Trump Remark Appears in Terror Recruiting Video; Trump to Debut Campaign in Mississippi; Historic Floodwaters Surge Downriver
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Brianna Keilar in Washington in tonight for Poppy Harlow. A brand new terror recruiting video focuses on Donald Trump's proposed ban on Muslims travelling to the United States. The Republican front- runner announced that plan, saying that if he was president, it was something he would put in place and he did that in the wake of the San Bernardino shootings last month. The video was apparently released by Al Shabaab, this is an al Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia and the video labels the U.S. as a racist society that will turn against its own Muslim communities. Trump is just hours away now from a crucial appearance in the Deep South. Thousands of supporters are expected to rally tonight in Biloxi, Mississippi. Some Trump fans may be driving to Biloxi from nearby states participating in the influential SEC primary that takes place on March 1st, that's when voters in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia will all cast primary ballots. And Phil Mattingly is joining me now from Biloxi, Mississippi. How is he resonating there, Phil?</s>PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, people are excited and look, that's not really a surprise when it comes to Donald Trump events. But if you look behind me, that's the convention center. To my left is the coliseum. The convention center is actually the overflow for this event. The coliseum holds more than 13,000 people. Lines have actually formed. Parking lots have filled up. So, people here are clearly excited, Brianna, but I think one of the interesting things we wanted to find out was twofold. One, what people thought of the Al Shabaab video that was released today, the recruiting video. And also, what they thought about Donald Trump's repeated attacks on Hillary Clinton when it came to what Bill Clinton did in the Oval Office or allegations otherwise. Take a listen to what we heard.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that's fabricated.</s>MATTINGLY: You think the video is made up?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Sure, it was.</s>MATTINGLY: How did you know?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, because you can see where it was cut in. At least that's my opinion. I think that was strictly, I may be wrong, but I think that was a made up deal there.</s>MATTINGLY: Now, does it make you guys uncomfortable at all when he attacks Hillary Clinton about some of the stuff that Bill Clinton did?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No! No! No!</s>MATTINGLY: So, Brianna, obviously, fairly set. Both on the video and on the Clinton allegations. When it comes to the video, multiple people I've talked to here say, they think it's fabricated, it was not something that was made up by a terrorist group. It's something one person actually attributed to the Clinton campaign, this is all coming after Hillary Clinton in December during a debate saying that the terrorist groups were using videos to recruit. Now, there's concrete evidence of that, people of this rally, not really believing it so far -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: And just to fact check, we do believe it is an authentic video. Phil Mattingly, thank you so much for that report from Biloxi, Mississippi. Record high floodwaters are receding in the St. Louis, but the danger is far from over. Surging water is flowing downstream. It's putting millions of people in communities farther south on alert for flooding. Missouri's governor just wrapped up a tour of the damage. I spoke to him a short time ago about what he saw and what the first step is to rebuilding.</s>GOV. JAY NIXON, MISSOURI: The River here went up 35 feet, Meramec River tributary to the Mississippi, it's now going down and there's a lot of debris. So, we're here with the locals working through a program in which we're going to get a disaster declaration and get this long debris field cleaned up over the next few weeks.</s>KEILAR: Are you getting or do you expect you'll get the federal help you need? What do you need?</s>NIXON: Well, we're asking for expedited disaster declaration so that we can access folks who are already on contract out there. Much like we did down in Joplin so that we can get debris moved quickly. It's hard to rebuild while you still have all of this stuff here. In order to get out the damaged stuff, we need to move quickly. So, we'll be working with the FEMA as well as the corps of engineers and our National Guard to make sure we get a program to move this out of here quickly.</s>KEILAR: CNN's Dan Simon is joining me now from Eureka. This is one of the hardest hit towns in this entire disaster. Tell us what you're seeing, Dan. We can always see just a mountain of debris behind you.</s>DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Hi, Brianna, this is what you might call debris central. This is where people have been dropping off their damaged goods. You can see an old television right there. This is an old washer over here. What people have been doing is basically taking all their flood damaged stuff, putting it in their driveways and then it's being collected and ultimately brought here. Eventually, if will be taken to a landfill, but in the meantime, they just need a place to put all of this stuff. And so that's worth winding up. So, what we learned today is that the Governor of Missouri Jay Nixon, he asked the Obama White House to issue a federal emergency declaration so they can speed up the debris removal process. He said ultimately what it's going to take to get this community back on its feet is really to get everything cleaned up and he's hoping that will be honored in quick order. This is what the Governor had to say just a short time ago.</s>NIXON: I'm from this part of the state. I mean, quite frankly, it's almost hard to believe. When you see the levels of where water was. When you're coming over historic highs, I mean, from the beginning of time, we kept records by four and five feet. I mean, when you're seeing 55 close, when you're seeing a house that's floated, a full house that's floated into the highway 30 bridge and blowing up, it's almost as if you're living on some other planet.</s>SIMON: And back here in Eureka, you can see another truck here dropping off a pile of debris. We've seen it grown all day long. And so, really, the next step in this is just to get everything cleaned up. Fortunately, Brianna, the floodwaters have receded. So now what you're just left with is the damage and the destruction and the effort to get it all cleaned up -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: We were happy to learn earlier, Dan, that the community actually does have safe drinking water. I know that was a concern because some of these waste water plants had flooded. What about their homes though? Are they livable? What proportion of this area are people able to return and go back and stay in their homes?</s>SIMON: Well, in Eureka, there are dozens of homes and businesses that are significantly damaged throughout the state, it's really in the hundreds. What we've seen in terms of the damage is that -- most of the damage occurred in basements where they took on several feet of water. The upstairs for the most part, the living areas of the home seems to be undamaged, so that is good news in terms of, you know, people being able to continue to live in their homes. But now, it's just really the aggravation in dealing with the insurance companies and things of that nature to try to rebound -- Brianna.</s>KEILAR: Yes, that is so aggravating. I know. All right. Dan Simon, thank you so much, live for us from Eureka, Missouri. And then as the flooding eases there in the St. Louis area, people points south of there are hoping to avert a similar disaster. We have meteorologist Allison Chinchar with what's in store down river.</s>ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We still have 16 states that are dealing with flood watches or warnings and the reason for that is all of the rivers locations that we still have that are either at or above their flood stage. That number, over 270 of them. And you can see it's spread all across the Midwest and also, parts of the southeast. Now, this entire gray shaded area is the basin we've talked about for days now. All of the rain that has fallen in this area has to go somewhere and it ends up in the Mississippi River. Whether it comes from Missouri River, the Arkansas or even the Ohio rivers, they all at some point funnel back into the Mississippi. St. Louis crested yesterday, which is good news. The water has started to recede, but it's a different story. A little bit farther south. Take a look at Cape Girardeau, not expected to crest until January 3rd and Cairo, not expected to crest until January 4th. We already have one levy that overtopped near Miller City, just on the east side of the Mississippi River, that south of Cape Girardeau. And again, it's possible we could have more Levis that get overtopped over the next several days. And again, as we noticed, a lot of these areas aren't expected to crest for several more days. Greenville and Vicksburg, not for another ten to 14 days. The problem with that is, any rainfall that we get the next ten to 14 days could make these crests even higher depending on that amount of water. One good news is, we do expect the Bonnet Carre Spillway to help alleviate some of the flooding problems downstream in New Orleans.</s>KEILAR: Allison Chinchar, thank you for that. Coming up, crunch time for the presidential candidates with a months to go. Not even until the all-important Iowa caucuses. Some GOP campaigns are making last minute changes hoping to cut into Donald Trump's lead. We'll check in with Chris Frates and the state of the race, next.