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tv   Ronan Farrow Daily  MSNBC  January 7, 2015 10:00am-11:01am PST

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hard day today, 7:00 p.m. in france where a massive man hunt is underway across paris. that of course, is for the gunmen behind this terror attack. police are searching for those assayilants who stormed charlie hebdo, notorious for provocative cartoons. the two opened fire with rifles reportedly shouting. a third, manned a get away car. 12 confirmed dead now. another 8 injured. some of them in critical condition as we speak. ten of those dead are journalists. two, police officers. one was shot in the street. his death captured in an unsettling video making the rounds as the gunman calmly
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fired at close range on the officer while he lay on the sidewalk. global condemnation has come fast and furious. president obama just now speaking from the white house before a meeting with the vice president and the secretary of state. >> one of the things i'll be discussing with secretary kerry today is to make sure we remain vigilant, not just with respect to americans living in paris, but americans living in europe. and the middle east and other parts of the world, making sure we stay vigilant in trying to protect them. and to roll up the networks. that help to advance these kinds of plots. >> speaking at the scene earlier today, president francois hollande called this incident a terrorist attack.
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>> france is now under what's called an attack alert, the highest alert the country has. following this right now, he's been keeping track of this and particularly track of some of the roots of this attack. what do we know about what might have prompted this? >> well, ronan, we know that the magazine that was targeted was a magazine that over the course of the last several decades has been at the forefront of a lot of controversy. both for its cartoons and caricatures caricatures. but also because in the most recent years, it has put in sharp focus some of its most scathing caricatures, if you will, against muslims and extremists in various parts of the world. and as a result of that it has come under attacks. we know the paper itself founded back in 1969 but in more recent years, perhaps since about 2006 it has come under a lot of criticism by muslim groups in france and elsewhere for some of the cartoons that it has depicted, including caricatures of the prophet mohammed in
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various situations. as a result of that it was the subject of previous attacks, and more importantly, the actual newspaper headquarters was attacked in 2014. it was accused of blasphemy for a cover that muslims around the world felt was offensive. and in 2011 it was fire bombed over, inviteing the prophet mohammed as a guest editor. the magazine doesn't hold its criticism or caricatures only for muslims. it has angered many. it has also had cartoons depicting pope benedict, orthodox jews. >> that's an important point. it doesn't just aim this very offensive to many satire at muslims. since the appearance in 1970, this has been targeted by this outlet pretty much every faith. >> that's true. but it seems in most recent years, it has come under attack by extremists. muslim extrimemeistsextremists. and what we saw in recent years. so certainly, there's no doubt
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based on the reports that we're hearing, some of the -- according to the reports and the eyewitnesss, the gunmen as they were leaving the scene of the newspaper today were chanting god is great, an expression very well known, associated with islam. again, you know it's still very early on, but it seems that this is without a doubt a politically motivated terrorist attack. and more importantly, there's a lot to be learned from the sophistication of the operation in terms of how it was carried out by who and who they were targeting. there was a political underpinning to this particular attack on this newspaper. >> thank you so much. we're actually looking at live pictures there. we'll bring it back up for the audience of the scene in paris right now, and we're going to have an update from there in a few moments. but first, more on where this may have come from. the website for charlie hebdo went down after the attack and now back up with a single striking image of solidarity making rounds around the world. je suis charlie. named, of course for charlie brown cartoons.
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this publication has a long history, as we mentioned, publishing these kind of provocative images believed to possibly be at the root of this attack. it's not the first time that the outlet has been targeted. we mentioned the fire bombing attack back in 2011 eamon talked about the fact that was connected, potentially to a cartoon featuring the prophet mohammed. but also they took no prisoners and they targeted figures of all religious stripes. obviously part of the reaction all around the world right now is condemnation of this blow to free speech. we've got ambassador mark ginsburg, a former white house adviser, as well to tell us a little bit about the u.s. response to this. we've heard john kerry come out and condemn this. president obama come out and condemn this. and all of the u.s. officials who are speaking right now say loud and clear, we're standing up for free speech. >> absolutely. well look to juxtapose this with what we just went through with "the interview" and north
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korea. at least no one in the united states so far has been harmed as a result of viewing or showing. but it has the same principle at work ronan, which is the fact that there are fascists, there are terrorists that have determined to kill free speech and journalism. what is unique here about charlie hebdo, and i've been listening to french radio all morning is that these journalists are heroes in their own country. they're all well known individually. their satire in effect has been biting to the point where it's become so famous. and yet at the same time, the escalation of muslim-related terrorism in france had put france on warning over the last two months. there had been a terrible outbreak of extremist islamist terrorist attacks against jews in paris in recent weeks, and from the united states -- to combat the -- whether it's isis or al qaeda in yemen.
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>> we don't yet know. >> we don't know who is behind this particular attack. but certainly we do know that it is an act of religious extremism of some kind. >> absolutely. and the fact of the matter is there's plenty in france who could commit this attack. >> ambassador briefly, what is the u.s. role in assisting in this kind of a manhunt? this response going on right now? >> i think the most important thing is the counterintelligence and counterterrorism effort. there is -- has been several thousand french who have gone to fight for isis or al qaeda. france has been an ally of the united states against our battle with isis and al qaeda. and it's important for viewers to understand france has been leading the fight against al qaeda in nigeria as well as in subsaharan africa. over which french citizens have made their way, for example, to go fight for isis. so i think the best thing that we could be doing right now is
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sharing all the intelligence we can with the french government over who may have procured the arms and who may have from a, shall we say social media and intelligence framework understand what chatter may have gone on. >> and we're going to dig into that much more deeply with intelligence officials. we want to hear more from you. we're going to get an update live from the scene in paris. christopher dickey's a veteran reporter and long time resident of paris, also a foreign editor at "the daily beast." good to have you on the program, sir, on a sad day for paris. what's the latest there? and what's the mood like there? >> well, i think the mood is that people are very much on edge. you don't -- the shooting is not necessarily over. the police are pursuing these people, but we saw a couple of years ago with a shooter that police were on his trail, they were on his trail and he continued to make attacks until finally he was cornered and killed. there's a concern that kind of
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thing could happen here. the other thing that has happened is that we've had a recent press conference by the prosecutor here in paris who started to clarify several details that have been kind of vague or contradictory over the course of the day. the number of people killed where they were killed, when and how they were killed. and that has started to clarify some aspects of this attack. but it still doesn't make clear who exactly was behind it, what exactly their motives were, how many of them there may be in addition to the shooters that directly involve. all of these are huge questions going forward. >> chris dickey, this attack we now know happened during the editorial meeting that the paper's editors were having. and we're hearing that the gunman actually called out members of the newspaper staff by name. what do we know about how targeted this attack was? >> well clearly it was targeted at charlie hebdo. but the question is was that
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the only target? was it just an effort to take revenge as somebody suggested when one of the gunmen supposedly said the prophet had his revenge? was it just about publishing cartoons of the prophet mohammed? i think it was about essentially an attempt to intimidate the west and the french government. by hitting an easy target with high symbolic value. that's a classic terrorist tactic. and i think that they won't succeed in intimidating the public or the government even over the short-term. but i think that certainly was their intention. >> all right. thank you so much chris dickey from paris. appreciate your reporting on this. at this point, there hasn't been any change in the alert level here in the u.s. and there's been no significant change in security at the u.s. embassy in paris. not far from those offices where the attack happened. so we mentioned secretary of state john kerry spoke from the state department about that this morning. he hit the free speech defense
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point that we've been hearing from all these u.s. officials very loud and clear. >> today, tomorrow in paris, in france across the world, the freedom of expression that this magazine no matter what your feelings were about it the freedom of expression it represented is not able to be killed by this kind of act of terror. >> nbc's peter alexander is following the u.s. response at the white house right now. peter, as we mentioned we heard from president obama just this past hour he talked about helping to hunt down these terrorists. what else are you hearing in terms of the american response? >> well want to give you a sense about the situation for americans who are presently overseas. we spoke moments ago with a top senior official. she is the president's top adviser on counterterrorism and issues of homeland security. and she says that while security has increased at diplomatic posts and embassies over the
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course of the last year, there hasn't just been no change at the u.s. embassy in france but really no change at embassies across that region throughout europe right now. she indicated there is no actual intelligence, at this time no threat that they are aware of to u.s. personnel or u.s. sites throughout europe right now. as for the military installations throughout that region, as well for my colleague at the pentagon right now. we are hearing that at this point, no decision has been made to in any way mandate changes taking place at military bases throughout the region right now. the decision will be left to the military leaders at those individual locations if they feel there's a need for added security. >> ambassador ginsburg having been at the white house in the midst of crisis responses like this going on on the parts of
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our allies what's the most important thing that the administration can do right now? >> make sure the americans are safe abroad. and there had been an innovation of the security threat level before christmas. well familiar with the embassy in pearce it's very well guarded by the french police. but the fact of the matter is, there has been the increasing call by isis leaders, not confusing them with al qaeda. issued an appeal for lone wolf attacks in recent weeks. and americans have to be much more vigilant as a result. >> we're getting a breaking news update. local publications are saying french police have entered a building in a northeastern suburb near where they believe they abandoned their car. we are going to keep you posted on that man hunt. thank you so much ambassador ginsburg. up next, that's exactly what we look at.
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all of the details on the security response within paris with those three attackers still on the run. we're going to get the very, very latest. stay with us. ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm ♪ here we go, here we go here we go. ♪ fifty omaha set hut ♪ ♪ losing feeling in my toes ♪ ♪ nothing beats that new car smell ♪ ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪ ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm ♪
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the manhunt continues right now for those three armed gunmen. french officials believe murdered at least 12 people in paris today. we've just learned from a local paris paper that police may have entered a building in the northeastern suburb of paris where they believe the get away car was abandoned. we're going to look at the very latest in this manhunt ongoing as we speak. here with me now, don barelli in charge and evan coleman, our nbc terrorism analyst here.
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don, take us inside what a response like this looks like. what paris authorities are dealing with. >> sure. you're going to have several things going on at the same time. one of the things that struck me was just how these guys moved so tactically, they were well-trained. it's been pointed out throughout a lot of the broadcasts they appeared to have a lot of training. what i would also think is that they had done extensive recon of this site before this attack was planned. likely, they had either a floor plan or somebody inside or maybe even had been inside themselves. so one of the things i'm going to want to be looking at if i'm in charge is looking at cameras, video logs not just of the attack itself but prior days. because in most cases like this you've seen where terrorists have done these recons. and so there might be some valuable evidence on a camera looking at phone logs, e-mail logs employee visitor logs. all of these things i'm going to be scouring. the other thing is physical
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evidence. if the car was recovered, likely there's going to be you know possibly some dna, some fingerprints, hair and fibers. all of these things can give law enforcement significant clues as to who these people are. >> and evan, one thing that we're hearing reported is that these individuals may not have spoken with a french accent. what other intelligence are french authorities working with right now? >> well, look, aside from the closed circuit tv cameras, also cell phone signals. they're trying to see if they can track cell phone signals and see if they can identify who these folks are. if you look back a few years ago at the tiger tiger, the failed bombing of the tiger tiger nightclub in the uk they managed to escape. and authorities managed to zero in on their cell phones and then actually tracked their cell phones as they were moving along the highway. they knew exactly where they were and how they were able to stop them. >> and don, this seemed by all accounts to be an extraordinarily organized attack. the get away car was in place.
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what are the authorities up against in terms of how coordinated this operation seems to be? >> well, again, it seems to be very well coordinated. if i had to guess, i would suspect they have some sort of a support cell in france there that were you know giving these guys logistical support, maybe some false passports to get out of the country. who knows. >> how did they bar them from getting out of the country at this point? >> it's tough. it's open borders and you know there's some very sophisticated false passports out there. it can be very challenging. but, you know, intelligence is going to be the key. and not just you know it's going to be all of the allies working together trying to put little shreds of intelligence together to hopefully give to the french to help them with their investigation. >> we've heard conflicting intelligence about the identity of these attackers. your reporting seems to indicate an isis source taking credit. on-site accounts saying some of the individuals may have indicated they were associated with al qaeda and yemen. what's the latest? >> right now, we really don't know. there are people on twitter who
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are claiming this is isis or it's going to be claimed on behalf of isis. the reality is if you look at this attack, this attack is sophisticated but it isn't sophisticated in the level of 9/11. it's not sophisticated in the level of what aqap tried doing. just came out the other day with this new "inspire" magazine talking about how they built an explosive detector. if they can do that and achieve that, why would they do something like this? this looks much more like an inspired attack. maybe people that have experience on a battlefield, maybe people that receive training. but people that appear to be operating on their own priorities and on their own mission because it's very difficult to understand how an organized terrorist group would try something like this, which is really far below what we've seen just recently from aqap and even from al qaeda. >> we know you'll be keeping track of the chatter on this and keeping us updated.
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thank you for that. appreciate your insights. stay with us everybody at home because just ahead, our coverage of this attack continues. and there's a lot of reaction coming in including millions flooding social media with their statements of solidarity. we're going to share exactly what's happening online after this break. want to know how hard it can be... ...to breathe with copd? it can feel like this. copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. spiriva is a once-daily inhaled... ...copd maintenance treatment... ...that helps open my airways for a full 24 hours. you know, spiriva helps me breathe easier. spiriva handihaler tiotropium bromide inhalation powder does not replace rescue inhalers for sudden symptoms. tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate. these may worsen with spiriva. discuss all medicines you take, even eye drops. stop taking spiriva and seek immediate medical help if your breathing suddenly worsens your throat or tongue swells,... you can get hives, vision changes or eye pain
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>> bingo! >> you didn't! ♪ as the world learns more about what happened in paris this morning, there's been a huge outpouring of reaction on social media, as well. an animation showing the number of mentions of the shooting. french magazine charlie hebdo, the keyword we're tracking here that's just since this morning. over 2 million mentions of the magazine. one hashtag emerging from the horror of this event. ju suis charlie, i am charlie, as millions around the world show their support for the
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publication and make statements of support for freedom of speech. among those expressing solidarity, the u.s. embassy in paris. they changed their profile picture on twitter to the white and black words. and the website of the magazine itself right now, also hosting that simple phrase. it was hammered with hits and was down briefly, but it is back up with that statement ringing loud and clear. it's now become a rallying cry for those who stand for press freedom and refuse to be silenced. also right now in paris, an anti-hate rally taking place. organized on social media. over 22,000 people replying they're going to be there. and over 500,000 tweets mentioning it. also with the #notinmyname. one person said this i am muslim and terrorism is not a part of my religion. and another, you shouted while murdering others you are a disgrace to my religion, may the dead rest in peace. powerful statements there.
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stay with us just ahead, the attack is having global consequences. we'll look at how it's affecting the u.s. we'll head to the french mission right here in new york where elite, heavily armed police, the so-called nypd hercules team have just arrived in response to this. that's right after this break. don't just visit new york. visit tripadvisor new york. tripadvisor not only has millions of real traveler's reviews and opinions but checks hundreds of websites, so people can get the best hotel prices. to plan, compare & book the perfect trip. visit tripadvisor.com today.
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i take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn. because it gives me... zero heartburn! prilosec otc. the number 1 doctor-recommended frequent heartburn medicine for 9 straight years. one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. we're back with today's breaking news. that horrific terror attack at the charlie hebdo magazine in paris. we are getting updates throughout this hour three gunmen are still at large. two police officers among them 12 people shot dead and france has raised its terror threat level to its highest rank. that's for security and media organization, large stores places of worship, everybody on alert. and all the way here in new york, police are also ramping up security. craig melvin is outside the french mission to the united nations. craig, what are you seeing there? >> hey, there ronan, i can tell
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you that within the past 20 or 30 minutes or so, the so-called hercules team has since left the french mission. earlier, we told you that folks out there, i think we've got video of five six member team here. and for folks not familiar with this hercules team this is a group that deploys from time to time around new york city. to different landmarks when something like this happens. but you can see there, you've got three s.w.a.t. team members, toting an assault weapon. they were clad in their helmets and their vests, as well. and they showed up and stood outside the fremplg mission fornch mission for about an hour so. she told me this was in direct response to what happened in paris earlier today. also some intelligence canine was here highway was here as well. but again, they were here for an hour and left.
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i went inside the mission early this morning, i was not able to go upstairs. i got one of the secretaries on the phone and all she said is we are very very sad. but as we've been reporting this morning, bill bratton said the city would be on a bit of a heightened state of alert. and we've seen that throughout the morning. >> craig melvin here in new york, thank you so much, craig. >> again, we are watching the u.s. response to this and a lot of reaction from the government coming in. joining me right now is eliot engel of new york a ranking member of the house foreign affairs committee. congressman engel, thank you so much for your time. first question to you, what can the u.s. do realistically when one of our allies faces a situation like this? >> well, we can of course condemn it unequivocally. the president has done that. i've issued a statement, as has the chairman of our committee. and we need to let the people of
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france know that we stand with them shoulder to shoulder in this terrible terrible time. terrorism, obviously i'm a new yorker. terrorism is something that all of us have felt through the years and it's important that the civilized world in incidents like this stand together and not be cowered by it. we have to be resolute because terrorism is everybody's enemy. >> and, indeed the terrorism threat from in france has been prominent. 700 recruits from france joining isis. more than any other western country, in fact. obviously that is a global problem. how can u.s. policy confront that most effectively? >> well, first of all, i think we need to coordinate with our allies like france, like the uk israel, other countries that face the threats of terrorism. and understand that it's not something, again, that's going to cower us. we'll need to look into see why young men are leaving the west
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and going to join organizations like isis. there needs to be a lot of things that weren't done before. you know, europe kind of looked the other way for so many years. immigrants came to the shore, and living in squalor and other difficulties. and europe now finds itself with home grown terrorists. and i think that's something that's not only europe's problem but terrorism is a problem throughout the world. and i know that most of the countries have condemned it and as well we should. but i think that our response to this is also important. you know, just the way many of us were appalled at what happened with sony with north korea and it was very important that we not be afraid and not allow the terrorists to achieve their goal and their aim. we have to stand with these people and we have to continue to allow freedom of the press and free speech and all the things that really i think, sets us apart from so many places in the world.
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europe and the united states and other freedom loving countries have to ban together. you know, europe is so much closer to the middle east geographically than we are. they really need to give it this their full attention. >> representative engel, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. president obama says that he's reached out to talk to french president hollande about this attack in a statement, the white house is saying u.s. officials are already in talks with their counterparts at every level and promising the kind of assistance we just talked about. for more on what french intelligence may be working with now, former cia counterterrorism analyst joins us in washington. so what can the u.s. do on the intelligence side to help? >> there are a lot of things the united states can do. we are actually maintaining a data base from europe and the united states and north america and the middle east of all the folks who are gone -- who have gone to syria who have fought and so forth. what a lot of the folks on your television program have actually
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said, this is a really professional hit. potentially, the people who are involved in this are in this data base. we have at the analytic level, you have people going to france french folks talking and sharing information. we also have at the top levels, obama on down are sharing the most critical information with their french counterparts. so the united states is really in this fight with the french with the europeans and also with our allied governments. >> and talk about the roots of this problem in europe. obviously we are still reading the tea leaves of what was behind today's attack. but we do know that france has been rife with tensions there. >> that's very true. and, unfortunately, the muslim community in france has not been very well integrated into french society. but before we sort of jump into the immigration debate you have to remember that these weren't just angry 18-year-old or 19-year-old kids the fact that these individuals picked up --
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and had enough ammunition to carry out this hit and then get away. and they've been away now for about six hours shows this is a certain level of sophistication and professionalism you don't find in your average angry teenager kids. so the immigration issue is definitely an issue. but i think we're talking about something much more higher level than that. >> and this year, there have been hundreds of europeans going to syria and iraq to fight with isis. what can be done by international intelligence agencies to better monitor for potential returns to europe after that? >> well that is actually one of the most difficult things that europe and the united states and canada are really dealing with. how do you deal with these people who came back with potentially hardened jihadists who come back and return to france, return to germany, the uk, the united states, et cetera. one of the things they can do is monitor these people. monitor their electronic communications see whether they
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have any relationships back to iraq syria, other nefarious areas. but it's actually quite difficult. because when you're talking about hundreds of people, you're talking about a police effort and intelligence effort that require thousands of people not to mention all of the civil liberties issues about tracking people who may not have actually committed a crime. it's a very sticky problem for both the united states and our western allies. >> thank you so much former cia counterterrorism expert and always helpful on a day like this. difficult intelligence coming in in realtime. stay with us everybody at home. up next, france is as we just talked about home to europe's largest muslim population more than 5 million. and fears and tensions have been affecting the surrounding reaction to that population, especially in the wake of attacks like this. we're going to look at the powder keg that france is right now and at the broader problems in europe that are tied to that. stay with us. ♪ nineteen years ago, we thought "wow, how is there no way to tell the good from the bad?" so we gave people the power of the review.
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today's attack has profound implications for the politics and the policy of france. as well as the politics and the policy across europe. >> we must never allow the values that we hold dear of democracy, freedom of speech to be damaged by these terrorists. we must stand against what they have done. >> david cameron standing side by side with angela merkel showing solidarity across europe. a region, of course already on edge. growing tensions with minor immigrant populations being at the heart of that. as well as concerns about this very kind of extremism. tracks exactly this kind of instability. it's also a foreign affairs columnist for "time," and mark ginsburg former white house adviser and u.s. ambassador. france wrestles with deep seeded tensions with the muslim population. we don't yet know the motivation behind this particular attack.
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tell us about the tensions in france right now. >> well there are a lot of factors a part of it. the first is it's a large population, 8%. but when you ask the french how many muslims they think they have, the answer is 31%. >> one of the most interesting pieces of data why do you think that is. >> well in part they are, it's a lot of demonization. there's a huge of youth unemployment. the french don't do a good job of integrating these citizens into france as a whole, as a consequence. it is this big other. and whenever there's an other and it feels scary, you're going to make it out to be larger. usually you expect it to be a little bit larger but 31%, that's a fairly astonishing number. the fact that you also have these masses of refugees that are coming over from syria, from iraq the world has more refugees today than it has at any p point since world war ii 70 years ago. and the reaction of that as we're seeing in france very
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much a knee jerk populism antiimmigrant sentiment. and given the challenges they're experiencing, it's not a surprise that radical islam is growing. now, france has done a really good job in counterterrorism against many of these folks and have been able to really break a lot of these organizations. but if anything, the surprise it's taken this long to see something this violent come out in france. it's a horrible tragedy. but i can't say it's a surprise. >> and this goes far beyond france's borders. of course, so many countries have reacted just as you described. not necessarily welcoming at this point. this massive influx of immigration. how does europe confront that? >> well sweden has had the most liberal policy toward welcoming migrants from syria and from iraq and as a consequence, the swedish democratic party which is swedish, but it's surely not democratic, like the french national front, vigorously anti-immigrant and is now working very hard with the
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position in parliament to change those policies. you see this with the uk independence party even though the british economy is doing better. across europe you have the growth of these parties that are fundamentally nativist. they're also very euro skeptic. i wouldn't say they're working together, they all focus on the national basis. but this is really making it much more difficult to govern europe. and it's not as if they're doing well economically they need more political cohesion between germany and the periphery to deal with their broader economic challenges. this year is the year it precisely will not happen. and the headlines we see coming out of france today make it much harder. >> ambassador is there any facet of u.s. policy that can help to address what is an emerging crisis in europe over the immigration tension? >> it's interesting because the muslim population in the united states is so much better assimilated as ian just said in france or in sweden or in britain. and there's very little that the united states can do what i
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would call a sociopolitical perspective. the fact of the matter is that all of the countries, whether it's france, the united states and great britain or germany, ronan, are facing the same dilemma. back after 9/11 we understood that there was an ideology promoted by bin laden. it was an al qaeda ideology, it was a jihadist ideology. we're dealing with a far more sinister phenomenon, which is the isis related call it jihadi ideology 2.0. it is extraordinarily hard for anyone to come up with the philosophical ideological counterbalance to that ideology that is attracting the lone wolves and the younger generation of islamists who are in effect self-radicalizing themselves prepared to engage in the lone wolf attacks that by the way, we have to understand. in france there have been scores of these attacks that americans are not even familiar with over
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the past year. attacks against jews, attacks against other europeans. most of this has been lone wolf but the same connotation. these have been inspired by isis propaganda in france. >> and as we part ways the summation of all of this is in your group's works, one of the political risk consulting firms, you've identified european instability as the big risk that the world faces this year. >> the politics of europe the single largest risk. i was talking to folks yesterday on television. they said well shouldn't russia be number one? and i was like russia is a problem. it's a comparatively small economy. europe, the largest integrated economic space and the politics are all wrong outside and locally. united states benefits from massive energy expansion here. the middle east is increasingly not our problem in terms of oil prices and it's increasingly not our problem in terms of islamist threat. europe bears the brunt of both of those challenges. and we're seeing it play out this year.
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>> troubling circumstances, troubling challenge for u.s. foreign policy. thank you, both of you, ian bremer and mark ginsburg. stay with us everybody, of course, this is not the first time we've seen this kind of a horrific extremist attack prompted by a cartoon, by a publication exercising free speech. we're going to look at the history of this issue and how the policy steps that come next can continue to defend free speech after this break. ♪ welcome to the most social car we've ever designed. the all-new nissan murano. nissan. innovation that excites.
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thousands gathering to show solidarity. they say they're not afraid after the deadly shooting that has echoed around that city and around the world today. a mant hunt is under way for the three suspects that attacked the news day at midday paris time.
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for more, paul ackerman joins us by phone, editor-in-chief at huffington post france. we'll turn to jacob in copenhagen, a danish human rights and democracy lawyer who can talk about the threat to free speesh here. paul, i'll start with you. what is the latest you're hearing? it's indeed about the rally you're showing. you were just talking about. the fact is this afternoon the security issued police issue was in france. the big thing was show no emotion because those cartoonists were a huge symbol in france. a symbol of freedom of speech. some of them were pretty old. it's big stars of the press who
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died today here. >> thank you so much for that update, paul. jacob, what we know so far is that the gunman did scream the muslim call, god is great, as they fired their rifles at in the news room. they were also threatened after naming prophet muhammad as editor-in-chief. these aren't the first time we've seen threats to free speech in the press, iconic incident in denmark in 2005 that was so heartbreaking for so many of us watching around the world, being one of the most prominent. this ignited riots throughout the muslim world, sparked threats to the paper and even the country of denmark. what do these attacks tell us about cultural tensions in europe? >> i think we should go back to 1989 when a fatwa was issued against the cartoonist. some publishers were attacked,
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killed. 2004 a dutch film maker was slaughtered on the streets for having made a film critical of islam. and then of course i year later we had the danish cartoon incident where they published 12 cartoons, most of the prophet muhammad and that sparked an international incident. this shows that there is a clear and present danger against media that offend religious feelings of a minority of extremists islamists who are willing to use violence and terrorism to enforce their red lines. and i think, of course today's horrific incident is the most grave incident against the press in this fear. but it's by no means an isolated
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incident. of course, charlie hebdo was fire bombed in 2011. in denmark, the newspaper, the cartoonist responsible for the cartoon, only escaped an axe-wielding attack by fleeing into a panic room. another person was apprehended in o'hare airport in chicago. so, this is -- >> one thing we heard from -- we've heard about just how serious this is indeed from so many leaders around the world. so many have emphasized that threat to free speech you mentioned. what can european countries do specifically to protect free speech going forward in response to this? >> i think historically there have been quite meek and equivocal reactions from politicians and intellectuals who have been sort of on the -- on the fence of defending free speech out of fear of appearing islamphobic. you have to stand up for basic principles of free speech.
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that does not entail being anti-muslim or anti-islamic. and i think we're seeing a change in the rhetoric now. i mean some of the statements coming from politicians, i think that's extremely important that you show solidarity. and i think it's also important on the part of media they show solidarity and they do not engage in self-censorship. they actually republish some of the cartoons that put charlie hebdo in the crosshairs of extremists. if all the news outlets do this then the terrorists will never be able to enforce their red lines. >> when publications have blurred images when they have engaged in joining the censorship, we've seen mass outrage. thank you so much, for your time today. we're looking at a live picture. we wanted to update you quickly, of 15,000 people in fact demonstrating in paris now.
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showing solidarity with those attacked and standing up for free speech as so many already have around the world on social media. we're going to continue to track that reaction into the next hour with my colleague, joy reid. thank you, all of you, for your time. all of you watching today. i appreciate it. we have more just after this. uess what day it is?? >>hump day! hummmp daaay! it's hump day! >>yeah! >>hey mike! mike mike mike mike mike! >>mike mike mike mike mike. hey! he knows! hey! guess what day it is! hey! camel! guess what day it is! >>it's not even wednesday. let it go, phil. if you're a camel, you put up with this all the time. it's what you do. (sigh) if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. ok...
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you're the rock, at 60. and snoring? sleep number's even got an adjustment for that. you can only find sleep number at a sleep number store. right now find the lowest prices of the season with the c3 queen mattress set only $1199.98. know better sleep with sleep number. hello, everyone. i'm joy reid. this is "the reid report." we're continuing to cover breaking news out of paris where a brazen terrorist attack has rattled all of france. right now it's about 8:00 at night, but the manhunt for three suspects in today's military-style attack on the offices of a satirical newspaper continues, now entering its eighth hour. three masked gunmen stormed into the paris headquarters of the weekly magazine charlie hebdo today, killing 12 people including the publication's editor and several journalists. at least four others were critically