it will be able to conduct will target islamic state militants. secretary carter did not say how many new troops will be sent to iraq but defense officials told nbc news the new standing force would comprise of 250 special operation forces that would conduct ground combat raids against isis targets in both iraq and syria. this change in strategy marks a deepening involvement for the u.s. military and at a time when some are pushing president obama to go further, republican senator mccain who is the chairman of the senate armed services committee said in a written statement secretary carter's announcement is quote a belated step forward. i don't know quite what to do with the war language because -- >> ignore it, i think -- >> yeah, it feels odd when we think about what this particular engagement is. war always sounds like we're fighting a nation state which is not what's happening here. >> it also sounds like it's putting people in uniform and having them go out there and fight the bad guys to kill or capture them as we do in the infantry and hold on to the terrain as long as necessary in order to reinstitute the government and all the rest of that stuff. there are two things about that. all that. the first is we're focusing on equipment that is bombs rather than people. that usually doesn't work. unless you're going to use strategic weapons which are nuclear weapons which we're not going to use. tactical weapons don't work. even over a long period of time. we firebomb dresden. we firebomb tokyo. we firebomb hamburg. we killed more people with firebomb also in the second world war than we killed with nuclear weapons. the nazis bombed london. none of that, none of the conventional weapons did anything at all. i'm not arguing to use nuclear weapons. the real point is the only purpose for these weapons is to make it easy for people on the ground to seize and hold the terrain. it should be people from the region who have a stake in what really happens here. so far, we haven't been able to motivate them to do that. that requires -- that's going to require diplomacy and not bombs. >> so when you say -- when you make that point about bombs, i feel like that is largely lost on ordinary folks. you go to war, you bomb some stuff, people are like, please stop bombing, and then they, you know, sort of give in -- >> and then a miracle happens. but that is not what we're facing here, right? when you hear the kind of public discourse around this, or even the statements from ash carter there, all we're doing, the kind of counterterrorism that is necessary. >> well, in the capacity that we have right now, the president's strategic policy has been to contain isis. and the way they've been doing that is through, you know, interdiction of their combat capacity on the ground. that's bombing tanks that were seized by the iraqi army, artillery pieces, things like that. only in very strategic points. sorties come back after dropping their ordinance. they don't have terminal ground attack controllers. people putting eyes on to the target. and then a force that will move in once they've displaced some sort of military obstacle in the way. you can sit and bomb raqqah all day. it's very satisfying, you know, we want isis to understand we have the capacity to reach them. but as the colonel said, we're not going to surrender because of a strategic bombing campaign. so they will be doing special operations but until we break isis' line of communication. >> one thing, one of the objectives is to make it impossible for them to fund anything because we're knocking out all their oil revenue. but, you know, attacks like the ones that took place in california and -- cost like 20 grand -- >> here's what i find interesting, to connect those, we don't know yet whether or not isis and the california shooters but there at least seems to be some sense from the california shooters they have some sympathyings. we are not, i presume, going to bomb suburban homes in california. we're not, i presume, going to bomb suburban areas in paris. is this just a fundamental misunderstanding of how our kind of bombing action impacts the sentiments of people who watch what we are doing internationally? >> i think we've learned a lot since 9/11 to know that, you know, and certainly since the invasion of iraq, which is a phenomenal mistake, that going in and conducting these massive ground combat operations just creates organizations like al qaeda in iraq which is now called isis. not one of those people existed before the day we invite e inva country. now we're dealing with guys who have carved out their own nation states of sunni radicals. the united states needs to understand the only way to defeat this, and i know, i've been a ground combatant in these wars, you can kill a man, but you can't kill his ideas. we have to go after what i call counterideological operations and warfare. we must expose and destroy the ideological cuttism that is anti-islamic, that is anti-islamic. they have bizarre traits. they say there's seven pillars of islam, not five. they are a cult. until we in the muslim world engage that to the point where no one will deal with them, we're going to be dropping bombs. >> up next, the new report on isis related arrests here in the united states. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension. your blood pressure could drop to an unsafe level. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. ask your doctor about viagra. covergdraw attention way to perfect point liner smudge with sponge-tip to create a smokin' kitten eye lash blast mascara adds an instant blast of volume add a pow to your brow! wow! from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl came out today thousands of people to run the race for retirement. so we asked them... are you completely prepared for retirement? okay, mostly prepared? could you save 1% more of your income? it doesn't sound like much, but saving an additional 1% now, could make a big difference over time. i'm going to be even better about saving. you can do it, it helps in the long run. prudential bring your challenges we know isis and other terrorist groups. even as we work to prevent attacks, all of us, government, law enforcement, need to work together to prevent people from falling victim to these hateful ideologies. >> that was president obama this morning. one day after authorities revealed that malik, one of the shooters who killed 14 people in san bernardino, pledged allegiance to the islamic state. the fbi is investigating the shooting as an act of terror. the agency has not made any firm conclusions but it underscores concerns about home grown terror. since 2014, 71 individuals linked to isis have been charged in the u.s. for terrorism related activities and 56 have been arrested in 2015 alone, which is a record number of terrorism-related arrests for any year since 9/11. that's according to a new study by george washington university made public this week. the study isis in america reports that those, of those charged, the vast majority arrested are u.s. citizens. the fbi has stated isis-related investigations are active in all states but 21 states have at least one arrest within their border. the highest number of cases in new york followed by minnesota. so, i read the report because i feel like that's what you do. i feel like the new report has told us new things. i am deeply distressed by the idea this would constitution social scientific evidence we would then make policing and counterterrorism decisions on. you and i were remarking in the break that just looking through the images of it and these kind of facebook pictures and twitter posts heck, you know, they look like brothers and friends and -- >> they look like my cousin tyrone. >> i think that -- this is what i was going to say before the break, i think we so desperately want things to be -- this is a bad guy and we're the good guy. we want it to be clear cut. we don't want there to be shades of gray. if we identify a group of people as the bad guys, then we can bomb them or we can wage war. we don't know what to do with the messiness of all this. we don't also know what to do if conventional weapons of quote/unquote warfare simply do not work. >> i feel like we do know. i think that's part of it. that this moment, the san bernardino moment, connects us and makes us think, okay, now we are personally under attack by this thing that is isis. you know, dylann roof, charleston church, nine people killed. transwomen killed in 2015, likely as a result of their identities, 22 of them. the number of shooting victims in chicago this year, although not all of them tied, 2,000. the number of those killed in a tim pell in wisconsin, six people. need i point out the police in this country have shot and killed more than 1,000 people. and we don't think we should go to war with any of those people. >> i just want to -- melissa, you know, terrorism or acts of terrorism or even isis sim pa tithers. it's not an epidemic in the muslim community. the fact we're sitting here and making it sound like an every day occurrence. we are 7 to 10 million muslims in this country. the fact we have, again, distracted from the issue. these two people or three bought legal weapons. either they bought them or someone else bought them. they're buying tactical weapons. no one thinks that's the problem here. how did these people, and this idea of, like, countering violent extremism in this country continues to be directed exactly at muslims as if there's no other community in this country that engages in extremism. we've seen study after study that more people have been killed by white supremist groups than by quote jihadis -- >> southern poverty law center is one of the few who are saying terrorist groups in america, what they are mostly talking about is right wing extremism. >> now it's terrorism so we just have to go focus and be very narrow focused. there's no silver mullet profile to any of these. they could be doctors, they could be middle america, they could be poor, they could be black, they could be converts. like, if this person is like this, this is how it is. and if we are really engaging in, quote, unwarranted surveillance, how did you not catch mr. syed farouk buying tactical weapons? it's why we need gun control in this country, why we need background checks. but of course the republicans don't want them. but they will vote for a war against -- >> i'll tell you, it's not the republicans, it's democrats don't want it either. this one may be bipartisan in kind of lack of action. that said, this is something that i was bringing up earlier. when you say, okay, how did we miss them? one of the things we know is it leads to poor law enforcement. >> well, let me pitch in on that. i wrote a book 14 years ago called the terrorist recognition handbook. i was bringing three decades at that time of intelligence collection experience to law enforcement. and the first thing i said, that's known within the intelligence community, those were active practitionerings. terrorists will identify themselves through the manifestation of their activities, all right, and then once they cross a certain line, you're a terrorist. if you act in a political way and you have a political message and you need to do that impact beyond the immediate victim, you cross and you get the "t" word branded on to you. unfortunately, it hasn't filtered into law enforcement, you know, at the same level the u.s. intelligence community does. we need to understand isis can be anyone anywhere any time. the overwhelming prepond rens of people carrying out these attacks are not muslims, okay. military age muslim is almost a profile to get caught if you're actually going to carry out a terrorist act. >> i want to pause and when we come back, i want to talk a little bit about things that make us feel like this is different, unusual, hard to understand, when we talk about the san bernardino shootings, and there's one aspect in particular. it's not every day something this big comes along. a chance to live longer with... opdivo, nivolumab. opdivo is the first and only immunotherapy fda approved based on a clinical trial demonstrating longer life... ...for these patients. in fact, opdivo significantly increased the chance of living longer versus chemotherapy. opdivo is different. it works with your immune system. opdivo can cause your immune system to attack normal organs and tissues in your body and affect how they work. this may happen any time during or after treatment has ended, and may become serious and lead to death. see your doctor right away if you experience new or worsening cough; chest pain; shortness of breath; diarrhea; severe stomach pain or tenderness; severe nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite;... ...swollen ankles; extreme fatigue; constipation; rash; or muscle or joint pain, as this may keep these problems from becoming more serious. these are not all the possible side effects of opdivo. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions including immune system problems or if you've had an organ transplant, or lung, breathing or liver problems. a chance to live longer. ask your doctor if opdivo is right for you. bristol-myers squibb thanks the patients and physicians who participated in the opdivo clinical trial. count on being slammed this hwith orders. we're getting slammed with orders. and my customers knowing right when their packages arrive. totally slammed! introducing real-time delivery notifications. one more reason this is our season. his day of coaching begins with knee pain, when... this is brad. hey brad, wanna trade the all day relief of two aleve for six tylenol? what's the catch? there's no catch. you want me to give up my two aleve for six tylenol? no. for my knee pain, nothing beats my aleve. you're all set to book a flight using your airline credit card miles. and surprise! those seats sometimes cost a ridiculous number of miles, making it really hard to book the flight you want. luckily, there's a better way... with the capital one venture card. with venture, you'll earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, every day. and when you're ready to travel, just book the flight you want, on any airline, then use your miles to cover the cost. now you're getting somewhere. what's in your wallet? again, this information we're learning about the attackers in the shooting. yesterday, we heard from lawyers representing members of farouk's family. >> would go over to the house, wouldn't all be together in the room. the women would sit with the women and the men would sit with the men. that is very traditional. it wasn't anything that was different. >> i think we're hearing a lot now and a lot of anxiety around particularly the idea, two things, the family. the idea that one of the attackers is a woman and there was a 6-month-old child. some of what you said in the first hour, that this anxiety around -- or this sort of shock around this idea that these are family folks who, you know, order something on amazon and then have acted in this way. >> let's take a projection here. let's make a leap. let's assume based on the evidence that we have right now that they have -- that she has radicalized. she woswore a loyalty oath to is and her husband went along with that. obviously, the evidence shows that. bomb factory. lots of weapons. she knew how to handle weapons. she had a run and gun battle with police. we take that into account. how is it the family don't know anything about that? all right. it's quite simple. if they have radicalized, they bought into the concept. which is this isis/a isis/al qaeda/cultist belief harken back to the prophet muhammad leaving mecca. they call this immigration where they leave mentally or physically the land of the in infid infidel. you can stay where you are right in your backyard in your bomb factory and your family has to be isolated and cut away from you. they still could meet with their family and never let them know what's going on. thinking, well, i'm going to a ban doabandon you to this fate. but the child is a very strange thing. i have never in my entire career seen one where a child was abandoned to go do a suicide mission. i've seen them kill their family. we've seen husband and wife go out as dual suicide bombers. this very thought they would adopt this ideology and then abandon their child into the land of the infidels is quite strange. >> one of the things i find fascinating in talking to you in this moment, as opposed to some of what we hear, the point you made, which is this idea that, you know, we can bomb everything but either domestically or -- we're going to have to have information. we're going to have to be able to have conversations. we're going to have to engage diplomacy. i keep wondering if, in fact, our best tools for generating a differe different safer world is one where we actually learn multiple religious traditions, where we actually learn multiple languages where we actually aren't sort of -- one of the ways to push back is to know more. so we can engage more intelligently as we see the things in the world. >> our intelligence sorely lacking. we can go back several decades. and realize every administration going back a long way has been complicit in reducing our ability to get timely human intelligence from places we need to get intelligence and then converting that into finished intelligence on which we can act. we're terrible at it. we're just now playing catch up after decades and decades of completely eliminating our capability to do so. so we need to get better intelligence. we need to do it very, very soon. >> i would say more than better intelligence, better intelligence, but cultural, religious understanding, interfaith conversation. one of our favorite poets, what if the mightiest word is love, right, what if the answer is not war and bombs but cultural understanding, religious understanding, sustained conversation. what if we stopped pretending. the muslims are praying, what does it mean. when almost every faith has prayer rituals, right. what would happen if we actually did that and that's our fine line of defense. our education is our first line of defense. that's how we deploy our resources and our money. >> on the one hand, yes, this question of intelligence. but the idea of actually becoming more intelligent about the world we live in. because it does seem that part of what's happening here is we're constantly behaving in ways that are based in ignorance and fear. >> absolutely. when people look at someone like me, they think i'm an anomaly. this is what muslim women are. we are educated. we're mothers. we're workers. we're the backbones of our communities. there's a lot of information and misconceptions. people are okay with that. we allow media pundits. i mean, the stuff that people are saying about muslims, if they were said about any other faith, group, we would be up in arms as a country. 40% of terror plots or alleged terror plots have been failed by muslims and information from muslim communities. the last thing we need in this country is to push muslims to margins of society. to actually fuel potential anti-american hate. because actually that's what isis feeds off of. they'll tell young muslims in france, they don't like you, you don't belong there. this is the conditions you are in, is because of the other and this is what we don't want. our tools to combat terrorism is unity. it's staying together. it's looking in the street and saying, that's my sister, she's my american like i know that sh got my back and that is not the sentiment that we are right now. >> thank you all to the panel. up next, after a hard week, we have a little bit of good news, and we will lighten it up when we come back. u plaque psoriasis... ...isn't it time to let the... ...real you shine... ...through? introducing otezla, apremilast. otezla is not an injection, or a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. some people who took otezla saw 75% clearer skin after 4 months. and otezla's prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't take otezla if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. otezla may increase... ...the risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression... ...or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. side effects may include diarrhea, nausea, upper respiratory tract infection, and headache. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. ask your doctor about otezla today. otezla. show more of you. thinking of new ways to make treat time fun. (vo) at the friskies playhouse, the cats and us are always busy. that's how we came up with new friskies pull 'n play. with tender string treats cats can eat. that part was their idea. lucy always thought strings should be edible. chloe thought the same. and charlie, well, he's up for anything as long it's fun. new friskies pull 'n play with tender strings. the whole new way to treat 'n play. it's gotten squarer. over the years. brighter. bigger. thinner. even curvier. but what's next? for all binge watchers. movie geeks. sports freaks. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. . we know that the news of the last few weeks has been especially tough. every week for nearly a month, violence and brutalitys has dominated the headlines, and for those of you who consume the news is anything like those of us who report on it, it might be feeling like the most. so we thought that we would take this space for a reminder off a few things. self-care is a part of the work, and check in with the emotional well-being. if you need a break for yourself, take it. two, there is actually other news going on ra her this than everything that has been breaking everyday, and it is not all bad. here, for starters a political miracle. thursday night, congress reached a, check it out, bipartisan agreement on the $305 billion bill to fix our nation's crumbling infrastructure, and it is the longest period in a decade that congress has reauthorized federal transportation programs to fund bridges, railroad and road repairs. and also, you may not have heard of this crisis in minnesota where where they have been so flooded with donations and offers to help that the director of one of the agencies told the "minnesota star tribune" we have four to five times the volunteers and inqu e inquiries, and it is a wonderful problem to have. in oklahoma this week, mon trel adams a student at a school for deaf children tackled a problem of his own. he was the target of bullying and he wanted to teach others about nonviolent conflict resolution. so he and the four people built a buddy bench. the idea is that they sit on the bench when they are sad or lonely to signal the classmates to sit with them on the bench to offer a word of encourage or to play or hang out. and lastly for the sheer joy of it, we leave you with this, first lady michelle obama making herself a new buddy at the national christmas tree lighting and reading "twaz the night before christmas." >> and with the whistle down nay flew with a thistle. >> but i heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight "merry christmas to all, and to all, a good night." >> wow, nice job, miss piggy. low five. >> yep, you need to feel better, watch the flotus video. over to you, alex? >> thank you, for, that and i needed that respite. and now, we have the latest in california including new information about the san bernardino attackers who tried to destroy their cell phones, but can investigators salvage something from them? also we will talk to the director of home security in california. >> and several critics say that this a air strike is a trap playing right into the hands of is isis. >> and who is an alarmist, and who is not sounding serious enough? how the diynamics of san bernardino are changing politics everywhere. get a new subaru, and we'll donate $250 to those in need. bringing our total donations to over sixty-five million dollars. and bringing love where it's needed most. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. the wolf was huffing and puffing. like you do sometimes, grandpa? well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. so i talked to my doctor. she said... symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. symbicort helps provide significant improvement of your lung function. symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol. medicines like formoterol increase the risk of death from asthma problems. symbicort may increase your risk of lung infections, osteoporosis, and some eye problems. you should tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. symbicort could mean a day with better breathing. watch out, piggies! (children giggle) symbicort. breathe better starting within 5 minutes. call or go online to learn more about a free trial offer. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. iand quit a lot,t but ended up nowhere. now i use this. the nicoderm cq patch, with unique extended release technology, helps prevent the urge to smoke all day. i want this time to be my last time. that's why i choose nicoderm cq. i tried depend last weekend. it really made the difference between a morning around the house and getting a little exercise. only depend underwear has new confidence core technology for fast absorption and the smooth, comfortable fit of fit-flex™ protection. get a coupon at depend.com ♪ it's the final countdown! ♪ ♪ the final countdown! if you're the band europe, you love a final countdown. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." and we will have the late arest of the san bernardino terror investigation. this is what we know. reuters is reporting ta isis is reporting that the followers carried out the san bernardino shootings. the fbi is investigating the shootings as an act of terror, and also the fbi says that there there is no evidence that the couple acted as a group or terror cell, and the clues left behind do not lead in one direction. >> there is a lot of evidence in the case that does not quite make sense, so we are tri tying be thoughtful to understand it, and make sense of it to understand the full extent of what we have here. >> and today, we are seeing the pictures of the woman, tashfeen malik who took part in the shootings she and sayed farook were both killed in the attack. and now, we are joined by blake who is at the scene, and what are you seeing today? >> well, alex, the three active scenes here in san bernardino are down to one now. the fbi has finished searching the couple's ho,

Related Keywords

Miami ,Florida ,United States ,New York ,Hamburg ,Germany ,Tokyo ,Japan ,Minnesota ,California ,Wisconsin ,Syria ,San Bernardino ,London ,City Of ,United Kingdom ,Connecticut ,Beirut ,Beyrouth ,Lebanon ,Oklahoma ,Cook County ,Illinois ,Nigeria ,Iraq ,Colorado ,Mecca ,Makkah ,Saudi Arabia ,Charleston Church ,France ,Paris ,Rhôalpes ,Chicago ,Americans ,America ,Iraqi ,American ,Isis Sim Pa ,Ram Emanuel ,Subaru A ,Walter Scott ,James Comey ,Isis ,Russell Brandon ,Edward Jones ,Ferguson Baltimore ,Rahm Emanuel ,Al Qaeda ,Michelle Obama ,Dorian Warren Msnbc ,Bristol Myers Squibb ,Alex Witt ,Ronald Johnson ,Dorothy Holmes ,Tim Pell ,Melissa Harris Perry ,Gary Mccarthy ,Anita Alvarez ,Syed Farouk ,Irene Guerrero ,