republican debate, ben carson may be feeling the heat. he is threatening to leave the republican party, and this is coming amid reports that insiders were discussing the possibility of a brokered convention. and carson says if the leaders of the republican party want to destroy the party, they should continue to hold the meetings like describe ed d in the washin post this morning. if this is a plan to subvert the will of the voters other than that of the political elite, i assure you that donald trump is not the only one leaving the party. and in the latest polls, he is behind both donald trump and ted cruz, and now to get more perspective on this, the cnn political reporter nia-malika henderson, have the republican party, as they are trying to keep the guys and girls together, what has happened here? >> well, this is what has landed in everybody's in-boxes today, and this is what the rnc has respond and this is sean spicer giving us more context to the meeting. >> well, i say to dr. carson, don't worry. your prayers have been answered. there was a dinner where the subject was how the delegate selection process works and the difference of a hybrid state and proportional state, and at the end of the dinner, there were a lot of questions asked, and it is frankly similar to the press briefing that we held for 150 members of the press a couple of weeks ago where a similar thing happened. we walked through the delegate process would handled and how each state handled the delegate process, at the end, we took a series of question, and it is really nothing more than that. >> wow. he is really responding to that. tell us about ben carson, because he is kind of -- not doing so great, and you wrote a very good cnn.com article talking about his campaign in crisis which is a turnaround from the few weeks ago. >> yes, in some ways they are. there is two carson campaigns, and one is the armstrong williams who is his business manager, and friend for offtwo decades and the regular campaign structure. carson has come out on a number of occasions to criticize not only the campaign, but him himself, and in some ways armstrong williams has not been helpful to the campaign, and armstrong williams says you were not preparing the candidate for the big events. and last week we remember the rjc event where carson seemed to provide hamas as hummus, and leading to all kinds of mockery, and so it is a test that you will get when you are an upstart campaign and how you make the transfer to the big leagues. >> and when you look at where he is to the polls, is this a freefall for ben carson, do you think? >> well, they are in the place where they are trying to stop the bleeding, but the polls go up and down, and the thing is that if you can remember scott walker, the polls didn't go up and down, but just down and he was eventually out of the campaign. they have identified in iowa 100,000 voters that they have regular contact with, and they believe if they can get 35,000 of the folks out on caucus night they can win, but they would be happy with a third-place win in iowa and feel they can do well in the south as well. >> thank you shg, nia. >> thank you, briana. and now sh, with ben carson threatening to leave the party, what is happening with the gop? i want to bring in ben ferguson, and political strategist angela rye and pastor donald scott who is a supporter of donald trump and the founder and senior pastor of new spirit center the. and ben, i want to begin with you, why is the republican party experiencing such disconnect about really where to go? >> well, i think two things here. one, there is a massive distrust of the gop and the republican national committee by the outsiders. there is also a lot of this is just being played up into politic, and political theater to keep the attention also on ben carson the same way that donald trump knows how to keep the attention on him, and so when ben carson came out with this, it is more about getting us to be talking about him, and any time you say that you are against a traditional gop establishment, your poll numbers go up. i don't think that ben carson or donald trump is truly concerned about a brokered convention. it would be unbelievable chaos, and i don't believe that the political bosses of the gop establishment could pull anything close to that off especially in the day now with med media, but if you are against the gop establishment, both of these candidates are and both of them have surged off of, this and they are both using it for their own political gain, and it is a smart political move. and it is farfetched at the same time. >> do you believe it is farfetched, angela? is there really a possibility of a brokered convention? >> well, anything is possible now, and what i fully believe is that there was a kitchen cabinet dinner of the gop establishment as ben just mentioned and i think that because of that, the gop is frantic trying to figure out how to have a candidate that represents their best interests. there are so many members of the gop who have condemned donald trump's remarks over the last several day, and we do know that these two candidates are particularly anti-establishment, and both donald trump and ben carson and them being here distracts from what the gop said they wanted to do. both in the autopsy plan and in getting the white house back, because with both of them in the race, that is just not going to happen. >> and pastor h this is a question for you. as we go in here a few days out from the next cnn debate which is going to be focusing a lot on the foreign policy and national security, and the question is how are these candidates going to be protecting the homeland? donald trump has provided a controversial answer, and he has proposed that muslims be temporarily banned from the united states, and then in a new cbs news poll after those remarks, 58% of americans opposed it and 36% support it, but when you look at the republican response, you 54% who favor it, and 38% oppose it. and do you think, that pastor, this is something that you can support the ban of donald trump as you support him as a candidate? >> well, i have stated on numerous occasions the word ban is a strong word. i would have preferred the use of the word moratorium, and a t temporary moratorium is not unable as the vetting process is improved. the vetting process has to be revised and upgraded and improved in order to prevent leakage or prevent anybody from slipping through the cracks, because as i have stated, american lives cannot be considered collateral damage. isis poses a threat to american lives, and in order to prevent this threat from actualizing, then something has to be done. everyone is in agreement that something has to be done, and for the most part donald trump has the best plan. we have to put a moratorium on immigration -- >> so you support -- you just want to call it a moratorium, but you support the policy? >> i support a moratorium on immigration. i mean, it can be a very short period of time, and it can be a long period of time, and depending upon what our strategists decide is the best course of action. but as we have seen are from the san bernardino shooters, there have are been those who have slipped through the cracks that if the vetting process had been better and they would not have been able to slip through the crack, and 14 americans would still be alive and 22 other americans would not be wounded, and this fear that pervades the american society would not be as prevalent as it is. america is scared right now, because of what happened in san bernardino can happen down the street from any of us, and that is the mindset of any of us. >> and it can happen in a church in south carolina with a shooter named dylan roof, and would you propose a moratorium from white supremists? >> yes, if they are coming into america right now sh, i would. i am -- >> you said american lives but i would think that you would want to support all american lives. >> american lives are always at risk in american society and that is the job of the police to take care of that, but we are talking about a foreign threat. >> and there is a big difference of somebody in the country as an american citizen and somebody coming into the country as an immigrant, and this is where donald trump does connect with peop people. the system that we have now, there are obviously, there are loopholes and things that are not working well, and is so a moratorium is something that most americans will support, but all-out ban on -- >> did you hear that from his staff -- >> no, no sh, if you want to he from the fact that majority oall americans don't want to ban all muslims, but if you say a moratorium on immigration in the country until we have immigrants from terrorist nations then you would have more americans agreeing with what he said in general, but when you try to ban a religion, that is what is got donald trump in trouble. you cannot do that and that is why he is taking so many hits over the last few days. >> and you are cloaking it in certain words, ben, does not make it any less of a bigoted remark. >> it is not a bigoted remark. >> it is our responsibility as people who are informed in this nation's capitol in talking to -- >> i have said multiple times, i do not support, and i have taken heat from donald trump supporters for this, and i said it here today it happened on c nshn cnn, i do not support a ban on religion, and that is unconstitutional. >> and i want to say, you support a moratorium on immigration from areas where there could be threats. i auns what you are saying th e there, ben. and very semantic difference, and i understand your objection to that, angela. and i do want to ask you about the cruz/trump moment, and the bromance of them has hit a bump in the road, you could say. and the new york times leaked audio of cruz slamming trump and ben carson at a private fund-raiser, and listen to this. >> both of them, i like and respect both donald and ben. i do not believe either one of them is going to be the nominee. their campaigns have a natural arc. who am i comfortable having their finger on the button? i think that, look, people run us who they are, and i believe that gravity is going to the bring the campaigns down. >> and then a short time ago cruz tweeted this. the establishment's only hope is me and donald trump, deal with it. >> and you have to know, ben, that this is possibly what did sink the romney campaign, but it is all sort of fair game, but is cruz trying to clean it up after being caught here? >> h i don't think that he trying to clean it up. i think that in private he is being a little bit more blunt than in public, because you don't want to get into a trash talking match with donald trump. he is the master of it, and you don't want to go out there toe-to-ito and he is saying, look i have a good ground game, and be honest, there is a ceiling to donald trump and he has maximized the ceiling in regard to republican voters, and can he bring in new people, and cruz is saying i have a much higher ceiling than the two candidates and being the anti-establishment guy is only going to take you so far, but if i am cruz right now, i will play nice in public, because i not want to go to war with donald trump in trash talking, because you will lose that battle. you just are. >> and yes, we do see that. and guys, thank you so much for the spirited conversation, and i appreciate you all being here. ben, angela, and pastor darrell, thank you so much. coming up, we have breaking news coming to us out of afghanistan, a terror attack rocking a foreign embassy, and we will talk to you about who the investigators believe is responsible here. and live pictures from san bernardino where the fbi divers are searching a lake there. what are they trying to find? 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[announcer:] mucinex keeps working. not 4, not 6, but 12 hours. let's end this we are following some breaking news out of afghanistan. an explosion rocks the spanish embassy in the capital city of kabul, and a car bomb struck the embassy just hours ago. and our correspondent has been talking to her sources trying to get the bottom of this, and the prime minister, nima is calling it a terror attack. >> yes, he has come out to confirm what we have been hear ing from the sources for a little while now that it was a terror attack, but it is unclear though whether the spanish embassy was the primary target or whether it was an attack on the broader district of kabul that houses foreign nationals, and expatriot workers and host as big part of the diplomatic community. we are working to confirm this that there have been sounds of other explosions ongoing. the taliban have claim ed responsibility for this. but they have claimed it as the beginning of suicide attacks, and this is very worrying phrasing for those still on the ground in kabul, and coming as it does days after an incredibly complex attack that hit the airports down there in kandahar which is part of the broader u.s. base facility, and also the station out there. and that attack went on for over six hour, and we are understanding that authorities are closing the side streets and combing through the area and looking for gunmen still involved in this. >> so it is unclear if the embassy was the primary target, but do we know anything about how close the attack was to the embassy and whether there were casualties inside of the building? >> well, it is very close, because we know that a spanish policemen was among the eight injured. the statement from the embassy at the moment is that he is is moved at the moment and not considered critical. in temperatures of the responsibility, and this is where it is complicated in the mid of an extraordinarily complex event is that the taliban were supposed to be in peace talks, and there with pakistan and afghanistan there to speak, and the question on a lot of people's mind, and definitely the western intelligence agencies that we have been speaking to, briana, is this part of the unified taliban? because there was a big contest for succession or now a fracturing and the splintering, and what is really emerging now is that what we are seeing is a taliban capacity that is extraordinarily worrying, briana. >> it sure is. nima elbagir. >> and now, we have pictures from a lake there in san bernardino, where the fbi has just resumed the search. what are the investigators looking for? what are the shooters believed to have hidden there? and plus, was the male shooter part of a larger terror cell? we have details on that right after this. this is brad. his day of coaching begins with knee pain, when... 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. and my brother ray and i started searching for answers. 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(whispers) now hide-and-seek time can also be catch-up-on-my-shows time. here i come! can't find you anywhere! don't settle for u-verse. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. we are following the latest in the terror attack in san bernardino, california. divers are searching a lake near the scene of the massacre for a second day now, and the officials say that the couple tashfeen malik and syed rizwan farook were in this point at some point. farook is's tie to a gee haw dys group in 2012 are now under scrutiny. they say that he was in the same social groups as the recruiter. i want to bring in ana cabrera in san bernardino, and also justice reporter evan perez in on this, and ana, what is the update on the search? there are live pictures of the divers going in and out of the water. what are they looking for? >> briana, this search resumed an hour ago and the dive team coming in about daybreak geared up. and now in the water, two divers and at times they will come up, and right now the two are underwater which is why the water is looking glassy behind us. they are working slowly and methodically looking for any kind of evidence that might be linked to the san bernardino shooters. now you can see the water here as we pan down is pretty dark. it is murky. and it is full of debris. we have seen the divers take out trash at times, but we have not seen them come up just yet with anything that looks like evidence that they want to hold on the. the fbi assistant director yesterday telling us that this could be a search that takes days here in the water. this is a couple of miles north of where that shooting took place last wednesday, over a week ago now, and they have been scouring, combing any arena the shooters may have been recently. we were told that they received a couple of tips that led them to this park area. we understand that they have already looked at the park itself, and really the lake is what they have left, but they have also warned the residents that they may be scouring neighborhoods in the days to come, because they want to make sure that they leave no stone unturned. they won't specify what kind of evidence they are looking for, but we do know that at the home of farook as well as malik, there was a missing hard drive from a computer at their home. that is a key piece of evidence that they are hoping to find along their investigation. e briann in. >> evan, what about farook's ties to the group of jihadists arrested in 2012. do we know anything about that? >> well, briana, the key person in the conspiracy was so heel -- sohiel kabir, who is a recruiter who helped to bring people to islam, and then radicalized them. so the picture that is emerge ing is someone who had a lot of influence. we know that farook was among the people who was associated with him, and in the social circle, and the fbi wants to know a lot more about that, because when this case was busted in 2012, that's the cue that farook and his friend enrique marquez took to abandon their plans allegely to carry out their own terrorist attack in 2012. it is important also to note that the group arrested in 2012 in riverside, california, next door, four men planning to travel to overseas to afghanistan to join al qaeda and to carry out attacks there, and nothing was planned here at the time, briana. >> and ana has been talking about the hard drive that has bp missing, but investigators have been piecing it together with a tablet computer and cell phone, and do they believe that farook and his wife were planning other larger attacks? >> yes, they do believe that there had to be something bigger. a lot of what investigators are finding does not really make sense, and what they really want is to recover data from the two smashed cell phones that they did recover. they believe it is going to be taking some time before they do that, and this hard drive, because they believe that whatever farook and malik were trying to hide is definitely what they want to nknow. were they in contact with foreign terrorist groups, in touch with anybody else perhaps and part of a larger network? what else was on the plan. very much they believe it is going to be answered by this data that is either on the two cell phones, and this hard drive computer, and they hope that those answers will be on the devices. >> evan perez here in washington, and ana cabrera in san bernardino, california. thank you both so much. and coming up, senators being briefed on the california terror attack, and that is a meeting that is behind closed doors. we will be speaking to one senator inside of the room next. ♪ just look at those two. happy. in love. and saving so much money on their car insurance by switching to geico... well, just look at this setting. do you have the ring? oh, helzberg diamonds. another beautiful setting. i'm not crying. i've just got a bit of sand in my eyes, that's all. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. the terrorist attack in san bernardino, california, highlights a major issue in the presidential race, who can best keep the country safe? this is the focus of the republican debate next tuesday hosted by our very own wolf blitzer, and it is also an issue that members of congress are grappling with. we have senator angus king who is joining us now. i want to ask you, senator king about isis creating the the fake passport, because it appears that we are told by the officials that they are able to obtain a syrian passport machine and blank passports. >> yes, part of the territory they took over had a part of the ae ya where the syrians had fake passports and the means to print them and fake them and this is another level of concern that we have to pay attention to. >> and it is sounding very alarming, but where you come at this with your experience on intel and foreign relations, is this really terribly alarming or what you would expect? something that should make people feel more unsafe or really not? >> well, it should not make people necessarily feel more unsafe, but we are already on track to go towards the passports with the chips in them, and the biometric data that cannot be faked. so this is telling us to the accelerate doing that, but in the world of threats, of course, this is one of them. but, there are lots of other things that we have to attend to as well. >> there are closed door briefings with the fbi and the other officials talking the you and other senators on this san bernardino investigation. is there anything that you can tell us about these briefings that you have been getting or some information that you can share? >> well, we had one late yesterday with mr. comey the head of the fbi, and the people from homeland security and department of state. right now what we have are more questions than answers. for example, what happened in the four hours between the attack and the time that these people were killed? something, they did something in that period. and secondly, the big question is who else were they in touch with? they destroyed the cell phones, and we don't have any evidence that they were in touch with a cell or other terrorists around the country or the world, but why did they destroy the cell phones and the computer hard drives? those are unanswered questions. the other question that concerns me is that, was this woman someone that we should have picked up on a check when she got her check, the fiance visa in pakistan. here is the gap. we check the database, and she had to go through the database for a watch list, terror watch list, but the question is, do we have access to other people's database? pakistan? saudi arabia, jordan, lebanon? and in any of the countries, are we sufficiently sharing data with other countries to enable us to pick up people that we with would not get in our own database. it is not going to help to search it if it is incomplete. >> and on the briefing you mentioned that there is a concern about the husband and the wife terrorist team being in touch with other people, and they have destroied the evidence. having destroyed some of the evidence, is there a way that you are learning from mr. comey that there is a way for them to pull some threads and see some other people that are connected that we are not aware of at this point? >> well, i cannot give you a detailed answer, as i can tell you, but it is being pursued with all of the tools at the disposal. >> you mentioned the wife, but the husband in the case, syed rizwan farook, was linked to a group of gee ha ha-- jihadis in. >> and yes, that is a big lead to follow, and what resource do we have to fol llow every link. and the problem is that we don't want a policeman on everybody's front doorstep, and so we are trying to find a way to do that, and an investigation like this takes enormous resources. and one of the questions yesterday said that are we diverting so many resources in the fbi and the law enforcement community to this that we are ignoring other significant threats to our security. >> like what other threats are being neglected? >> well, drug dealing. and in my state, heroin is an epidemic. >> sure. >> that is one, and organized crime, and the fbi was doing things before these kinds of issues came on the scene. i am not saying that -- maybe it is a question of what are the adequate resources that the fbi has, because they have arrested and a lot of people don't realize this, but last summer the fbi has arrested over 60 people in the u.s. for some type of terrorist-related plotting. and there are over 900 investigations going on in every state in the union, and the fbi is working oftime. but can they capture every one of these kinds of dangerous individuals? >> yes, and we hear that they may not be able to, and probably won't be able to. senator. >> and this is a case where being 99% right is not good enough. >> some may have fallen through the cracks. and now, next week, national security and terrorism will be the focus of the debate. and of course, it is moderated by our very own wolf blitzer. we have new audio in, which is a supreme court justice who is under fire for making comments that are considered racist. we will play it for you next. ( ♪ ) ♪ 100 days ♪ 100 nights ♪ to know a man's heart ♪ ♪ and a little more ♪ before ♪ he knows his own ♪ 100 days ♪ 100 nights ♪ to know a man's heart ♪ ♪ 100 nights can make anyone slow downt and pull up a seat to the table. that's why she takes the time to season her turkey to perfection, and make stuffing from scratch. so that you can spend time on what really matters. marie callender's. it's time to savor. 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. we are have breaking news, and just getting the audio from supreme court justice antonin scalia. this is audio where he was asked can if african-american students belonged in elite colleges and universities. this is audio just released from the court. >> there are those who contend that it does not benefit african-americans to get them into the university of texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them going to a less advanced school, a slower track school where they do well. one tof the briefs pointed out that, that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the university of texas. they come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're being push eded ahead i classes that are too fast for them. this this court -- i am just not impressed by the fact that the university of texas may have few fewer or maybe it ought to have fewer, and maybe some -- and you know, when you take more the number of blacks really competent blacks admitted to lesser schools, and turns out to be less. i don't think it is standing to reason that it is a good thing for the university of texas to admit as many blacks as possible. i just don't think so. >> and this court heard and rejected that argument, justice scalia, and what is being asked to overrule. if you look at the academics versus the the top ten admits that will fair better and frankly the problems with student body versity is to set up a system in which the minorities are not only going to the separate schools, but inferior schools. what experience shows is that texas, california and michigan, now is not the time and this is not the case to roll back the student body versity in america. thank you, your honors. >> let's bring in cheryl eiffel, and you were in the chamers be when this happened, and so tell me what your reaction was like it to, and how other people in the chamber were reacting to this? >> well, i was sitting in the section with the lawyers a did not hear anybody gasp. the language of the lesser schools and the slower track language had some of us, and especially those of us who are african-american attorneys pause for a moment, but these are arguments that we have heard and read the brief submitted in the case, and this is the second time that the case has been in the supreme court, and we have read about the arguments of the mismatch theory. are african-american students being mismatched at elite universiti universities, and the theories are debunked and it shows how well african-american students do when they go to the best college they can get into, and challenge d by the environment, and rise to the occasion. and so this is ke debunked and yet what happen ed ined in the courtroom has reactivated this argument of mismatch that you heard justice scalia articulate. >> and congressman john lewis a civil rights icon says that justice scalia should recuse himself from this case, and what is your perspective on that? >> well, no, i don't believe that justice scalia has to recuse himself, because he believes what one of the author s of the amicus brief wrote in the case is wrong, and he is one justice of nine. and it was a vigorous comment, and maybe that comment was the most inflammatory, and there were good questions and exchanges in the discussion. we continue the to feel that the university of texas has a strong program that meets the constitutional parameters that were set out by the court. >> being there in the cham beshgs you heard obviously what justi justice scalia said, and other justices said, but walking away, you have a sense of where the case may be going, and what is your sense? >> i walked away feeling that the arguments set out did nothing to upset the current state of affairs. this court just heard this case two years ago and the gruder case two years ago and it has upheld the use of race by a university to achieve diversity. and the university of texas is trying to do something modest. 75% of the students come into the university because they graduated in the top 10% of a public high school, and only 25% of the students are subject to the whole lis tick istic review a very exciting part of who they saw, and it is just one factor of a factor of a factor to bring this view. but it important to the university to assist not just black students or latino students to have opportunity to the pipeline of leadership, but to help all of the students to learn in a diverse environment. texas is educating the future leaders of the state of texas, and they know, that and they know that the state already is 50% african-american and latino, and they have to educate not just black student, but latino student, and white students who know how the work in diverse teams, and know how to lead in a diverse opportunity, and that is part of the educational mission. ad my sense is that the court understands that, and will be looking for a way that the supreme court has said they can do in the grudder case and others. and geneva is home to largest is high after a terrorist threat is uncovered and next we'll talk to an expert about that and the suspicious purchase of dozens of throw away foams setting off alarm bells in the u.s. we have that next. families share datawireless e switch to t-mobile now and get 4 lines with up 6gb each. just $30 bucks a line and no sharing. plus get the samsung galaxy s6 for $0 upfront and $10 bucks a month at t-mobile. 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. when a moment spontaneously turns romantic, why pause to take a pill? and why stop what you're doing to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use, is the only daily tablet approved to treat erectile dysfunction so you can be ready anytime the moment is right. plus cialis treats the frustrating urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any symptoms of an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use. insurance coverage has expanded nationally and you may now be covered. contact your health plan for the latest information. switzerland is heading into this weekend on high alert. police there are on the hunt for four men linked to the horrific terrorist attacks in paris which happened four weeks ago now. and this is a new alert that is coming from a cia tip that named geneva as a next possible target. here with me to talk about this we have former fbi assistant director tom fuentes as well as cnn contributor michael weiss the author of isis, inside the army of terror. do you anticipate at this point geneva is going to stand in this heightened state of alert for days and days to come like we saw in belgium? >> i think so brianna. the hardest thing with these alerts is when to call them off. if you pick up chatter, you pick up source information that individuals or a group of individuals are intending to do an attack on some facility or in some city or country you can put everybody on alert. when do you take them off of alert? because how do you know when they're not going to do it? >> michael, what do you think about these communications? because the fbi also intercepted some that not only mentioned geneva but discussed the idea of launching an attack on chicago. do you know anything about that? >> well, no, i mean if i did, i'd either work for the cia or inside isis. i mean, i think what's happened is essentially they've intercepted signals, communication likely coming from the so-called caliphate. so raqqah, mosul, you know, syria and iraq. and this has been part of the isis strategy all along. perpetrate as many simultaneous or near-simultaneous attacks as possible, striking the west. so you saw prior to the sort of shutdown of geneva, brussels for 72 hours, i mean, was in complete lockdown. with a heightened alert about an imminent terrorist threat. also on the back of that, they were still chasing suspects from the paris attacks. there's also -- it's not a coincidence to my mind that the three countries most affected now in this dragnet of france, belgium and switzerland are all franco phone countries. isis has a very strong francophone contingent. they have all katibas of french speaking jihadis, many with european passports who are easily dispatched back into the continent to either recruit and establish these sleeper networks or, indeed, to carry out gruesome attacks such as we saw last month in paris. >> so in the -- >> yeah, i'm sure that -- sorry, go ahead. >> i was going to say, tom, when you hear what michael is saying there, but how seriously then should officials in the u.s. be talking this idea of an attack on chicago? did they look at it and say, that's not as serious as one that is being discussed in europe? >> no. they don't look at it that way. what they look at is what's the basis of the discussion? what is the context? is it code? you know, it could be. and sometimes this chatter is nothing more than digital gossip. so, is it chatter where they're talking about, hey, the guy in san bernardino, farook, was from chicago. he was born in chicago. is that the reference to chicago? maybe being discussed of, wow, maybe they should do an attack in chicago. so sometimes it's really hard to tell what they're talking about when a city's name comes up or when a specific location comes up, if that's what they mean. are they talking about attacking there or discussing other events? >> what do you think, michael, about this report that the fbi is investigating about several suspicious purchases of prepaid cell phones from walmart stores in missouri, we're actually told that these purchases occurred over the past week, that they total more than 100 disposable phones, all were paid in cash. you hear about that and is that something that concerns you? >> sure. i mean, you know, isis has got very good over the past, remember they started as al qaeda in iraq where u.s. special forces were hoovering these guys up because they were nine conpops. they were talking on their cell phones, easily traced, geolocated and special operations forces would go in and either kill or capture them. since then they have evolved. they understand the nature of signals intelligence and surveillance. they have read the reports disclosed by edward snowden about how the nsa essentially listens in on, collects metadata and listens in on phone communications. there was a report in "the new york times" several monthsation when abu bakr al baghdadi meets with the council, everybody puts their phones in a lead lined box before they're allowed to enter the room. this is exactly the kind of m.o. pay in cash, no paper trail, no credit card sort of trail leading back to the person doing the buying. and take a phone that can easily be burnt and destroyed. you know, so that nobody knows where sort of, you know, the electronics footprint came from. i saw all that but then again, you know, the fact that people are buying prepaid cell phones so close to the holiday and using cash also just be that we're in this time of year where these are the kinds of things that are happening. >> okay, tom, what do you think, tom, when you hear about something, you hear about a purchase like this? what do you think? >> well, i think it's nothing new. i think, you know, my experience in the fbi, we had gangsters and drug dealers making those kind of purchases decades ago. so the idea of getting multiple phones, use it once or twice, throw it away go to the next phone, is nothing new. or, you know, i don't think it's on their christmas shopping list. so i think it's obviously a bad intention to buy that many phones. >> tom fuentes, michael, thank you guys so much. really appreciate you discussing this with us. that is it for me. i'm going to be back here at 5:00 eastern. i'll see you from "the situation room." from our international viewers, amanpour is next. for our viewers in north america, nz room with brook bold win starts right now. brianna keilar thank you so much my friend. great to be with all of you on this friday. listen, we are just four days away, four days from cnn hosting the final republican presidential debate of this year. and now there will be not just one, but two candidates up on that stage in las vegas who are threatening to reso the from the gop. ben carson has just opened up the option that he will run as an independent. it is a card as you well know that donald trump has been playing. carson's threat, though, comes after this "washington post" report this morning on republican party leaders talking about the possibility of a brokered convention when the republican national convention happens next summer. you know, check the history books, last time something like that came even close to happening was back

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