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CNN Projects Republican Gianforte Wins in Montana; U.S. Official: Manchester Bomber Likely Trained by ISIS; U.K. Says It Will Resume Intel Sharing with U.S.; Jared Kushner Under FBI Scrutiny in Russia Probe; Trump Scolds NATO on Financial Obligations; U.S. Official: Manchester Bomber Likely Trained by ISIS; Gianforte Alleged Assault Marks New Low Between Media, Politicians; Queen Elizabeth Visits Injured in Manchester. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired May 26, 2017 - 02:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:14] HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Hala Gorani, in Manchester, England. The city and the country on high alert once again as authorities continue making arrests over Monday's terrorist attack.

We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm John Vause. It is now 11:00 here on the west coast.

ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Isha Sesay. This is NEWSROOM L.A.

We'll get the latest from Manchester in just a minute.

But first, a victory for Republicans in the U.S. state of Montana.

VAUSE: CNN projects Greg Gianforte will win the special election for the open seat in the House of representatives. The latest numbers show Gianforte with 50.8 percent of the vote. At this point, 93 percent of the votes have been counted.

SESAY: Gianforte is facing misdemeanor charges for allegedly body slamming a reporter on Wednesday night. He addressed the incident in his victory speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREG GIANFORTE, (R), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE FOR MONTANA: I'm not proud of what happened. I should not have responded in the way that I did. And for that, I'm sorry.

I should not have treated that reporter that way, and for that, I'm sorry, Mr. Ben Jacobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: We'll have much more on the results in Montana with our political panel in just a few moments. GORANI: Well, we have new developments in the Manchester terrorist

attack. Authorities arrested another man in connection to the bombing in the mosque site area of Manchester. Ten people have been arrested in this case so far. Eight remain in custody. And police are also conducting new searches about 20 miles from Manchester this morning. There's been a lot of police activity and raids.

We're learning more as well about the attacker, the 22-year-old Salman Abedi. A U.S. official says the British-born suicide bomber likely trained in Syria with ISIS. The killer also spent time in Libya. As we've been reporting, he's of Libyan descent. His brother was arrested there. His father and mother are there currently.

Here's what police officials had to say Thursday about the case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN HOPKINS, CHIEF CONSTABLE, GREATER MANCHESTER POLICE DEPARTMENT: I want to reassure people that the arrests that we have made are significant, and initial searches of premises have revealed items that we believe are very important to the investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: Meanwhile, the U.K. remains, as I mentioned, on high alert. Police say specially trained officers will patrol on trains for the first time, and armed soldiers have been deployed to help support the police. You're seeing that quite visibly across the streets of major cities in the U.K.

Dozens of people are getting medical treatment for their injuries. And now we are learning more about the 22 people killed in the Manchester attack. Here are some of their names. Elaine McIver was a police officer who was off duty during Monday's concert. She was a huge music fan. She was thoughtful and absolutely fearless. Also 19- year-old Courtney Boyle was also killed in the blast along with her step father Philip Tron. Boyle's mother called them both her angels flying high in the sky. And Sorrell Leczkowski was just 14 years old. Her grandfather says he's absolutely heart broken. Leczkowski wanted to become an architect to one day build her mother a House. There's a picture of her. It always brings it home in a more poignant way when you see the pictures and read the stories.

Nick Taylor joins me now. He's director at the charity Foundation for Peace.

Thanks for being with us.

Tell us a bit of your story because you've been personally impacted by an attack that took away a very precious relative.

NICK TAYLOR, DIRECTOR, FOUNDATION FOR PEACE: Yeah, about 25 years ago, our charity was founded when we lost two boys in a terrorist attack here in England. We wanted to really make a difference by hoping that nobody else went through what we went through, so that's why we started our organization. GORANI: Tell us about what people are now going through. I know

thankfully your son survived, but tell us about what people might be going through now because they're going through the worst days of their lives right now.

TAYLOR: Yes, they are. It's very raw at the moment. Families and friends are really important at this time. It's not about professional services unless you're obviously injured or you're needing health care, emergent health care. But over time this is something that will develop. This something that stays with people for a long, long time. That's why we have the survivors' assistance network here in Great Britain. Any survivor of terrorism can be referred to us, and we have trained psychologists. We have case workers that will work for those people forever and a day.

GORANI: What is it that they need most right now?

[02:05:06] TAYLOR: At the moment, family and friends, to be listened to, to be acknowledged, not to be judged, to be heard. Those things are so important. Giving people time. We've got to talk about this, and we've got to acknowledge what's happened.

GORANI: Does the attention -- and they're getting a lot of attention now -- help, or does it hurt or what, or does it depend on the person?

TAYLOR: People are different. Some are very resilient and want to go about things. I've been talking to a guy who lost his son 7/7. He feels he wants to do that, to reach out to those who have gone through similar circumstances so that he can help them.

GORANI: What about when the tension inevitably wanes on them? Is there a sense of a void there because you're very busy in a way and it keeps your mind busy for the first few days? Then I imagine you are kind of left alone with your thoughts.

TAYLOR: That's the real issue. All we ask at the moment is people make contact. And, yes, it does go away. There will be a lot of attention for weeks to come. There will be anniversaries. There will be memorial services, commemorations like this. The city has to get back on its feet as well. This is a big weekend for the city, lots of events. When all that goes, we'll still be around for them.

GORANI: What I found really remarkable, having covered so many of these attacks in other cities, is how united Manchester is. Everyone is resilient. Big cities come together. But I found so much just a sense of community in Manchester. It is a big city, and I was really very struck by that.

TAYLOR: It's a huge city. It's important that the guys in the international media as well, this city embraces diversity. It's actually a really -- for somewhere for this to happen, to actually recover, this city can do it. I'm from the north of England. There is a great deal of the tribalism, but when need, we will come together.

GORANI: In fact, you didn't feel hatred really. You felt a community coming together, free rides, free food. There was a truck here raising money with free food. People were actually giving reporters free water the other day, which as you know this day and age doesn't happen often. I was very impressed.

TAYLOR: The vigil itself was amazing, to see all the diverse communities and face on stage, but the people out there as well. You're right, the free taxi rides, people queueing to give blood, people wanting to help, giving out leaflets about our services and to be here with the people of Manchester.

We spoke with you early on, and now a week later, we're having an opportunity to process it a bit more.

Nick Taylor, as always, thank you so much for joining us --

TAYLOR: Thank you very much.

GORANI: -- here on CNN.

We're going, I understand, to our colleague, Nina dos Santos, who is in London with more on the investigation -- Nina?

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks very much, Hala.

The latest is that another individual, a man, has been arrested in the Marcite (ph) sight area of Manchester. And also despite the fact that the information sharing between the U.K. and the United States that was temporarily suspended on this particular case yesterday on the back of a number of significant leaks that came stateside, well, that has been resumed. But despite that, it seems as though information is still filtering through. In particular, the U.S. -- U.S. security officials have been telling us here at CNN that they believe ISIS may well have trained Salman Abedi on trips that he had made to Libya, and also potentially to countries like Syria. He could have gained trainingg in explosive materials.

It's believed that some of this information and some of this rationale comes from some of the material they've managed to gather in a number of the raids and searches that have happened in the Manchester area in the course of the last few days. We saw the chief constable say some of the items they recovered had been significant. But those raids continue apace across the northwest of England, other neighboring cities near Manchester. So this is very much a live investigation.

And the issue of protecting this information will probably still rumble on in the background today as number 10 Downing Street continues to deal with the aftermath of this. I should say, without the British prime minister, because she's now been in Brussels, and she's be moving on to Sicily for the G-7 meeting. If that continues, she'll probably have an opportunity to continue to press the U.S. president on this issue, although he did give her his firm assurances that he would get to the bottom of how this information leaked out, Hala.

We have the U.S. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who is going to be in the building just in front of me, the foreign office, the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, is going to be hosting him. That will be very much a reinforcement of this key relationship between the U.K. and the United States. They really want a show of strength and a show of solidarity despite the recent rifts as this investigation continues apace.

[02:10:19] GORANI: Nina dos Santos, at 10 Downing Street, thanks very much.

After that first day in Brussels, as Nina mentioned, we're going to follow the G-7 summit in Sicily, and also, John and Isha, that visit by Rex Tillerson, the U.S. Secretary of State, to 10 Downing Street. Perhaps a way there to mend some of the -- mend the relationship between the two countries after that intelligence leak in the United States of some of those aftermath photos of the bombing here in Manchester.

Back to you.

VAUSE: It is a busy news day. And we are following two major political stories this hour.

SESAY: Hala, thank you.

VAUSE: Thank you, Hala.

In the western U.S. state of Montana, Republican Greg Gianforte is projected to win a special election for a vacant Congressional seat. The race had been closely watch but even more so after Gianforte was accused of assaulting a reporter. Gianforte apologized to the journalist during his victory speech.

SESAY: The other story we're covering for you, U.S. officials now say President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, is under scrutiny by the FBI in the investigation in Russia meddling. Kushner has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

VAUSE: For more on this, CNN's senior reporter for media and politics, Dylan Byers; and CNN's senior analyst, Ron Brownstein, join us both this hour.

Good to see you.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: Let's start off with the election in Montana.

So, Ron, it was a close margin. Is there something there for everybody to claim victory here?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The most important point is the caveat. There is no consistent relationship between the results of special elections historically and what happens in the actual next election. I think there are two ways to look at this. I think the most optimistic way for Democrats to look at it is we've now had three special elections to fill vacancies left by Trump appointments and in each of them, the Democratic candidate has significantly outperformed. In Georgia, it was 10 points better. In Kansas, it was 16 points better. If they can keep up this level of increase, they will definitely be in position.

I think that's only part of the story. I think there's another part of the story. And what this says to me, the fact that even amid this disapproval of the health care bill and the controversy over the body slamming, the incredible events of the past 24 hours, the fact that he was able to win a fairly solid victory says to me that the Republican hold on culturally conservative, non-urban America is very, very strong. And if Democrats are going to win back the House in 2018, they're going to have to maximize their opportunities in urban and suburban districts. The Georgia election in June is actually a better reflection of the kind of places they have a chance to win, and they're going to have to win because what this says to me is particularly in the Trump era, this part of his coalition is still there. The weakest link is the white collar, white suburbanites, underperforming Republicans historically.

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER FOR MEDIA & POLITICS: To pick up Ron's point, victory is in sight, but at the end of the day, you have to -- and I know special elections don't foretell what's going to happen in the midterms. The Democrats have to put up really serious candidates. We're talking about in Montana, we're talking about Quist, a guy with no prior experience. Quist, first-time candidate who is a folk musician. He seems like a very nice guy. But, you know, you got to -- if you want to win, if you want to register the "W," you got to put up serious candidates because there's a lot of money there. There's a lot of energy. There's a lot of fear and trepidation about Trump and everything that he's doing to this country, the fear among Democrats. So these are winnable elections. But it requires not just the harm that Trump has done to his own party. It requires real candidates.

BROWNSTEIN: I totally agree with that, but there are a lot of headwinds facing Democrats in interior states, non-urban communities. That is where Trump made the biggest gains from 2012. That is where his coalition has probably held up the best. And where he is the most conspicuously weak, where he is the most underperforming Republican traditionally is in those more affluent suburban communities. For example, there are five districts in the L.A. media market within driving distance of us that were won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 but Republicans held on. After tonight, those become even more important for Democrats in 2018.

SESAY: Let me ask you something that Dylan brought up in the past hour. The fact that Democrats haven't been able to put any runs on the board to get these wins in special elections, at what point does that start to affect the donors, the raising of money for Democratic races?

BROWNSTEIN: I don't think this is that -- I mean Montana is very tough terrain, particularly in the era that we're living in, where you have this widening urban, non-urban split. So I mean this is tough. I think Georgia is actually a bigger test for Democrats because, even though it is a Republican-leaning district and Tom Price, the Health and Human Services secretary won over 60 percent in 2016, it is the kind of place they are going to have to win. It is more like those districts in Los Angeles. It is diverse. It is white collar. That is the combination where Donald Trump is weakest, and I think there you have seen a more serious Democratic effort even if the candidate may not be perfect for the district. I think if they don't win that with everything else going on, I think then you'll begin to get a bit of concern among Democrats. But it's important to note if they continue to make the gains at the left they have been, they are very competitive for the House in 2018.

[02:15:50] One issue that didn't come up in Montana was the Russia investigation into alleged collusion. But the Trump campaign, there's been a development regarding Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and close advisor. He's now the focus of this FBI investigation.

Dylan, we don't know a lot about what the FBI wants to know, but how serious is it that someone within the White House now is the focus of the FBI?

BYERS: Politically, it's very serious. The fact that he's being called into this investigation does not mean he's guilty of any sort of crime. What it does mean is this gets closer to the president. President Trump keeps a very tight inner circle. Kushner is right there in it. And so it brings it closer to the president. It also, you know, causes us to revisit some of the inexperience of how that campaign was run and whether or not Kushner should have been meeting with Russians in the first place.

But in terms of this investigation, we have to wait and see. I say the media should proceed with caution here, report on what it knows, don't get ahead of itself and report on what it doesn't.

SESAY: Ron, what's the next move for the White House, because it is, to Dylan's point, building this narrative, deepening the cloud that hangs over this administration?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, you could argue the investigation is already reached into the White House by the president's own actions. I mean the James Comey memo and the revelations about his phone calls to the director of National Intelligence and the head of the NSA put him directly in the forefront. I think they now face a reality that there's going to be process stories on two separate fronts kind of inevitably for week after week after week, both on the independent counsel investigation and on the congressional investigations. And I think that does put increasing pressure on them to do what other administrations have done at moments of kind of persistent scandal, which is essentially task an outside group or even an inside group within the administration as saying you are the ones who deal with it, compartmentalize. No one else is talking about it, including perhaps the president.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: Haven't they established a war room within the White House now?

(CROSSTALK) BYERS: They have. The thing about this White House, there are so many competing factions. First of all, Trump is a guy who really only listens to himself and makes some pretty impulsive decisions but he's being pulled at from different sides by different advisers. Then you have to get to the inexperience question, which is there are a lot of people in this White House who really don't know what they're doing, who have never been in any sort of state house or --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: Even those two phone calls from the president that were reported by "The Washington Post," the one thing that's on in that story is whether he asked the White House counsel or the -- did others say, yeah, that's a good idea? The idea that he's someone who has been in business and doesn't know what's appropriate or inappropriate, you don't have to be in government for 40 years to know there are questions about calling intelligence services to, in essence, ask them to pre-judge or forestall an active investigation involving your campaign. You do wonder, as Dylan was saying, who else is he listening to? When you see the tweets with the misspellings, it kind of tells you no one is reading those, or not even the spell check is working before they go out. But you do wonder who is in the capacity to say no.

BYERS: The greatest liability is the president himself because he will go off and do things and no one can control that at all.

VAUSE: We have to leave it there. But someone should make the point though, it's very hard to go out in a campaign and then use the excuse I didn't know, I messed up.

Ron and Dylan, thank you so much.

[02:19:23] SESAY: Appreciate you always. Thank you.

Quick break. Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of America First, and apparently, that applied to photo ops as well. More from an awkward NATO summit next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(SPORTS REPORT)

SESAY: Hello, everyone. U.S. President Donald Trump was at the center of a few curious moments at Thursday's NATO summit. A parade of awkward handshakes got things started with new French President Emmanuel Macron on the receiving end of two of those.

SESAY: Mr. Trump is now set to address the G-7 summit, which some leaders may consider a relief after his stern speech to NATO allies. He once again slammed member nations for not meeting their defense commitments, 2 percent of their country's GDP.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of their GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense and for the financing of additional NATO reserves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SESAY: Our Nic Robertson joins us live from Sicily, where the G-7 summit will get under way shortly.

Nic, given the actions of President Trump during the NATO summit, how is he likely to be received by the other G-7 leaders there in Sicily?

[02:24:33] NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, they're going to have more time around the table, and I think it's certainly going to give the leaders Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada a better chance to get to know President Trump and his style and technique. It was very clear his style at NATO was, I'm not going to give you the assurances you want unless you give me or give NATO the money you say you should, the 2 percent of GDP. And there are going to be contentious issues here, foreign policy, security topping the agenda here, policy on Russia, on Afghanistan, on Iraq. And it's clear not all countries around the table here see eye to eye entirely on Russia. President Trump stands perhaps in a slightly different position than some of the other Europeans.

There will also be talk about sustainable growth, economic growth, and that will bring in the climate. It will bring in energy, and it will bring in trade. There are significant gaps on the issue of climate, whether or not President Trump wants to support the Paris Climate Accord of a couple of years ago. Trade, there are big differences between the Europeans and the United States understand the Trump administration on free trade and what he calls fair trade.

So I don't think people are going to get away from this summit without hearing some pretty blunt facts from President Trump again -- Isha?

SESAY: Nic Robertson, joining us from Sicily where that G-7 summit will start shortly. Thank you.

VAUSE: One of the moments talked about during the NATO photo op.

SESAY: President Trump appeared to push the Montenegro prime minister aside to get in front of him.

VAUSE: Apparently, this was protocol. The president was just taking his place, but he certainly made his presence felt.

SESAY: Yeah, he certainly did.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: There it is again.

SESAY: People just trying to make sense of it. Was it really just about getting to the front about the photo op? It's unclear. We're waiting for a little more detail. VAUSE: No, I think that's all they're going to say about that.

America First, the president first, and there he is. It's generated quite a reaction online as you would imagine.

SESAY: All right. There you see it again. Yeah, it's something to behold.

We're going to take a quick break here. Stay with us. Much more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:30:14] GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani. We're live in Manchester.

Let's recap the latest developments. Authorities in the city have arrested another man in connection to the bombing today. Ten people have now been arrested in the case. Eight people still remain in custody. Meanwhile, an American official tells CNN the attacker, the British-born Salman Abedi, was likely trained by ISIS inside of Syria. He also spent time in Libya. His brother has been arrested there. His father detained as well. He's of Libyan descent.

British officials say they will resume intelligence sharing in the case with the United States. You will remember they briefly stopped doing that after accusing American officials of leaking details about the investigation, specifically pictures of the aftermath of the bombing that appeared first in "The New York Times."

Let's get more on the case, including the attacker's links to Libya. Our Ben Wedeman joins us now from Sicily.

We've been talking a lot about Libya because this attacker spent three weeks there before coming back to Manchester. So there are concerns and questions about whether or not he may have received some training or some direction from ISIS or some sort of group inside of Libya. What is the presence of a group like ISIS in Libya, and how coordinated are they? I know they're under pressure there and elsewhere, but what is the network like inside of Libya?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, for quite some time, ISIS did control the town of Sirte, which is on the Mediterranean coast, but they have been driven out of there. So they don't necessarily control large amounts of territory, but they do have a presence. So they've lost their sort of foothold on the Mediterranean. But that doesn't mean they don't have a presence elsewhere in the country, keeping in mind of course that Libya is a vast country with a relatively small population.

And it is sort of a cautionary tale, what has happened with is in Libya for places like Iraq and Syria, where we've seen them lose much of the territory they control. But in a sense, they've been dispersed, and it's very hard to track individuals as opposed to monitor, control, or re-conquer areas that they were in control of in the past. For instance, Salman Abedi, this young man, the 22-year-old who is believed behind the Manchester bombing, he was in Libya. And then we understand that he transited through turkey as well as Dusseldorf airport in Germany. U.S. officials say perhaps he received training from ISIS in Syria itself although we don't have any clear indication that he actually ever went there. But certainly if, indeed, he did spend several weeks in Libya in the weeks before the bombing in Manchester, he may well have received training from elements or individuals affiliated with ISIS. We did see some information that, for instance, he was in contact with his mother just hours before the bombing took place. So clearly this is an individual who had some sort of context perhaps with is. But given the very chaotic situation in Libya, it's very difficult to be able to trace these things, keeping in mind of course that in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, only one western country maintains an embassy there, and that is Italy. So it's sort of a terror incognito when it comes to trying to follow up leads in this case -- Hala?

GORANI: Absolutely. Ben Wedeman in Italy. He'll be covering the G-7 summit in Sicily. Thanks very much.

Libya, a country with a weak central government, run, in many cases, by militia with terrorist groups present, certainly, in remote parts of the country, though they were driven out, as Ben said, from Sirte. This leaves a lot of opportunity for some of these groups potentially to recruit, to radicalize individuals like this Salman Abedi, his brother.

We're of course trying to piece together this puzzle to as to how this particular person was financed.

Jonathan Russell joins us from our London studios. He's the executive director for Quilliam Global, a think tank that focuses on counterextremism.

We spoke a few days ago right after the attack. We're now five days out. We're learning a lot more about Abedi, that there's a Libyan connection, that his brother was detained by a militia in Libya, that he traveled through Istanbul through Dusseldorf. This is a much more international plot than we first thought.

[02:35:14] JONATHAN RUSSELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, QUILLIAM GLOBAL: Absolutely, because of the international networks that are currently leading in jihadist terrorism in the moment, this shouldn't be a surprise to us. We've been saying since the beginning that it's unlikely that this was simply a lone wolf as some have put it. What I suppose we should be aware of is as ISIS loses territory and money in Iraq and Syria, it's going to focus on its states abroad. It's going to focus on Libya. It's also going to focus on sending people back to commit terrorism in the west, and it's also going to focus on its virtual caliphate, trying to promote its ideology online and retain appeal even if it doesn't have territory.

GORANI: OK. So let's talk a little bit, though, about what investigators need to focus on now because inevitable questions as the city continues to grieve obviously for its dead and, you know, continues thinking about those so badly injured is why if this was a plot that had transnational qualities, was this missed? Did this fly under the radar for so long? RUSSELL: Well, I think the first thing to note is that the security

services have a very tricky job with the sheer number of people of interest that are reported to them, and they have to carry out some level of triage. I understand that Abedi didn't reach that top level of triage, and therefore even when he was reported, the case wasn't reopened and it was very hard for people to take any intelligence that they received about him seriously. Perhaps we need to think again about that process. It's also clear that if Abedi has got this wider network, not just through his family but also through others in a cell, and we've seen various others being arrested since the attack on Monday night. We should continue going beyond that because it's only through these networks and through communication that people continue to become radicalized and the plots can form. So it's not just the travel element. There's also so many different complexities to this story.

GORANI: And what still motivates young 20-somethings born in the west or a western country to carry out attacks like this? And also there's another interesting aspect, which is if the brother knew about the plan. This would be the third case of a terrorist attack that we cover where there are two brothers involved as well. It seems like this can't just be a coincidence.

RUSSELL: So in terms of motivation, we know that it's difficult for young migrants to this country to integrate, and so there would be, I'm sure, elements of not feeling welcome in his new country. There will be some hankering after the politics that he left behind, the anti-Gaddafi se sentiments, and perhaps that inspired him. The connections he would have had growing up in Libya, perhaps he retained those and stayed in contact.

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: But, Jonathan, sorry to jump in. This kid was born here. He was going to a business school in Manchester. What was the issue here? I guess I just don't understand in particular when you say difficult to integrate.

RUSSELL: Well, we don't know absolutely the personal experience of him. But we do know that he dropped out of business school. That's indicative of some sort of identity crisis that he was struggling. We do know that he had a history of criminality and of drugs, and there is certainly a strong element within the jihadist movement of trying to or pretending to provide redemption to those of that sort of background. So there's various different motivations. You know, it's very different in different individual cases. But I'm just going to pick up on the brother point because I think that's very interesting. You know, perhaps just like the brothers who have committed previous attacks, it's very tricky for security services to intercept plots when it's very close and there's that family connection. There's no quick fix to that. If it looks like normal communication between brothers, then that's very, very difficult to intercept. That's why you'd hope that the mother of Abedi might have come forward or the neighbors or people that noticed something odd with Abedi at university would have come forward. And that's really got to be the solution to this. [02:40:09] GORANI: Yeah. Jonathan Russell, thanks very much, of the

Quilliam Foundation. Appreciate it.

Good point there. Difficult to monitor communications between brothers. Brothers, after all, communicate every day. Nothing unusual about that. It adds one layer of complexity.

We appreciate your time this morning.

Coming up, the teenagers who survived the Manchester attack get a special visitor. They're meeting with the queen is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. 11:43 here in Los Angeles.

Just 24 hours ago, he was charged with assault for allegedly body slamming a reporter. Now Republican Greg Gianforte is projected to win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for the state of Montana.

ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Here are the latest numbers for you. Gianforte has 50.8 percent of the vote. Democrat Rob Quist with 43.4 percent of the vote.

Now, Gianforte apologized for his confrontation with reporter Ben Jacobs, saying, "When you make a mistake, you have to own up to it."

VAUSE: The alleged assault of reporter, Ben Jacobs, seems to mark a new low in relations between the U.S. media and politicians, especially Republicans and their supporters.

CNN's Kyung Lah spent the day at a polling station in Montana. She tweeted this, "Montana GOP voters, upon learning we're from CNN, 'You're lucky someone doesn't pop one of you.'"

Also this, "Montana GOP voters to me just now, knowing I work for CNN, that audio made me cheer. She smiled as she walked in to vote for Gianforte, the audio being of the confrontation between Gianforte and Jacobs.

Kyung Lah joins us now from Montana.

Kyung, we should point out you're not the only reporter, and CNN is not the only organization which has been on the receiving end of some pretty hostile comments today.

[02:45:00] KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There have been a number of reporters, and we've spoken all amongst ourselves, and they've heard the same sort of sentiment. What's interesting about the state of Montana is that this is a state generally where people value being quite civil one-on-one. But when you have a camera, when you have a microphone, there's a sudden turn when you try to talk to someone. And a lot of reporters have sensed it. CNN has felt the brunt of it because the president of the United States has been talking about CNN as being fake news. We heard that phrase again and again, and when we heard some of these comments, I had to stop and ask my producer, did I just hear that? Because it's quite stunning to hear that when you're just trying to get a sense of voter engagement or whether or not they felt that this audio was going to affect their vote. Trying to gather opinions is just much more difficult in a more hostile environment for all reporters, but especially for those of us who work at CNN -- John?

VAUSE: Now, we should note that you're at the campaign headquarters for the Democrat rob Quist. But for the supporters of the Republican Gianforte, are they not troubled by this alleged assault? In some cases, are they even cheering him on because of what he's done?

LAH: You know, the surprising thing is that both the Democrats and the Republicans, because we spent a good deal of time going from polling place to polling place to make sure we tried to talk to as many people as possible, Democrats feel that they are putting in a moral vote, that they don't want Greg Gianforte, someone who they feel body slammed a reporter to the ground, that they don't want that kind of a person to represent the state. At the same time, people have heard the exact same tape but on the other side of the political aisle, the GOP, they also view it as a moral vote, that they think the reporter had it coming. I was surprised to hear the number of GOP voters who said that this spurred them to the voting booth, that they wanted to vote for Gianforte, that they felt that he was exactly the kind of person that they wanted to send to Washington.

VAUSE: As reporters, insults, abuse, it's just part of the job. But it seems the tone and the mood among many voters in Montana, it's gone beyond that. Is that what you're experiencing and seeing firsthand?

LAH: It's very surprising, and I don't know how to describe it other than to say I'm taken aback by it. It's almost like group think, that when they don't take the time to try to get to know you, to find out if you might be a human being or you might have children or parents or where you live, if they don't engage with you as a human and they only see you as part of a bloc, the mainstream media, they don't take to that very kindly. And so that's what we're experiencing is that they're treating the press as one sort of a bloc instead of actually engaging us one-on-one. And I am taken aback by it. That's very surprising.

VAUSE: OK, Kyung. Good to speak with you. I feel weird saying this, but stay safe.

LAH: Unfortunately, in today's political times, it's something I'm hearing a lot of.

SESAY: Remarkable times we're living in.

VAUSE: And clearly, reporters are sort of bearing the brunt of a lot of anger out there in the electorate. A lot of people feeling frustrated about what's been happening for a lot of years.

SESAY: We'll get back to Manchester next on CNN NEWSROOM, including an inspirational message from the city's mayor.

Stay with us.

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[02:20:27] ANDY BURNHAM, MANCHESTER MAYOR: Don't hate us. Love us. We are one. We stand united. Together, each of us, we will tackle those of us who are extremists who don't represent anybody.

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GORANI: The two men there speaking in Manchester are the mayor, Andy Burnham, and Ashem Norad (ph), a Muslim who traveled from Gloucester to Manchester. He wanted to express solidarity with the victims of the concert bombing, and there they met as the city continues to grieve its dead.

Erin McLaughlin joins me now. She's at a hospital, treating the victims, who -- they got a special visitor earlier yesterday.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Hala. The queen was here yesterday visiting the adjacent children's hospital where some 14 children under the age of 16 are being treated. Five of those children in critical care. Her visit meaning so much to the doctors and staff as well as the patient, not just here at this hospital but hospitals in the surrounding area, including the hospital doctors at Steppinghill, which is about a 30-minute drive from here. That doctor describing what went on that tragic night when the explosion took place. He said that it was very much all-hands-on-deck. He was proud of the work they did that night. He said that it showed the national health service at its very best.

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MCLAUGHLIN (voice-over): A royal visitor to Manchester's children's hospital. Queen Elizabeth met with terror's youngest victims. One, all smiles and dressed up in her Ariana Grande T-shirt.

QUEEN ELIZABETH: You had to enjoy the concert?

UNIDENTIFIED GRIL: Yeah, it was really good.

MCLAUGHLIN: For another victim and her father, words of comfort.

QUEEN ELIZABETH: A shock, isn't it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A big shock. A really big shock for everybody really. Very scary.

QUEEN ELIZABETH: We can't tolerate that sort of thing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's awful really.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MCLAUGHLIN: The queen also met with the doctors and nurses who saved the lives of 14 children brought to this hospital, five in critical care.

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MCLAUGHLIN: But as hospitals closer to the scene of the attack became stretched, they brought patients further out. At the Steppinghill Hospital, Dr. Collin Wasserman was one of many called in to help 10 victims, some with serious injuries.

[02:55:06] DR. COLLIN WASSERMAN, PHYSICIAN: So it was a mixture of, as you'd expect from a blast, broken bones, but quite a lot of people struck by flying metal. So people with shrapnel in their bodies, sometimes many pieces of it. I think that was particularly difficult for the staff knowing that almost certainly some of those pieces of metal had been intentionally placed to cause the maximum harm.

MCLAUGHLIN: I asked him how that felt.

WASSERMAN: I felt proud, you know. This is what you go into medicine or nursing for, that you might be able to help other people.

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MCLAUGHLIN: And Thursday's royal visit reassured not only the patients and staff at the children's hospital.

WASSERMAN: I think what we've really seen, both in the queen's visit but also in the mood expressed across the country, is just a real collective solidarity, national pride, resilience, and determination not to be cowed by these dreadful events.

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MCLAUGHLIN: And just to give you the number of injured, 75 patients in total being treated by the area hospital, 23 in critical care -- Hala?

GORANI: Thanks very much, Erin McLaughlin.

I'm Hala Gorani, live in Manchester.

"Early Start" is next for our viewers in the United States.

For everyone else, I'll be back with the very latest on the investigation here. You're watching CNN.

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