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Power Outages Hit More Than 200,000; Dow Hits Intraday Record; Snowstorm Slams Northeast; TSA to Allow Small Knives on Planes; Drone Strikes in U.S. Possible; Choice Words from Ailes; Jury to Ask Jodi Arias Questions; Gabbie Giffords Attends Tucson Gun Control Event; President Invites GOP Senators to Dinner

Aired March 06, 2013 - 13:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: In China, the world's largest mall is now said to be a ghost town. It opened eight years ago in the Chinese province of Guangdong. Only a handful of the mall's 2,300 retail spaces are now occupied. It's twice as big as the biggest mall here in the U.S., which you may know is the Mall of America. And it also has an indoor amusement park. It has canals and gondolas as well. Quite the production. The big problem, though, is location, because this is a factory town where most people are migrant workers. They're struggling to make ends meet. And China is actually littered with ghost towns. These empty commercial spaces that are built -- were built during a speculative building boom.

Now, here's when is trending online. A new research paper is claiming that Mother Teresa might not be as saintly as you think. Academics from the University of Montreal say the revered nun was satisfied with housing the poor in bad conditions, even though she had access to a lot of funding. The researchers also say Mother Teresa was much more likely to pray for the sick than ensure they got proper medical care. Mother Teresa won a Noble Prize and a fast track to sainthood for her work helping the poor.

CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.

School closings, power outages, hundreds of flights canceled. A look at that winter storm causing delays along the East Coast.

Then, knives allowed. The TSA says it is OK to bring knives on planes. We will explain why.

And drones could be used to target Americans with links to terror. How Attorney General Eric Holder didn't rule this out as an extreme possibility.

This is CNN NEWSROOM. I am Brianna Keilar in for Suzanne Malveaux. And this morning, the Dow hit another milestone, topping 14,300 shortly after the opening bell. Taking a quick look now at the Dow, up 30 points. We will continue to monitor the markets throughout the day.

And right now, a huge snowstorm is bearing down on parts of the mid- Atlantic and the Northeast. Hundreds of thousands of people are already without power. You have flights that are grounded, schools are closed for about a million students right now. The storm hit the Midwest first. You can see the scene right here in Minneapolis, this is the airport. They're normally pretty good at managing this stuff, but this sort of was the rare occurrence of flight cancelations at the airport. So, that just gives you a sense of this storm.

And then, Chicago, records were smashed. The city got more than nine inches of snow. That's actually the biggest one-day snowfall in Chicago in 14 years. That, however, is nothing compared to what it's bringing to parts of the Northeast. And Erin McPike is at Dulles airport, not too far from where I am out in Virginia. What kind of delays are you looking at there, Erin?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, actually, we are not seeing many delays at all because many airlines canceled a number of flights yesterday, hundreds, in fact. And where I am at Dulles, it's a big hub for United Airlines, as is Chicago's O'Hare airport. So, United's taken a big hit. They canceled about 700 flights yesterday in preparation. Now, the team here at Dulles airport, the snow team, they've been kind of bored the last couple of years, because, as you know, we haven't gotten much snow in Washington lately. And I spoke to the airport operations manager, Dana Pitts, just a short time ago about what they're doing to stay open.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA PITTS, MANAGER OF OPERATIONS, DULLES AIRPORT: We were getting down to bare pavement -- bare, wet pavement, and that really is our goal to provide a product that is really no worse than wet. That's what we want to do. But because of that, we need to keep them moving. We need to keep them going around because when you get a snowfall rate of an inch an hour, this is probably close to that, then you've got to get back to where you started in order to keep it open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCPIKE: Now, really, Bri, the international flights are what are taking precedence here. Those are really high volume flights, and we've seen a couple take off and land while we've been here for the past couple of hours -- Bri.

KEILAR: That's pretty unbelievable considering the snow that we see coming down there at Dulles. You're one tough cookie, Erin McPike. Thanks for that report.

And let's turn now to Susan Candiotti. She's in Brick Township, New Jersey. This is a town that's still recovering from Hurricane Sandy so it's dealt with a lot. And, Susan, New Jersey isn't really expected to really get hit by this snowstorm until a little later today. How are they preparing for it? Is it -- is it different than other areas that haven't dealt with the hurricane storm, Sandy?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, of course, this area was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, and so they know they need to prepare this time, too. No one is saying that the damage this time is going to be anywhere close to that, but they are expecting wind gusts of anywhere from 50 to 60 miles per hour tonight. And, by comparison, the waves, the highest waves during Sandy were maybe 40 miles an hour, but this time, they're talking about 12 to 15-foot seas.

Now, you can see the damage that is still pretty clear about what happened during Hurricane Sandy. Look, so many houses still have been destroyed or are heavily damaged. Over here in the bay here, and you see over my shoulder, we're talking about one of six seaside communities on the Northern Barrier Islands, that includes Seaside Heights, Toms River, including Brick Township as well. All of these areas are under a voluntary evacuation. I want to quickly bring in Mayor Steve Acropolis from right here in Brick Township. This is like a one-two punch for these people.

STEVE ACROPOLIS, MAYOR, BRICK TOWNSHIP, NEW JERSEY: Yes, from a psychological standpoint, it's tough. You know, people are just getting over, you know, four months out from Sandy, and now we've got to go through what we consider a pretty big nor'easter. It looks like it's going to be a three-day event and that'll be tough.

CANDIOTTI: And, in fact, where we are standing now, you are expecting flooding from the Bay.

ACROPOLIS: Yes, some of our low-lying areas will get flooding on nor- easters, but with the weakened dune system, it's just a little bit more of a concern for us.

CANDIOTTI: All right. Thank you very much for joining us. And, again, they have tried to beef up the dunes as best they can, but everyone is bracing for, like the mayor said, not a one night storm, Brianna, a two-nighter. Maybe two to six inches of snow tonight and then into Thursday, Thursday night into Friday, possibly one to three inches of snow. It's going to take a while to go through here.

KEILAR: Oh, my goodness. And if you're living on the Northeast, you're probably thinking enough already. Susan Candiotti for us there in New Jersey.

Pocket knives, hockey sticks, golf clubs, what do they have in common? Well, starting on April 25th, yes, you'll be able to bring all these items and more on board a plane. The Transportation Security Administration is loosening its restrictions to bring U.S. airlines more up to speed with international guidelines.

Our David Mattingly is at the world's busiest airport, Hartsfield Jackson International there in Atlanta. So, David, we hear that the coalition of flight attendant unions is actually against this change. Why are -- what are the airlines saying here?

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. As you might expect, the pushback has been strong, particularly from the flight attendant's union. Then, today saying, this will further endanger the lives of flight attendants and passengers. Also hearing today from the federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, they call this rolling back of some of the restrictions that they have in place now dangerous, ill advised and foolish. What they're talking about is that the passengers will now be allowed to bring on -- in that date in April, they will be allowed to bring on certain types of sports equipment and certain types of knives. And U.S. officials saying -- the TSA saying that is bringing that online -- in line with what we see happening in other parts of the world, that this will be in line with international regulations.

For instance, now, they're going to be allowing pocket knives to be brought on board. Pocket knives like this. And, specifically, we're looking at blades that are going to be two and a half inches in length or shorter and a half inch in width or shorter. The one thing you still cannot bring on, when it comes to knives, will be something like this. A knife where the blade actually locks and you have a handle on this.

Now, according to what TSA is saying that these new regulations, while it does look like they're rolling some of them back, they say that they're bringing them on line or in line with international regulations and that these changes will not endanger the safety of the aircraft. While we talked to some passengers today to get their reaction, here what they have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KORY BEIDLER: I personally carry a knife like this in my pocket almost every day and I can't when I travel, which I'm fine with. I would prefer that they stay off airplanes.

FRASER: I have (ph) a Swiss army knife can be used as a deadly weapon, so I'm not sure that would be a wise move. I'm not sure you're talking about hijacking, but it could be a danger amongst passengers.

MICHAEL O'CONNELL: I think it would be a good option. You know, sometimes, we have these small things in our bag that, you know, really help us out and then they confiscate them. And after they confiscate them, then you have to buy new ones and it really impacts travel plans.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: So, some mixed reaction among passengers. Most of the passengers I encountered today are not looking forward to the idea of things like this, like these small baseball bats, golf clubs, things like this, coming on board along with hockey sticks, ski poles, even pool cues will be allowed under these new regulations -- Brianna.

KEILAR: That is -- I don't understand quite, David, why -- and as a golfer, why you would need your nine iron on the airplane. Is that something people have missed out --

MATTINGLY: Well, --

KEILAR: -- taking on the airplane?

MATTINGLY: And then they're only allowing you to bring two golf clubs on board, so I guess choose wisely, depending on what kind of game you have planned on where you're going.

KEILAR: Interesting. That makes no sense as we know there's 14 clubs in a bag. Very weird. OK. David Mattingly for us there in Atlanta. We appreciate your report.

There's never been a drone attack on American soil but could it happen? The U.S. Attorney General raised a few eyebrows today when he said, maybe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: As I laid out in a speech I gave Northwestern University with regard to the use of these kinds of lethal forces, one of the critical things was that --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Eric Holder testified today before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was pressed to describe a scenario that would warn a drone strike in this country. He didn't rule it out and Chris Lawrence is our Pentagon Correspondent. Chris, how did this drone strike discussion even come up in the Senate session today?

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Because senators had big questions, Brianna, specifically about this letter that Eric Holder sent to Senator Rand Paul. And in it, that's where he said it is possible to imagine some sort of catastrophic, imminent attack, some sort of attack in which the president may have to use lethal force here on U.S. soil against a U.S. Citizen. A lot of senators had a lot of questions about that, and Eric Holder had to answer some of those this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLDER: The way in which you have described this person sitting at the cafe, not doing anything imminently, the use of lethal force would not be appropriate, would not be something --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I find it remarkable that you still will not give an opinion on the constitutionality. Let me move on to the next topic because we've gone round and round.

HOLDER: Let me be clear, translate my (INAUDIBLE) to no. I thought I was saying no, all right? No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: No, no, that's what Eric Holder kept saying in response to the question about whether this attack could be stages on an American, say city, in a cafe. He said, no, it had to be some sort of imminent danger to the country -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Did he talk about any potential scenarios where he would consider a drone response to be appropriate? Do we kind of have a hypothetical sense?

LAWRENCE: In the letter, he talked -- specifically, he referenced the attacks on Pearl Harbor which I don't know if that necessarily makes sense. I don't know how targeting an American here would stop, say, a foreign nation from sending an air attack on the United States. But maybe perhaps -- oh, what he also referenced was 911, the attacks on September 11th. That may be more relevant saying that if there was sort of a catastrophic imminent attack on the United States, that the president would have these powers to sort of strike a U.S. citizen here on U.S. soil which probably is going to be very shocking to a lot of Americans who don't imagine the government would have that sort of authority.

KEILAR: Now, Chris Lawrence for us at the Pentagon. Thank you for that report.

And this whole issue arose because of demands that Senator Rand Paul, who's currently on the floor of the Senate, that he made to answer his questions about the right to use drones against Americans on U.S. soil. He demanded these answers under the threat of filibustering the Brennan nomination. He is now on the floor doing the actual filibuster.

Coming up this hour, Fox News Channel President has some choice words for President Obama and Vice President Biden in a new book.

Then Jodi Arias spent two weeks on the witness stand answering very detailed questions from attorneys, now it is in the hands of the jury.

And Steven Tyler becomes the face of privacy rights for celebrities in Hawaii. That's right, the Aerosmith front man. He's been asking the overeager paparazzi be stopped, but some in local governments say Tyler should just dream on. Yes, you got that.

This is CNN NEWSROOM and it's all happening now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Fox News Chief Roger Ailes isn't known to keep his opinions to himself. So perhaps this doesn't come as a huge surprise, but he has some choice words for President Obama and Vice President Biden in the new book, "Roger Ailes Off Camera."

Howard Kurtz, host of "RELIABLE SOURCES" here on CNN is joining us now from D.C. to talk about this.

So, Howie, the biographer who wrote the book recorded these comments while he was following Ailes and says that Ailes called President Obama lazy. So according to this excerpt from the book in "Vanity Fair," he said, quote, "Obama's the one who never worked a day in his life," kind of referring to that Ann Romney criticism from Hilary Rosen.

He said, "He said he's lazy, but the media won't report that."

What are your thoughts on this statement? You think President Obama's lazy? Is there anything to this?

HOWARD KURTZ, CNN HOST: Well, on the substance of it, I don't think the president is lazy; I think he works very hard and takes fewer vacations, for example, than his predecessor But my overall reaction, Brianna, there he goes again. Roger Ailes, you know, doesn't tend to filter himself when he talks about politics.

Now, any other news channel head would get in trouble for these kind of comments, but Ailes plays by his own set of rules; he makes a lot of money for Rupert Murdoch. And so this is not going to bother him.

KEILAR: Why do you think, Howie, the biographer included these comments?

KURTZ: Because they might make news. It's interesting because there were two biographies coming out of Roger Ailes. This is the one with which Roger Ailes cooperated with Zev Chafets, gave him a lot of access, gave him a lot of interviews.

And by the way, he didn't like call the president lazy, called the Vice President Biden "as dumb as an ashtray," which is pretty harsh language. (Inaudible) he likes Joe Biden. He has a soft spot for Joe Biden. Imagine if he didn't like him.

The other book -- I mean -- by Gabe Sherman of "New York" magazine is probably going to be more critical. But he was not given any access to Ailes or any of the folks at FOX.

KEILAR: So has there been any Ailes reaction to kind of the reaction that there's been to these excerpts of -- from his book?

KURTZ: You know, Ailes has said things to me in the past that he hasn't backed away from. Just a few weeks ago, he talked to the "New Republic" and the FOX news chief said that -- again talking about President Obama, that he tries to get the middle class to hate the rich, and to get blacks to hate whites.

He tends to overstate things in the manner of a former political strategist, shall we say. It's very rare for Roger Ailes to have to climb down and say, well, I didn't really mean to say that or I'm sorry. I'm not expecting that in this case.

KEILAR: That's right. He does speak his mean for sure.

Howard Kurtz, thanks for that, Howie.

KURTZ: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: Coming up, President Obama and Republican senators -- no, this is right. I am reading this correctly -- they are having a dinner date tonight. On the menu, spending cuts. Will this help bring both sides together?

Plus, tours at the White House have been canceled. Why the forced spending cuts could be to blame.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: It is a very powerful image, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords returning to the very place where she was shot in the head two years ago. Literally seconds ago, Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, were joining survivors from that rampage at a Safeway store in Tucson.

They just left, just walked off stage during the commercial break and Giffords has been urging lawmakers in Washington to support expanded background checks for gun purchases. Listen to what Kelly had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK KELLY, ASTRONAUT, HUSBAND OF GABBY GIFFORDS: You know, Gabby and I are gun owners. We're strong supporters of the Second Amendment. I don't think you'll find somebody that's a stronger supporter of the Second Amendment than Gabby and I.

We own firearms for the same reasons many Americans do. But this discussion is really not about the Second Amendment. It's about public safety and keeping guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill and criminals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Giffords also appears in a new ad running in Arizona and Iowa that just hit the airwaves yesterday. Giffords and Kelly's group, called Americans for Responsible Solutions, paid for that ad.

And one group is trying to change the gun control debate by changing the language and the culture around it. Evolve founder Jon Bond told Piers Morgan the phrase "gun safety" should be used instead of gun control. He wants the organization to be a bridge that links gun owners and non-gun owners.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON BOND, FOUNDER, EVOLVE: Culture is what really makes things change and stick in America, so if you take gun control, which you brought up -- control versus freedom -- control is counterculture. It's not American. Freedom is American. That is a bad, bad, you know --

(CROSSTALK)

PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: Yes, and I know from the reaction I get on Twitter and stuff to the stuff they've been running, it's that word that really inflames the gun rights lobbyists.

BOND: Totally. But then when you talk to gun owners and non-gun owners, what they agree on is gun responsibility because they see --

MORGAN: And gun safety (inaudible) --

BOND: -- and gun safety. So --

MORGAN: Most NRA members I know actually do believe strongly in gun safety.

BOND: Absolutely. So now, you can create something that's culturally consistent with people instead of fighting. You can't change culture that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Tonight, Piers Morgan will look at illegal gun sales. That's at 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

So something that may me do a bit of a double-take when it came across my e-mail because of some of President Obama's harshest critics will be face-to-face with him at the dinner table.

Mr. Obama extended an invitation to a group of Republican senators. This is a move toward direct talks following those forced spending cuts.

And for more, we're now joined by chief national correspondent, John King.

John, the president has been criticized in the past for not reaching out to members of Congress socially. And we're not just talking about Republicans. We're even talking about Democrats. So this is a bit of a shift for him. Is this the first time that he's done this or is this just another photo opportunity?

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: It's the first time he's done it on this scale. Remember, he's had John McCain and Lindsey Graham, for example, over to the White House recently to talk about immigration and they also did talk about this sequester, the forced budget cuts issue.

But the president's going to leave the White House, he's going to go to a hotel in Washington, D.C. There will be more than a half dozen Republican senators there, Bri. The president extended the invitation. The Republicans apparently came up with a list of who's going to attend. We'll see if they sequester the wine list maybe, or whether they have a more free-flowing conversation as the night goes on.

I'm making light of this, but it's actually important. Remember last week, the president was running around the country, saying, you know, if the sequester, these budget cuts took into effect, there would be all this horrible pain.

Well, his tone there has changed and we've seen now just in the last 24 hours, he's going to have dinner with Republican senators tonight. He's going to go up to Capitol Hill next week and talk to Republican senators on their turf.

He's also going to go over to the House, which is more important, of course; not criticizing Republicans senators but Republicans control the House of Representatives. That's the president's biggest problem right now when it comes to getting legislation passed.

And he's going to meet with them as well. Now, he's done these meetings in the past, but to have it happen so quickly, this quick pivot right after the big argument over budget cuts, tells you something and it tells you somebody in the White House, including the president, decided the way we were doing this, whether we thought it was right last week or not, isn't going to work going forward.

It looks like this fight over spending cuts is going to drag on for a while and the president's clearly trying to pull a circuit breaker, if you will, and see if he can have a conversation with the other side. God forbid.

KEILAR: Oh, God forbid. And it's fascinating because we heard him in November, John, talking about how -- you know, my daughters are kind of getting a little older and they don't really want me around as much, so maybe I'm going to have more time on my hands to hang out with members of Congress.

And then we kind of watched for a few months and we were thinking, OK, is this really going to happen? I mean, maybe it's happening now. But something else happening at the White House is that tours have been canceled because of staffing reductions resulting from the forced spending cuts. Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas, though, thinks there's a better way. He's proposing an amendment that would prevent the government from paying for the president's golf trips. Obviously a bit of a dig there, John.

KING: It is. And Bri, again, as the president's trying -- we'll see if it works -- he says he's going to have some outreach to the Republicans. We'll see if they extend to him as well, if they can actually start to have conversation. It's things like this that, frankly, the Republicans just say the president didn't have to cancel those tours; he could have found the money somewhere. But then to say we're going to take taxpayers can't fund the president's golf. That's another gimmick. We got here because of a gimmick. The sequester idea was a gimmick. They needed to put something in a bill to score it, saying it would reduce the deficit; they couldn't agree on anything. So they create this gimmick.

Now, you have a conservative congressman who doesn't have a great deal of influence in his caucus, but he is a Tea Party favorite; he is a grassroots conservative favorite, saying, aha, I'm going to tell -- you know, you won't pay for the president's golf anymore because he's cutting White House tours.

It's a funny conversation. It will light up the Twitterverse. I'm sure conservative blogs love the idea. Is it going solve any of the problems? The answer is no. A conversation might start to solve the problems. So again, one of the reasons we got into this mess is a bunch of gimmicks. And more gimmicks and sort of funny one-liners aren't going to get us out.

KEILAR: I will say, John, I don't think that Louie Gohmert and President Obama will be having dinner together anytime soon.

KING: He'll be in the room next week when the president goes up, to be a fly on the wall.

KEILAR: That's true, to be a fly on the wall. John King for us, thanks for that.

Jodi Arias spent two weeks on the witness stand answering detailed questions from attorneys. Now, it's the jury's turn.

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