NYPD’s John Miller: New ISIS Video Is a Product to Sell Fear

GUTHRIE: "John Miller is the Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Police Department. John, good morning. Good to see you."

MILLER: "Good morning."

GUTHRIE: "In some sense the footage is not new, the sentiment is certainly not new, and I assume that the NYPD just is constantly presuming a threat like this exists. Is the danger of the video that's out just recently that it might be that nudge for anybody like-minded who sees it?"

MILLER: "ISIS has had a two-fold approach. One is these organized external plots. And we've seen that only recently with the plane down, the Beirut attack and now the Paris thing. But their main bread and butter has been recruiting people online. The videos are part of the cheerleading section of that. That's one audience. The flip side of that audience is -- fear is the grist of the terrorists' mill, and the videos are meant to inspire film. So one part is for potential recruits, the other part is for us. But we operate on a fairly high state of alert normally."

LAUER: "You've got the police commissioner and the mayor going to Times Square last night, standing out in the open saying, we will not be intimidated. Do not change your lives. But it's the timing, John, of the video more than the content. In the wake of the Paris attacks and in the wake of the raids in Paris yesterday, that prove there were more terrorists, perhaps, waiting to carry out attacks, it doesn't seem farfetched."

MILLER: "I think that -- one thing that ISIS understands almost better than terrorism is marketing. What you saw last night was a commercial. It's meant to sell a product. The product is fear. Could it happen here? Of course, it could. But that's because it could happen anywhere. Are we better prepared here than most, if not all other places? The answer to that is yes."

GUTHRIE: "One of the unfortunate parts of your job is you're a consumer of a lot of the ISIS media, including the online magazine, 'Dabiq,' which features an image that ISIS purports to say is a bomb that brought down a Russian jetliner. In your view, is that credible? And secondly, why would they give that away? What's the though there? I mean, obviously propaganda is key."

MILLER: "Well, it raises the question, can you accept their claim of responsibility? Let's say for the purposes of this discussion, they are. Savannah, what you mentioned is their 'Dabiq' magazine which came out yesterday. I am a regular consumer of 'Dabiq' magazine. This was a quickly put together issue. It is clear that when they had the attacks on Friday, they cobbled together an issue and they wanted to take as much as credit as much as possible. Our bomb squad, as well as the FBI, are looking at that diagram saying, what they have here, could it have done what they said?"

LAUER: "One of the things that was startling to me, John, after the raids in Saint-Denis, yesterday in Paris, a woman went up to the police and said she thought she saw, along with the friend of hers, one of the chief suspects the day before on the street, but they didn't dare tell police. They were too afraid. I know it sounds cliché, but the message to New Yorkers and people in cities all across the country that we've seen on signs, if you see something, say something."

MILLER: "So that's not a problem we're having. We've had people identify sightings of people that looked like people in these photographs and suspects around New York. One was identified on a plane in mid flight the other day and met at the airport by the FBI. When we tell people that we're on a heightened state, those calls increase."

GUTHRIE: "We are happy to hear that. NYPD deputy commissioner, thank you so much."