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American Morning
Eligible for Execution; Too Much, Too Soon?; Interview with Martina Navratilova
Aired April 04, 2006 - 09:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the jury's decision was unanimous, and it could mean the only man charged in the U.S. in the 9/11 attacks is headed to death row.
CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena has more on this CNN Security Watch.
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KELLI ARENA, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Zacarias Moussaoui sat there ignoring the judge and jury, mumbling to himself. When the court was asked to stand for the verdict to be read, he defiantly remained seated. They jury unanimously decided Moussaoui is responsible for at least one death on September 11th.
EDWARD ADAMS, COURT SPOKESMAN: By this verdict the jury has found that death is a possible sentence in this case.
ARENA: As Moussaoui left the courtroom, he yelled, "You'll never get my blood! God curse you all!" His defense team had no comment.
The Justice Department said it's pleased with the jury's ruling. That same jury will now hear more testimony and decide what Moussaoui's sentence will be. It has two choices: death or life in prison.
KENDALL COFFEY, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY: I think death penalty eligible is going to turn into death penalty certain, because one of the key things in this next phase is going to be victim impact testimony, how person after person who lost loved ones on 9/11 talks about the devastating, shattering impact that those murders had on their lives.
ARENA: Some 9/11 family members expressed satisfaction the death penalty option is still on the table. Abraham Scott's wife was working in the Pentagon when Flight 77 hit and killed her.
ABRAHAM SCOTT, WIDOWER OF 9/11 VICTIM: I will also say that I love my wife truly and I know that whatever happens to him will not bring her back. But I do believe that her -- the death of Moussaoui will -- will bring comfort.
ARENA: Other family members don't think Moussaoui should be executed. Some worry he will be seen as martyr if he is.
CHRISTY COOMBS, 9/11 FAMILY MEMBER: He wants to be putt to death so he can, in his own mind, frame himself as a martyr to die for Allah, to die for killing Americans. And this is what we're on the road to doing.
ARENA (on camera): The new phase of the trial begins on Thursday. As the government presents 9/11 victims, the defense team is expected to bring out Moussaoui's troubled past, and argue that he's mentally unstable.
Kelli Arena, CNN, Alexandria, Virginia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: You'll want to stay with CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security. Well, we already know the ending, unfortunately, of the new movie about to hit theaters across the country, and that's REALLY the problem. It's the story of United flight 93. That, of course is the flight that crashed on September 11, 2001 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after the plane's passengers fought back against the hijackers. Well, this weekend, trailers for United 93 debuted in theaters. Reaction has ranged from tears to outright fury. Some theaters are already taking pretty drastic action as well.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: We are going go over and talk to Chris about the forecast, which is a very good one.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Yes actually, conducive to just heading out and enjoying the day.
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O'BRIEN: It starts off innocently, much like the morning of September 11th, but unlike the passengers and the crew depicted in the trailer for the movie, United 93, we already know how it's all going end.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Good morning, sir. 4D.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Thanks.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff, please.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: I'd like to be home with my babies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: A short time later, the terror begins to unfold.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: CNN is reporting a light civil aircraft has just hit the World Trade Center.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Yes, that's a lot of smoke.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: We've got another one.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: We've got another hijack.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: United 175 dropped its transponder (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: We've got a possible hijack.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: It's the first movie to deal explicitly with the 9/11 attacks, but is it too close to reality too son? Some theaters, including at least one in New York, say yes, and they've pulled the trailer for United 93.
Some relatives of those who died on flight 93 support the movie. Alice Hoagland, whose son was a passenger, says the story is too important to hold back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We cannot be offended by the truth. Flight 93 was a beautiful story in all of that ugliness.
S. O'BRIEN: The studio says it stands behind the movie, saying "Universal will continue to market united 93 in a manner we feel is truthful and direct, so that those who elect to see the film will be prepared for the experience."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: We have to do it now, and we know what happens if we sit here and do nothing.
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United 93 premieres at New York City's Tribeca Film Festival, just blocks from ground zero. That's happening on April 25th, and then it opens nationwide just a few days later.
Would you see it, you think?
M. O'BRIEN: I was just thinking about it. Really, just watching that, it takes a lot out of me. And I guess the answer is yes, I'd like to see it, but, boy, tough subject.
S. O'BRIEN: You can see why the family members would not. Oh yes, absolutely. I can totally understand that.
Andy Serwer "Minding Your Business" just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us for that.
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(MARKET REPORT)
S. O'BRIEN: We should mention that now. With tax day just a couple of weeks away, we've got some helpful hints in our AMERICAN MORNING tax guide. Tax experts are going to tell us how you can file online, deductions you might have missed, and best they have some ideas about what you should do with your tax refund, if you're getting one. That's tomorrow through Friday right here on AMERICAN MORNING.
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M. O'BRIEN: "CNN LIVE TODAY" is coming up next. Daryn Kagan is here with a preview.
Hello, Daryn.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Taking you back to prom day, Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: Wow. Prom days.
KAGAN: I'm talking to two young ladies. They're not going to forget their prom. They're all dressed up with no place to go. They were barred from their prom.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't think it's right that they're just taking it away because they don't agree with our opinion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't want to regret not coming to our senior prom. We don't -- we still also want to participate in everything that we believe is right.
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KAGAN: We will find out what they did to irk school administrators when we give the dresses a little national exposure next hour on CNN LIVE TODAY. So the dresses never saw the prom, but they will be seen on national television.
M. O'BRIEN: So is it a dress code issue? Or is there something more to it?
KAGAN: No, they did something they were told not to do, and they did it something anyway.
M. O'BRIEN: Oh, really? Illegal?
KAGAN: Consequences. No -- well, according to the principle, yes.
M. O'BRIEN: You're not going to go further are you?
KAGAN: I will on "CNN LIVE TODAY."
S. O'BRIEN: It's called the deep tease.
KAGAN: The producer is going yes, nicely done, yes!
M. O'BRIEN: See you later, Daryn.
KAGAN: OK.
Ahead this morning, tennis great Martina Navratilova is going to join us in the studio. She's a new book out. It's called "Shape Yourself." She shares secrets for getting into the best shape of life physically and emotionally, too. That's ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Congratulations, Gators. You -- of course, you know if you're a Gator that you are now the national champs. They -- it's their first-ever basketball title, a dominating win over the UCLA Bruins, who had been there so many times before. The Gators winning 73 to 57. Joakim Noah, who is the son of the former tennis star Yannick Noah, voted the most outstanding player. You can see him in the middle of that scrum (ph) there.
Thousands of Gator fans celebrated the victory outside the team's home area back in Gainesville, Florida. Yes! Give it up! Yes, go Gators! Go Gators! No reports of any fans getting out of hand, though we're happy to report some odd tuba playing there in the back of a pickup truck. But hey, they're having fun. It's all good, clean fun, kids. Now for the payoff. Florida Governor Jeb Bush gets a big package of California's finest fruits, vegetables and a little bit of wine. That came after a wager with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- Soledad?
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S. O'BRIEN: She is truly a legend in her own time. Tennis great Martina Navratilova is about to turn 50 and, boy, she still looks great. How does she manage to stay mentally and physically fit? Well, she shares her fitness secrets in a new book, which is called "Shape Your Self: My Six-Step Diet and Fitness Plan to Achieve the Best Shape of Your Life."
And Martina joins us this morning. Nice to see you.
MARTINA NAVRATILOVA, "SHAPE YOUR SELF": Thank you, Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Not only in great shape, you just finished playing in a tournament where you did amazingly well.
NAVRATILOVA: Yes, we got to the finals in the Nasdaq 100 yesterday, with Liezel Huber, my partner, and just barely made the last flight out to get into the city last night.
S. O'BRIEN: I thought this book was going to be a book about diet and exercise, and I was surprised to read that it's really like a lifestyle book. I mean, you take a much more holistic approach to sort of fitness than I would imagine someone who's a tennis champion would take.
NAVRATILOVA: Well, I wanted to talk to people rather than at them. And it's not preachy. It's like, OK, these are different ways you can go about changing your life in little baby steps so that you don't get overwhelmed. I think most of the health and fitness books are -- this is how you do it and you've got to change it right now and, you know, change your whole life.
S. O'BRIEN: We should be running five miles a day.
NAVRATILOVA: It doesn't work. It's like going to the gym when you haven't worked out for a while. You go to the gym, you feel great and you know, you work out, and then the next day, you can't get out of bed because you totally overdid it.
I overdo it. But when I overdo -- I'm an athlete, so three days later, I got to get out there and do it again. But most people quit. They don't stick with the program because it's too much of a drastic change. I mean, this book helps people -- OK, first of all, it tells stories about what happened to me or my friends and sort of make it real.
S. O'BRIEN: It's great when your friends are Billie Jean King and Chrissy Evert! That's nice.
NAVRATILOVA: Well, people can relate to the stories.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, and what I really liked was that you had the sort of six steps. And we'll go through some of them. The first one, though, develop the mentality of an athlete. I thought that was a really interesting sort of strategy for how to recharge, whether you're talking about fitness or healthy eating or really your lifestyle. Give me some tips on that.
NAVRATILOVA: Well, I think for anybody, it's about setting goals. And you set a big goal, but you can't reach that big goal today. You have to do it little by little. So then you set smaller goals to get to that big goal.
OK, so I want to lose 10 pounds. OK, how do I do that? So first I need to lose one pound. Well, OK, I need to cut down maybe little things, whether it's caffeine or sugar or smoking, whatever it is. OK. I said to my friend who was smoking a lot -- she stopped smoking in particular rooms in her house. Then she stopped smoking when she was on the phone.
S. O'BRIEN: Baby steps.
NAVRATILOVA: Baby steps. And before she knew it, she was only smoking three cigarettes a day. At that point, you can quit, no problem. Anything else like that, if you do it little by little, then it's manageable.
S. O'BRIEN: You also quote Billie Jean King as saying "Champs keep playing until they get it right," which I thought was just a great approach to sort of -- you know, because, we all fall off the wagon. Whether you're talking about your exercise program or eating well. You know, you find yourself digging into an ice cream sundae, you're like, huh, this isn't going to be good for my cholesterol. I thought that was a really nice quote.
NAVRATILOVA: It actually works. And what I -- like, I like ice cream. But you know, it doesn't like me. I like eating it, but then half an hour later, I'm dragging my behind, I can barely keep my eyes open. So if you get used to eating better foods and you pay attention to what it does to your body and your energy level, you will pretty soon not want to eat stuff that make you feel lousy half an hour later. You get two minutes of pleasure for two hours of feeling bad. That's not a good payoff. I don't like that ratio.
S. O'BRIEN: You write a lot about trying to feel more balance by just saying no, which is so simple and yet, it's like, if you're struggling to do it, we're all struggling to do it. It can't be that simple.
NAVRATILOVA: Well, it is. But I think it is about balance. And even working out, if you do too much of one thing, you put your body in imbalance. Like I see people on the treadmill because they want to get the cardio workout, and they're just hanging on to the rails because they want to do their six-minute mile, but they're not doing any good for their body. And also the body gets used to doing the same thing over and over.
So you need to -- give it variety. In the gym, you need to give it variety with the foods. And it's all about balance. We're always finding balance between the work and the play and the family and all this. So, you know, that's -- everything is about bad balance.
S. O'BRIEN: Diet and exercise book that takes into account your real life, too. It's called "Shape Your Self: My Six-Step Diet and Fitness Plan to Achieve the Best Shape of Your Life." It's nice to see you. Martina Navratilova joining us this morning.
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M. O'BRIEN: Just ahead, at the top of the hour, live coverage as a teenager testifies before Congress about his life as a victim of online sexual predators.
Plus, does prayer help you heal faster? The role of faith and your health, coming up. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BERAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, Ray Romano's comedy road trip. So funny it turned into a big-screen documentary, "95 Miles To Go." I guess that was destined to be my segment, "95 Miles To Go." Anyway, it's funny. It's just Ray, his college roommate and an intern. And you would think that would be really potentially deadly. It's actually...
S. O'BRIEN: No, no, I think that would be hilarious.
M. O'BRIEN: ... hysterical. Although there are a few moments where you think, you know, I don't know if I'd want to do a road trip with Ray. Because you got -- anyway. But it's funny. And he's a very interesting guy.
S. O'BRIEN: I bet, I bet. All right, well, that's tomorrow. That's it for us on AMERICAN MORNING. Daryn is at the CNN Center and she's going to be with you for the next couple of hours on "CNN LIVE TODAY."
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