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All In with Chris Hayes, Transcript 12/4/2015

Guests: Jack Dolan, Rukmini Callimachi, Chris Murphy, Haider Mullick

Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: December 4, 2015 Guest: Jack Dolan, Rukmini Callimachi, Chris Murphy, Haider Mullick

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Good evening from San Bernardino, California. I`m Chris Hayes.

Tonight for the first time, we`re seeing the face of the second suspect in Wednesday`s mass shooting. Tashfeen Malik, 27, who along with her husband, Syed Farook, age 28, killed 14 people and wounded over 20 at a Center for the Developmentally Disabled.

That attack is now as of today being investigated officially as an act of terror after authorities uncovered evidence the two suspects both now dead may have been radicalized and inspired by terrorist groups overseas.

In a joint statement with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, however, FBI Director James Comey said the attackers appeared to have acted on their own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: So far, we have no indication that 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. Again, I quickly add, it is early. We are still working very hard to understand. But I wanted you to know that so far we don`t see such indications.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: The couple apparently took pains to cover their digital trail, according to officials destroying hard drives and other equipment. Law enforcement sources told NBC News that Malik, who was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia before marrying Farook two years ago, posted a statement on Facebook as the attack began, pledging allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Facebook confirmed to CNBC in fact that it pulled down the post after the shooting for violating its community standards.

At a press conference today the FBI, which is now officially taking over the investigation, said the couple may also have had direct contact with other persons of interest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID BOWDICH, FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES: What I`m ready to confirm is there are some telephonic connections between these two individuals, at least one of these individuals, and other subjects of our investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: NBC`s Chris Jansing sat down tonight with Saira Khan, sister of Syed Farook, who said she`s shocked by what she`s learned about her relatives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAIRA KHAN, SISTER OF SYED FAROOK: I had absolutely no idea that they were involved with anything like that or that they were even capable of doing something like this.

CHRIS JANSING, NBC NEWS: Who were the people you knew?

KHAN: I mean, my brother, the brother that I grew up with, shy, introvert, you know, kept to himself, quiet. Kid that we knew that grew up and got married. And his wife was recently here. She was only here for two years. We didn`t really know her that well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: I got a chance to speak earlier with San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan and ask him about the change in the case`s designation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: What does it mean to you that it`s -- you know, people are wrestling with this meaning of OK, now it`s a terrorism investigation. You`ve got -- whether it was or wasn`t, right? You`ve got 14 people that got killed --

CHIEF JARROD BURGUAN, SAN BERNARDINO POLICE: Here`s the reality. As far as I`m concerned, the way that we did this investigation from start to now would not have changed regardless of whether this was workplace violence or terrorism. A criminal investigation is very similar in the sense that you`re taking the evidence that you have, you`re processing that evidence and you`re developing the information that you have.

The FBI is tremendous in the amount of resources they can bring to the table from an intel standpoint and that sort of stuff, but nothing would change up to this point in the way that we`ve done this.

HAYES: And here`s the question. Should it change for the folks that are going to get up and go to wok in San Bernardino tomorrow?

BURGUAN: No. Rest assured, rest assured we are on a high alert of -- well, hopefully Saturday most people don`t have to work. Except for me apparently.

HAYES: You`re up at 3:30. Right.

BURGUAN: I don`t know about that. But I will say no. People need to live their lives. We`ve asked people for years based upon what`s happened in this country, you`ve got to live your life, you`ve got to go out, you`ve got to work, you`ve got to enjoy your life, you`ve got to have a quality of life, you`ve got to spend your money. You do all those things.

But you`ve got to be vigilant too. And we know that. And don`t change that because of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: In addition to the arsenal of weapons and ammunition found in the suspects` home, authorities found what documents obtained by NBC News call a bomb-making facility in the garage, including materials for the same kind of ignition system used in the Boston marathon bombing. All four of the firearms recovered at the scene of the shooting were found to have been bought legally. The handguns both purchased by Farook himself in 2011 and 2012 before he got married. The two rifles were purchased by a second individual, someone authorities say they`ve now identified and located.

Earlier today, I asked an ATF spokesperson for some clarification.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: So if the person`s been located, I just want to clarify this. That means the shooters were not the people that purchased the weapons?

MEREDITH DAVIS, ATF SPOKESPERSON: The rifles.

HAYES: Yes, the rifles.

DAVIS: Correct.

HAYES: The shooters were not the ones that --

DAVIS: We`ve talked about Farook purchased the pistols but no one that was known to law enforcement at the time of the shootout, they did not purchase the rifles.

HAYES: Right.

DAVIS: So in essence, the ATF trace results developed a new lead.

HAYES: OK.

DAVIS: A lead that was not known to law enforcement before the trace results came back.

HAYES: I see. So the trace results located the initial purchaser of those two weapons.

DAVIS: Of the rifles.

HAYES: And the same purchaser of both.

DAVIS: Yes.

HAYES: And that person has been located?

DAVIS: Correct.

HAYES: And you know who that person is and where that person is?

DAVIS: Correct.

HAYES: That person is not in custody?

DAVIS: I don`t have information on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now, Jack Dolan. He`s an investigative reporter for "The Los Angeles Times", who has been working this story incredibly thoroughly.

Jack, what do we go I guess at this point? Let`s start with the weapons. We still know that two of them were purchased by Farook, two purchased by someone unknown. Is there anything else more that we know?

JACK DOLAN, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: Well, according to the families` lawyers, the family members knew that Farook had guns in the house. They were under lock according to the lawyers. And so, that wasn`t a cause for concern or particular interest.

We were also asking, you know, if it`s true that the couple were using the garage as essentially a bomb-making factory how could that have escaped the notice of family members?

And the attorney said that, you know, while Farook was a blood relative, that they did not have a particularly close relationship with the other members of the family and that when family members would come over to the house, they may have gone into the garage on occasion but certainly weren`t inspecting it.

Now, the couple, Syed and Tashfeen, they lived with Farook`s mother. So the question was posed, well, how could somebody actually living in the house with this couple not have known that they were creating pipe bombs in the garage?

And the answer was that the mother lived mainly upstairs, away from the garage, and didn`t venture in there very frequently because it was Syed`s man cave.

HAYES: You were doing some reporting yesterday about the sort of -- a clearer picture coming in of Tashfeen Malik. She`s from Pakistan, lived in Saudi Arabia. This appears to have been essentially an arranged marriage through an online dating site. And Syed Farook went to Saudi Arabia to meet her and bring her back. We have a picture of her now.

Do we know anything else now new?

DOLAN: What we were trying to find out was what her life in San Bernardino was like. We were told she was a housewife. She was a housekeeper. She stayed at home with the baby after the baby was born in May.

We were also told that she wore a full burqa whenever family members came over and that the men and the women separated. So they didn`t sit together. The brothers, the male members of Syed`s family, may never have seen her face according to the lawyers.

So, there wasn`t much new to say about her. They said she was very quiet and they said they simply did not know and did not discuss with her her views on, you know, world affairs or what`s going on in the Middle East.

HAYES: The Facebook post that is in some ways -- appears to be something of a smoking gun, although we don`t know the whole story yet, there`s been some back and forth about what happened there, whether she posted under her own name or under an alias, but it does appear it was done literally at the moment right before this event took place.

DOLAN: Yes, about 11:00 a.m. So, it was shockingly close to the event.

The attorneys for the family, without going so far as saying she didn`t do it, have raised the question of how does anyone know that it was her. If it was done under a different name, how can they be so sure it was her? But, you know, they don`t have the evidence themselves. They`re just raising that question.

HAYES: All right. Jack Dolan, thanks for your time tonight. I really appreciate it.

DOLAN: Thanks.

HAYES: I`m joined now by Rukmini Callimachi. She`s a foreign correspondent for "The New York Times". She focuses on al Qaeda and ISIS.

And, Rukmini, you were talking today on Twitter about the kind of M.O. here if in fact this proves to be this woman posting this pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, just before the attack. That`s actually not the first time something like that has happened.

RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Indeed, it`s not. The first time I think that has happened in the U.S. was when Elton Simpson, a young man from Arizona, and his accomplice drove to Garland, Texas, in May to attack the Prophet Muhammad cartoon competition that happened there.

And literally I think in the minutes before that attack, just as you`re seeing here, literally right before the attack in San Bernardino, the young man took to Twitter and he announced on Twitter that he had pledged bay`ah, which is a term they use meaning a pledge of allegiance, to amir al- muminin, which is the term they use for Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State.

And that follows what we have seen of the Islamic State where they have told their followers in the west that in order to essentially carry out an attack in their name as lone wolves, that really all they have to do is identify themselves as having pledged allegiance to the group right before carrying it out.

HAYES: Obviously, we saw in Paris, the attacks carried out by ISIS, there very different in scale and in scope and in the level of logistical complexity. It involves operatives and involved getting safe houses and stashes of weapons and coordinating. You were saying today that this model of what we saw transpire here, which appears to have been essentially an attack inspired by jihadists but not operationally controlled by them, is actually a model they`re actively pursuing and attempting to instigate.

CALLIMACHI: Indeed. The November 13th attacks in Paris -- I just got back from Paris two days ago -- are really the anomaly. In Paris, we saw three groups of commandos, nine attackers. Like you mentioned, rental cars, safe houses, et cetera. And it`s very, very hard for that kind of organization to evade law enforcement, even though it did.

What the Islamic State and like al Qaeda before it, what they realize is that they`re under very heavy scrutiny in the West. And so, they have created a system for radicalizing people in situ and for claiming attacks without having any operational link to the core.

These days, in order to get in touch with the Islamic State, all you need to do is have a twitter account. I`ve been able to speak to them. Other reporters have been able to speak to them. And certainly Americans, young Americans have been radicalized just by getting in touch with them over Twitter.

Once you are in their pipeline, you are then exposed to a series of propaganda messages that essentially teach you that as a Muslim, it is your duty to inflict harm on the infidels, meaning the rest of us, and they give you the tools to do that.

The pipe bombs that you`re describing that were found in the garage and that used the ignition that we saw during the Boston marathon bombs, that I believe is a recipe that is widely available, including in al Qaeda`s "Inspire" magazine. So all you need really is an Ethernet cable or a Wi-Fi connection and you are then able to just find these things online, and put together the pieces to be able to carry it out.

We saw Elton Simpson in May. We`ve now seen this attack in San Bernardino. And don`t forget that last year in Canada, we had two back-to-back lone wolf-style attacks, one that was on the parliament, another that was a drive-by car accident that again had very similar elements of people that seemed to be radicalized, just taking it upon themselves to do an act of violence.

HAYES: Part of the challenge I would imagine for counterterrorism officials in this situation is exactly what you said at the beginning. If you`re dealing with a couple who are only speaking to themselves about what they`re doing, if you`re talking about a lone individual or in the case of Boston, the two brothers, finding a kind of in to that if they`re keeping off the Internet or if they`re not communicating openly with people, that strikes me as a pretty difficult thing for the FBI or anyone else to do.

CALLIMACHI: Exactly. And what we`re seeing more and more of are family units. We saw it with the Boston bombings as you just mentioned, two brothers. In Paris this January for the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks, we again had two brothers. And now, we have a husband and wife.

And so, there`s really nothing suspicious about a husband and wife speaking to each other. That`s not the kind of communications that you would normally I think be tapping into. People are usually -- law enforcement is usually looking for communications outside of a family unit, and I think it becomes increasingly difficult when it`s within those closed doors.

HAYES: Rukmini Callimachi of "The New York Times," really appreciate it.

CALLIMACHI: Thanks, Chris.

HAYES: Still ahead, what today`s news means for U.S. policy and counterterrorism efforts. Senator Chris Murphy joins me ahead.

Plus, attorneys for the family of Syed Farook held a press conference, as Jack was just saying. What they said about the current rhetoric about Muslims in America and a few other things.

And later, how that rhetoric is playing out in the 2016 campaign and why Donald Trump says these tragedies call his polling numbers to go up.

Those stories and more ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It`s taking off like crazy. The hats, it`s going crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Today, Senator Ted Cruz campaigned at a gun range in Iowa, an event that had been scheduled before the San Bernardino shooting. Cruz announced his campaign and signed up 24,000 supporters for a so-called Second Amendment Coalition and blasted efforts in Washington to reform gun laws.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Liberal Democrats think it is insensitive to celebrate our constitutional rights in the wake of a terrorist attack. It is these constitutional rights that keep us safe. You don`t stop bad guys by taking away our guns. You stop bad guys by using our guns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: Well, look at what presidential candidates think should or should not be done in the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HAYES: Since the San Bernardino shooting, there have been of course ripples through the political process and a discussion about what to do to prevent this kind of attack. Of course, what kind of attack this was has been evolving quite a bit over the last several days.

Some people have been very outspoken. On the day of the shooting, Senator Chris Murphy said, "Your thoughts should be about the steps to take to stop this carnage. Your prayers should be forgiveness if you do nothing again."

Had this been a workplace rampage with no link to terrorism, the political discussion might have revolved once again solely around gun safety legislation, which would have very likely gone absolutely nowhere.

But with authorities now investigating this as an act of terror, we will be hearing much more from politicians about no doubt an expansive set of measures they think should be taken. As just one example, today, Senator Lindsey Graham talked specifically about the visa process that brought the female suspect Tashfeen Malik to the U.S.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For about a year now, people have been telling me about one way to penetrate America is to do arranged marriages. That you find somebody in the U.S. that you can convert and take a terrorist sympathizer and basically an al Qaeda-ISIL arranged marriage, and this may be one of the first ones we`ve seen.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HAYES: Joining me now, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Senator, let me just start with that. That was the first I`d heard of anything like that from Lindsey Graham, but I`m already seeing people say, well, you were just telling us how well you vet the refugees and now, you`re telling us how well you vet the visa applicants and look what happened. What do you say to that?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: Well, Lindsey tends to overhype many of the threats this country faces. But he`s right in one respect, which is that we do have to take a broad look at all of the ways in which people come to this country. There`s been this hyper-focus on the small group of immigrants, refugees that actually get the highest level of vetting, but there are different levels when you move to the visa program and then when you move to the visa waiver program, those countries that don`t actually have to have their citizens go through a visa screening process, that probably do need to be beefed up.

So, that`s a conversation that could likely bring together Republicans and Democrats if we broaden this beyond the question of just refugees fleeing torture and terror from Syria and Iraq and talk about the broader process of screening immigrants into this country. There`s probably some changes we could make that would bring the two parties together and give people the sense that Congress really is serious about beefing up security.

HAYES: It also strikes me that focusing on the visa avoids the more difficult issue which is Syed Farook is an American citizen. He was born in Illinois. His brother, as far as I know, is a Navy veteran. You know, this is essentially American as apple pie. Even if the visa, Tashfeen Malik, came over and came over with no radicalization, that may just well have happened here.

What do you do about that part of it? Is there a policy solution for the kinds of things I was talk talking about with Ms. Callimachi?

MURPHY: So, I mean, I think we`re learning about the contacts this couple may have had. But what we do know is that we are building the capacity to understand when people are becoming radicalized, when they`re talking to individuals who may be trying to recruit those into the radical cause, and those individuals get put on a list.

Right now, that list essentially means that they can`t get on a plane, but many of us believe that list also should mean that those individuals can`t buy a gun either. We tried to get that passed through the Senate this week. Republicans almost to a man and woman stood against it.

So, there are some things we can do domestically that would apply both to American citizens and to temporary immigrants to this country that could make a difference. Whether it would have made a difference in this situation, I don`t know. But it certainly can be part of the prophylactic effort moving forward.

HAYES: I`ve seen conservative commentators and Republicans say, particularly today once the FBI official said, look, we were investigating this act of terror, they said well, you ridiculous liberals, you`re talking about guns, this is nothing to do with guns, this is not about guns, this is an act of terror, we`ve got to fight terrorism, we`ve got to destroy the caliphate and you should eat your words from, you know, days ago about talking about guns.

What do you say to that?

MURPHY: But, of course, this is still about guns. The fact is that these two individuals who walked into this building with military-style assault weapons, there are reports they had large-scale magazines attached to them. The fact is they were able to kill this many people in such a short amount of time in part because of the kind of weapons that they had.

So, of course, what unites many of these killings, many of these mass murders, is how easy it is in this country to get your hands on weapons that are designed first and foremost to kill as many people as possible. So, no, we shouldn`t simplify this killing or any of the others into a conversation just about guns. Others may have a mental health component to it. This may have a counterterrorism component to it.

But the idea that just because these may have been radicalized individuals doesn`t mean that there isn`t an element of this conversation in which tighter gun safety laws would have at least meant that less people died inside of that building.

HAYES: As a lawmaker, I`m curious to hear how you processed the declaration today this is being investigated as an act of terror. Because I think what I`ve witnessed happen is that it`s almost like a magic word.

We go along and I`m reminded of the shooting at the community college in Oregon, which I don`t even know if folks remember about anymore. Numerous people were killed. I don`t know what the individual`s motive was. We sort of never found out. We all packed up our cameras and went home.

The declaration it`s an act of terror today means something now. It means something about the political conversation. What does it mean to you as a lawmaker?

MURPHY: Well, I mean, I think there`s reason to treat this differently. In part because this could be the first incidence of an ISIS-inspired large-scale attack inside the United States and you have to be worried about copycats.

HAYES: Right.

MURPHY: So, we need to take this seriously as an act of terrorism.

At the same time, there are some people today that are saying, well, you know, because mental health wasn`t an issue here, you should just shelve that effort and all of your efforts should be about counterterrorism and fighting ISIL.

The fact is, there are going to be more mass killings, more mass shootings. They`re going to look like the ones in Oregon, look like the ones in Connecticut. So, we`ve got a big job to do which involves fighting ISIS but also involves continuing our work to make sure that the 80 people a day that are killed by guns that have nothing to do with terrorists gets a little bit lower and lower as days and months go on.

So, this is a big job. But the ping-pong that sometimes happens in Washington between attacking one kind of mass shooting and then attacking another kind of mass shooting has to end. We`ve got to look at the whole gamut of policy responses.

HAYES: All right. Senator Chris Murphy, thank you very much.

MURPHY: Thanks.

HAYES: Coming up, I had a chance to talk to two people who represent San Bernardino. Asked what they wanted people to know about their city. What they said, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: What your folks know -- I mean, it`s one of these bizarre things, right? Mass shootings happen and we all come in. And people out there are going to -- all they`re learning about this is this terrible tragedy. What do you want people to know about the folks here?

STATE SEN. MIKE MORRELL (R), CALIFORNIA: That`s a good question. Yes, you know, as a representative, I mean, I pray for my country. I pray for safety and for blessings over the people of my 23rd district.

And so, you know, when this happens, it hurts. We`re a good community. There`s always going to be bad people. You know, that`s part of human nature.

But overall, this community`s a wonderful community. So, we had some bad people, criminals, evil people that did some horrible things here and we`re devastated by it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That was part of my interview with California state senator mike morel, a Republican who represents much of San Bernardino, a city that long before this week`s massacre had been devastated by economic hardship. In fact, it`s now the poorest city of its size in the entire state of California.

To understand better what the area has been going through over the past several years I spoke with Cheryl Brown, California state assembly member, a Democrat who grew up right here in San Bernardino and represents much of the city.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHERYL BROWN, CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY: We felt like we were ignored many times because we don`t get the resources here that others get. We have a city that`s in bankruptcy. And our police force is stretched so thin. So before we feel that -- I feel that I had to always be a champion for San Bernardino and for the 47th assembly district. And I continue to be a champion.

Every time I get on the floor, every time I`m speaking with someone, the first thing I ask them is what does that have to do with the 47th assembly district? Because this district has been marginalized.

We`re the poorest district, and this is the poorest city in California and in the nation next to Detroit. So for someone to come in and attack poor people at a facility that`s helping disabled people -- oh, don`t let me -- that`s helping disabled people, it really hurts so very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMAD ABUERSHAID, FAROOK FAMILY LAWYER: I think what the media should also be cautious about is just because he had a religion, that he was Muslim, it had nothing to do with these acts. Islam does not agree and does not support any type of actions that occur like this. It does not support killing. It does not support murder of innocent individuals. And the family would never support anything like this. And they`re giving their hearts and their prayers and everything else that they can do to assist and the victims who lost their life that day as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HAYES: That was one of the lawyers for the family of Syed Farook who earlier this evening wrapped up what was a somewhat bizarre press conference where they asserted repeatedly there`s no evidence the two suspects had any links to extremist ideology, at least not definitive.

Also one of the lawyers inveighed against President Obama trying to take people`s guns away, praised the second amendment. And he urged people not to jump to conclusions about the two perpetrators` motives.

Joining me now, MSNBC foreign correspondent Ayman Moyheldin. And Ayman, I`ve got to imagine the family obviously here is basically in an impossible situation. Facing all these questions of people saying how could you not know, how could you not know. What do you make of that press conference we saw today?

AYMAN MOYHELDIN, MSNBC FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, I think that you really described it well. It was a somewhat bizarre press conference for some of the reasons that were expressed in it. And what I mean by that is certainly the fact that was confirmed by the lawyers, which was that the mother was living with them and she was unaware of all of this activity that was taking place inside the house, I think that struck me as a journalist seemed unusual.

He offered an explanation saying he`s trying to say that in a conservative household she may not have been going everywhere in the house and things like that. And again, that struck me as a little but the unusual.

These were individuals who according to the FBI planted -- or were planning and orchestrating and fabricating in their house several pipe bombs. So the appliances, the equipment that they had certainly would have been for any individual somewhat of suspicion.

But in addition to, that the ammunitions they had and stuff.

He did confirm that the family knew that he had two pistols that were licensed. So, they were aware of that.

But I think that there were some questions about that press conference.

You know, on one hand there was questions for me as a journalist, but at the same time he was doing what he is required to do as a defense attorney, which was really being as forthcoming as he can about this family, saying the family absolutely did not know.

We heard it again time and time that the family was not particularly close. I mean, they all knew each other well. But they did not know the wife. The wife -- obviously the woman who went on that shooting spree.

So I think there were a lot of questions. And I don`t think he necessarily answered all of those questions apparently. And I think, again, there was some confusion about what law enforcement officials have been saying, which is that she made a post pledging allegiance to ISIS. The way he was characterizing it, at least one of the lawyers was characterizing it in the press conference, he was characterizing it as if she liked a post or that she -- he wasn`t describing...

HAYES: Visited.

MOYHELDIN: Right. He wasn`t describing it as a pledge. In fact, he made this kind of bizarre analogy of saying that if he likes a Britney Spears post it doesn`t mean that he likes Britney Spears` music, which again, seemed a little bit -- a very strange analogy to make given the context of what we are talking about here.

HAYES: Ayman, let me ask you this. You spent years doing incredible reporting from throughout North Africa and the Middle East and in Muslim countries. You know, one of the things that happens here, right, is the news media is not covering women in Hijabs or inside mosques or looking at prayer mats or Korans at all most of the time.

Then something like this happens and there`s this sort of deluge of visual stimulus to folks. And what is your concern about how people all compute that in terms of the associations they have with what can be just basically run-of-the-mill pious Muslim accouterments?

MOYHELDIN: Yeah, I mean, I think that`s -- that`s a very difficult question to answer for a few different reasons. One, the context -- and the numbers show this. That the majority of Americans don`t necessarily interact or engage with Muslims, don`t necessarily know a lot about the Islamic faith. And so, the symbols to them, or these elements of the Muslim faith are always constantly questioned. And most of the time look at it across the spectrum of all American media, taken out of context a lot.

And I think in this particular case it`s very difficult because you have evidence that is emerging from the FBI about the background of these individuals but when there`s a focus, for example, on oh, a young Muslim- American went to perform the hajj and suddenly that`s suddenly a major cause of concern, that`s then completely taking out of context what the hajj means and what every Muslim person is driven to perform the hajj.

Because the overwhelming people who are performing the hajj have no affiliation with terrorism. But the way that is perceived all of a sudden is a key piece of the evidence. It`s not to rule it out, it`s not to say nothing happened in that process. But it`s being able to take it and put it in the right context among all of the other characteristics, you know, wearing the veil.

And we constantly hear this. I see journalists all the time say things like oh, he went to pray at the mosque three times a day. Praying at the mosque three times a day for a lot of Muslims is not a sign of any political leanings. It`s just a sign of devotion no different than individuals, you know, in other faiths practicing their religion in different ways. It`s just a characteristic of that faith.

So I think again, when you put that with the headlines of things like Muslim killers, those headlines become extremely dangerous given some of the Islamophobia we`re seeing in the country. And I would be cautious of that for all journalists not to take things out of context.

HAYES: All right, Ayman Moyheldin.

Haider Mullick. He`s a naval reserve officer, professor at the Naval War College, wrote an op-ed today for The New York Times headlined "don`t make San Bernadino a victory for ISIS"

Hader, what do you mean by that?

HAIDER MULLICK, NAVAL WAR COLLEGE: What I mean by that is don`t have a broad brush approach that indicts an entire community. The approximately 3 million patriotic by large law-abiding citizens whose loyalty is to the constitution and live like everybody else. So what happens at times like this, a time of great fear and confusion and anxiety, some folks want to put all of them in one category.

Now I`m the first one to admit that there is a serious problem. There`s a small cult that is very loud but very deadly within the Muslim community even here in the United States. These are folks that we saw who went on this rampage. And they get radicalized.

Now, they get radicalized for a whole host of reasons. But that community exists. And one of the best things that have come out if you look at FBI data is the community outreach program. And the last ten years many American Muslim family members have come out and said, hey, my daughter is about to get radicalized or is thinking of going to Syria or my son is acting differently or has shown signs of violence. And that community gets disenfranchised. And that`s exactly what groups like ISIS want.

They want American Muslims to feel that they will never be full citizens of the United States. And that was my main concern.

But I also reached out to people through that piece who care less about that, but just on a pragmatic level it`s very important to reach out to American Muslim communities so we can gather more information, we can prevent these attacks. And we`ve prevented hundreds of them in the last 10 to 15 years. There`s real good data out there that FBI has produced.

And so it`s very important for that engagement to continue.

HAYES: Haider Mullick, thank you very much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

MULLICK: Thank you.

HAYES: Still ahead, presidential candidates ramping up their rhetoric in the wake of San Bernardino and Paris. We`ll show you what Donald Trump said tonight, next.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right here in our country in California...

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SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO, MERICOPA COUNTY, AZ: I decided last week, three days prior to the unfortunate incident that`s occurring in California, to ask at least 250,000 citizens that wear concealed weapons to take action if they are ever in a situation with large crowds where shooters are trying to kill, kill innocent people.

My goal of utilizing 250,000 citizens armed with concealed weapons is to stop the carnage, stop the killing before cops arrive.

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HAYES: That was the sheriff of Arizona`s Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio today, reiterating his call for citizen gun owners to act against mass shooters. We should note Sheriff Arpaio`s call to arms is directly opposed by the chief department an adjacent county, Steve Henry from Pinal County who says we don`t want to walk into a gunfight between anybody, much less a gunfight where people are untrained.

Chief Henry also warned that having gun-toting citizens firing at suspected shooters could endanger innocent bystanders, an especially relevant piece of advice as Arpaio specifically urged concealed carriers to fire their weapons in situations with quote large crowds.

Also one slight correction to something I said earlier in my conversation. Chris Murphy. I referred to the marriage between Farook and Malik, the two suspects as arranged. That`s not true, they simply met over an online dating site. I regret the error.

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CRUZ: Folks in the media ask at the behest of Democrats, isn`t it insensitive for us to do a second amendment rally following this terror attack? Let me tell you something, I really don`t view our job as being sensitive to Islamic terrorists.

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HAYES: I`ve just lost IFB, just lost IFB.

2016 Republican hopeful Senator Ted Cruz followed through with his campaign stop at a gun range in Iowa. The event was scheduled before Wednesday`s shooting in San Bernardino.

But the Cruz campaign did release an official reminder about the event just hours after that deadly shooting. In the wake of the Paris attacks and now the shooting in San Bernardino, Republican presidential candidates have amped up the rhetoric of terror and fear on the campaign trail.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was wondering what you would say to President Obama now that we have had a terrorist attack right here in our country in California.

TRUMP: It was a terrorist attack. It was. It was a terrorist attack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How would you handle that?

TRUMP: Oh, I would handle it so tough. You have no idea. You don`t want to hear. You don`t even want to hear. You don`t want to hear how I`d handle it.

I will get myself in so much trouble with them. We are going to handle it so tough. And you know what we`re going to do? We`re going to get it stopped, because we can`t allow this to happen to our country. We`re going to get it stopped.

And by the way -- and by the way, by the way, if the people in Paris or the people in California, if you had a couple of folks in there with guns and that knew how to use them and they were in that room, you wouldn`t have dead people. The dead people would be the other guys.

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HAYES: Joining me now, Josh Barro, correspondent for the Upshot for The New York Times and MSNBC contributor -- and Joy Reid, MSNBC -- Joy Reid, MSNBC national correspondent.

Let me read this to you about Trump`s talking about atrocities essentially. "I`m going to protect people, and that`s why whenever there`s a tragedy everything goes up. My numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country. We have weak, sad politicians." The Real Clear polling average would seem to bear that out.

He`s up about five points since the Paris attacks.

Josh, what do you make of it?

JOSH BARRO, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Trump sometimes manages to be ridiculous without being wrong. And I think that actually is good analysis of the situation, that people flock to him when they`re scared.

I thought that answer was interesting because it didn`t really mean anything. They asked him what are you going to do about this? And it`s just oh, I`m going to be so tough, I`m going to be so tough, which matches the sort of emotional valence that voters want. I think not even just in the Republican primary. I think a lot of voters want that. But he says that, it has no policy content at all.

It`s partly because nobody seems to really have a clear plan on either side of the aisle about what to do about -- well, certainly about the mess in the Middle East and about ISIS. I think, you know, nobody wants to commit the number of troops that would be required to actually take them out. So it`s a question of sort of basically projecting strength without actually doing anything.

So really it matches what we`re hearing from a lot of the candidates.

HAYES: Joy, he reiterated something he said after Paris, which got him in a bit of trouble, which was basically that if people had guns in this situation then everything would have been fine, which does come perilously close to blaming the victims of an atrocity, a mass slaughter.

JOY REID, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And he`s echoing the NRA line that, you know, if you just arm the sixth grade teachers you could have stopped Newtown, if you armed all those people in church you could have stopped the Charleston massacre.

But every piece of actual data that exists in the world reinforces the fact that there`s never been a situation where the protypical good guy with a gun has been able to stop a massacre. There was an armed security guard at Columbine who was unable to stop that from happening.

And we`ve just never seen this actually happen in real life. Maybe on the show "24."

But I think what we`re seeing right now is that the Republican Party and the primary that is taking place within it is all Id, it`s all gut. It has nothing to do with data and facts. It`s literally at least a third of the voters on the Republican side looking in the mirror and seeing the candidate they want, the person who`s expressing their deepest inner id.

And Donald Trump is that. He doesn`t need facts. He doesn`t need logic. He doesn`t need data. He`s just id.

HAYES: I want to play something Marco Rubio said today. He had some somewhat odd thoughts about bomb control. Take a listen.

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SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: And it doesn`t help when you have a president and a political left in this country that immediately, within seconds, within minutes of this attack, began putting out tweets about gun control and gun control.

Well, we need bomb control, because these people were building bombs. We need terrorist control.

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HAYES: Josh, you know, what struck me about that were two things. One, it`s unclear whether those bombs actually killed anyone, which has to do with the fact that bombs are actually relatively difficult to make and to handle.

And number two, we pretty much do have bomb control in this country. You can`t have bombs. It`s illegal.

What did you make of Rubio`s comments?

BARRO: Well, I think the one truth behind this is that I think that extremist violence is actually not that big a problem in the United States. Since September 11th we`ve had about 80 deaths overall from extremist violence, about half of them Islamist and half non-Islamist, which is a pace of six a year.

If we rank the things that are actually dangers to life and limb for Americans, this is pretty far down on the list. So I think it`s true that when an incident like in happens it`s incorrect to look at it and say that this specific thing requires a big policy reaction, whether that`s gun control or whether that`s a military action somewhere round the world.

Now, we do have a real problem with gun violence in general, generally not of this sort that is politically motivated and that involves many victims at once, and that is a real policy question.

But I do think it`s true that sometimes when a big terrible thing happens there is a lurch to try to find a policy solution for it when really if the big terrible thing is rare enough it doesn`t really require a direct policy solution.

REID: Bbut if the big terrible thing is cumulative and keeps happening and you had on the same day that the San Bernardino shooting happened you had a shooting in Georgia that was a mass shooting, you then had the Planned Parenthood mass shooting in Colorado, also deadly. I think it`s not that each individual specific event requires a policy response, it`s that the accumulation of death requires finally at long last the United States government and its leaders to decide that it might not be such a good idea to let people stockpile unlimited amounts of military-style armaments as if we have American warlords.

I mean, I think it`s the accumulation, it`s not each individual event.

BARRO: But I think what`s accumulated is not mostly about military-style armaments, it`s mostly about handguns. And I think, you know, it`s not that every type of gun needs to be legal for people to possess. But I think if we`re trying to figure out what`s the nature of the problem and which specific policies will aim at that problem, we don`t want to focus specifically on these sorts of military-style events because it will actually cause us to miss the things that are dangerous about guns in America.

HAYES: Josh, what you just said I think is key in terms of how this sort of gets refracted through the political system. Chris Christie was talking about you`re talking about this attack in San Bernardino, you haven`t said anything about Planned Parenthood on the trail, why? And he basically said they`re totally different. The one in San Bernardino was foreign actors or people inspired by foreign actors. And Joy, that gets to something real profound about the politics of terror, the politics of the fear of invasion or penetration by a foreign power that has a kind of salience, particularly in the Republican primary that other issues don`t.

REID: Right. We define terrorism by the religious sect of the killer, not by the act and by the fact of the terror that is involved in the act. And we have a huge problem when people are just as terrorized at a Planned Parenthood clinic don`t get the moniker. It`s not that the moniker brings back the dead, it`s that the policy response is different when you`re talking about terrorism.

The Timothy McVeigh attack on the Murrah Federal Building was actually terrorism despite the fact that he was not a Muslim. It is possible for terrorism to take place if it`s the Klan who are professed Christians, if it`s an anti-abortion terrorist. It`s all terrorism.

And very quickly, Chris, if you watch every other candidate becoming Donald Trump, you really get a sense of where the party is right now. They`re all attempting to be Donald Trump, not distinct from him.

HAYES: That is true.

Josh Barro and Joy Reid, thank you both.

We`ll be right back with some final thoughts from San Bernardino.

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HAYES: You know, I`ve now spent the better part of three weeks immersed in the strange mobile village of TV news coming to the site in the wake of an atrocity. And it`s been weird and sad. And there`s two things I think that can get lost, one thing for us and one thing for you.

The thing for us is in the air of competitive pressure it`s very easy to lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with human beings. All the stories we`re telling are about fellow human beings with inner lives and loves and hopes and dreams and that competitive pressure, that desire to get the story can make us forget there is a space for grace and dignity.

The other thing that gets lost I think if you`re watching all this coverage is that we don`t cover the planes that land, as we say in the industry. That means what happened here, what happened in Paris is blessedly rare.

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