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Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Prop 8; Rob Reiner Supports Same-Sex Marriage; Interview with Rob Reiner; SpaceX Dragon Safely Back on Earth; Cyprus To Keep Banks Closed; Tiger Woods Regains Top Ranking
Aired March 26, 2013 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: And, of course, we've been following the Supreme Court, the arguments made for and against same-sex marriage.
We have fresh sound now. This is the attorney, Charles Cooper, and he is the attorney who is arguing before the Supreme Court for Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage.
Let's listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES COOPER, ATTORNEY FOR PROPOSITION 8 SUPPORTERS: The parties and their lawyers have now litigated this case for almost four years and, finally, to this point, the case, as you have seen, was presented to the court.
The court asked some penetrating, measured questions of both sides. And now it's in the hand of the court, so we're looking forward to hopefully a prompt response to this, as I said, this difficult controversial issue.
Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you sum for us what was your argument was in the (inaudible)? What did you have to say?
COOPER: There's no way to sum up my argument in a couple of sentences. We believe that Proposition 8 is constitutional and the place for the decision to be made regarding redefining marriage is with the people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: Very measured, I thought, in what he was saying, but clearly when you talked to Jeff Toobin, there was -- I mean, there was tension inside the courtroom. There was a lot of emotion and obviously a lot passion outside of the Supreme Court on this issue.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Indeed. There's a lot riding on it, of course, one of the more important decisions the court has made in recent times.
Now, depending on your age, you may know the actor and director Rob Reiner from his role as -- he probably hates us mentioning this, but that role, popular role, as "Meathead" on Archie -- yeah, Archie Bunker's son-in-law.
MALVEAUX: It's aging both of us, but I remember.
HOLMES: Absolutely. I remember it, too, "All in the Family." Have a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Michael, where's your tie?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I tried Gloria but it doesn't look good with an empty neck.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, look, Edith. He wore his Halloween costume.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MALVEAUX: All right, you might also know him from hit movies he has also directed, including "The American President," "When Harry Met Sally," or "The Bucket List."
But he is playing a major role, of course, in the debate over same-sex marriage. He actually helped lead the fight against California's same-sex marriage ban known as Prop 8 and that, of course, is before the Supreme Court today.
HOLMES: Indeed.
He joins us now from outside the court, as you can see there.
Rob, thanks so much. Tell us, first of all, how did you get involved in this case? And why is the issue important to you?
ROB REINER, DIRECTOR AND ACTOR: Well I was one of the founding board members of the American Foundation for Equal Rights which was the organization that filed the lawsuit four years ago.
Myself, my wife, Chad Griffin, who's now the head of the Human Rights Campaign, Christina Shockey, the four of us were the ones who decided after Proposition 8 passed what to do next. And we came up with the idea of filing a federal lawsuit.
MALVEAUX: And you actually were the one who got Ted Olson involved, the Republican, the attorney, who, of course, went up against David Boies in Bush v. Gore. How did you do that?
REINER: Well, it was interesting. The four of us were sitting, having lunch, and a friend of ours came by and said, I think you might be interested to find out that Ted Olson is on your side.
I couldn't believe it. I was floored. This is a man, like, you know, you said, he argued Bush v. Gore. He got me depressed for two days. I couldn't leave -- I couldn't get out of bed. And I thought, this is the guy that's going to be on our side?
Chad went to New York, met with him. He came out to California. I met with him. And he gave the most impassioned plea for why everyone should have these equal rights and the right to marry.
And I thought, wow, if Ted Olson is willing to take up the case and willing to take our cause, this takes the partisanship out of it, takes all the politics out. It's not Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative. This is a civil rights issue.
Then he was the one -- Ted was the one who suggested David Boies. And I thought, wow, this is a grand slam home run of all time, the two guys that opposed each other on Bush v. Gore are now arguing on the same side for marriage equality.
HOLMES: On a matter principle. Yes, Suzanne says, an odd couple, indeed.
You've got to say, though, Rob, that Proposition 8 was approved by the voters. It was 52-to-48 percent. What about those who will say, it was the will of the people, the states do have the right to decide. What do you say to them?
REINER: Well, I think that when it comes to a civil right -- and there's no question about this, this is a civil right -- this is not something that is not something that should not be left to the whims of voters.
If that was the case, maybe women can't vote, maybe black people should still be slaves. These are civil rights and this is the one class of people, the gay and lesbian community, the one class of people in this country that is viewed lesser under the law.
And it is up to the courts to decide what is constitutional and what constitutes a civil right. So that's why we took this case.
Now, the debate is going on. We've seen a shift happening since we started the case. We were in the 40s. Now there are polls that show us at 58 percent in favor of gay marriage. And for people under 30, it's 81 percent in favor of gay marriage.
So, this debate is shifting and it's definitely moving in our direction, but when it comes to civil rights, it is up to the courts to decide. The courts decided that it was the right of everyone to go to the school of their -- to integrate the schools, to have blacks and whites be able to marry in 1967, Loving versus Virginia, and this is another civil rights case.
MALVEAUX: All right. Rob, it was impressive that you got to be first in line to actually get in the Supreme Court. I mean, obviously, you're very well known, but you might have had to camp out as well, I would imagine.
But we're seeing some of the pictures ... REINER: Very cold here.
HOLMES: I'll bet.
MALVEAUX: ... your son was tweeting and sending out there of you guys actually entering the building there, so ...
REINER: Great. Great.
MALVEAUX: ... pretty amazing day. And, of course, there's going to be a lot more activity tomorrow. This is far from done.
HOLMES: It's great to talk to you. Appreciate it, Rob.
REINER: Thanks for having me.
MALVEAUX: All right, good to see you.
Next hour we're going to talk with an attorney involved in the fight against same-sex marriage who supports California's Prop 8, Austin Mannix (ph). He's going to join us live in the next hour.
HOLMES: All right, look forward to that.
But also coming up, hurdling towards Earth for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, we're talking about the capsule from the International Space Station and inside all kinds of medical research and some trash. They're bringing back the garbage.
MALVEAUX: Really?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Welcome back, everyone.
Off the coast of Baja California, the cargo capsule known as SpaceX Dragon -- just sounds all very scientific, doesn't it? Yeah, it splashed down into the Pacific Ocean.
MALVEAUX: And it's actually loaded with some experimental samples from the International Space Station and, of course, our own Chad Myers, expert on all of these things.
You love this stuff. You absolutely love this stuff.
HOLMES: Who doesn't?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know why I love it even better is because the Lego stuff shot up two years ago came back down today.
HOLMES: Oh, it did?
MALVEAUX: Really?
MYERS: So it's back down here.
HOLMES: It's part of the payload.
MYERS: They don't get to play with Legos any more. Sequestration has cut out all the fun.
Three thousand pounds of the stuff came back down and, like you said, some junk, some trash, some experiments, some broken things that they don't need up there weighing it down anymore.
So this is a big deal to make it all the way up and back down. This is what they plan to put people in eventually, getting them to the ISS and back down.
This costs $150 million. A shuttle shot cost $450 million. So, Elon Musk's SpaceX Dragon, named after Puff the Magic Dragon, by the way.
HOLMES: Yeah.
MYERS: And it's a NASA contract. They put everything up there and this is good stuff. They made it all the way back to the ground, been tweeting about it, and it has splashed down now 200 miles off the coast. They're going to pick it up.
The last time this splashed down, Dragon number one, actually had water inside and ruined some of the stuff that came back.
MALVEAUX: Wow.
MYERS: They're hoping that there was no water issue there.
This is what happened. This is an experiment that happened about a year ago, I guess. The drogue chutes come out. The big chutes come out. These big chutes are orange. They're 116 feet across and it slows it down to only 12-miles-per-hour, so they hit the water at 12- miles-per-hour. The ships are going to get it now.
MALVEAUX: Wow, it just happened, yeah?
MYERS: Yeah, just happened, 12:34 Eastern time.
HOLMES: Exciting stuff.
MYERS: Yeah.
HOLMES: You're on top of it. I'm with you, though, Chad. I think it's fascinating.
MALVEAUX: It is.
HOLMES: I love all things space.
MALVEAUX: It is. It's really cool.
Thank you, Chad.
MYERS: You're welcome.
MALVEAUX: So imagine, Michael, 40 percent of your savings taken from your bank account. Can you believe that?
HOLMES: $10? Really? $10?
That's how much some investors lose in Cyprus and a lot of them have got a lot more than ten bucks.
We're going to go live to Cyprus, next.
MALVEAUX: Plus, Costa Rica loses to the U.S. in a World Cup qualifier, but they're not blaming it on simple defeat. They say it was because of the weather.
HOLMES: It doesn't look good, does it?
MALVEAUX: No.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: So, Costa Rica, the national soccer team, protesting its loss to the U.S. in a World Cup qualifier. The game was played in a snowstorm in Colorado. So, the Costa Ricans, today, want a rematch.
HOLMES: Yes, you know, not really like Costa Rican weather, is it? They say the conditions were so bad they had trouble moving the ball. I can't blame them either. They couldn't even see the markings on the field. Well, the World Soccer Federation is going to decide whether they're going to get a do-over or not.
MALVEAUX: Ah, they lost.
HOLMES: Yes, it's springtime. That's springtime in Colorado.
MALVEAUX: They lost. I'm sorry.
HOLMES: Yes.
MALVEAUX: Back to the financial crisis in Cyprus. The country may have sealed a $13 billion bailout deal, but the trouble, not over.
HOLMES: No. Banks there are still closed. The chairman of the country's biggest bank quit earlier today and there are some dire warnings of tough times ahead. Jim Boulden is in Nicosia watching it all unfold.
Banks are meant to open on Thursday but, gee, we've heard -- we've heard a few days mentioned in recent days, haven't we? You know, what's like -- and do you think it will happen, a, b, what will happen then? Run on the banks or not?
JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're supposed to open Thursday. The government still says they're working really hard to get all the rules in place so they can open the branches on Thursday. I'm not going to guarantee it at all, guys.
Think of it this way. I'm from Baltimore, right? Let's say I was at a small bank in Baltimore. It wasn't open for 11 days. This would be 13 days. I couldn't do financial transactions. I couldn't do checks. I couldn't do eBay or PayPal. Instant, you know, taking money out of your account right away. Then it opens and they tell me, well, you can only take out a certain amount every month and we're going to keep 40 percent of it if you're rich. That's what people here are facing if they have -- the wealthy have their bank deposits.
So, we can't say exactly what the rules are going to be, but they're trying really hard with Europe to get those rules in place before these branches can even open, guys.
MALVEAUX: So, Jim, how are people reacting to this? How are they responding? I'd imagine that there probably is a little bit of panic and concern, especially for those who have a large amount of money in those banks.
BOULDEN: Well, the irony is the people who have really large amounts of money in these banks are probably not living here, because this was seen as an offshore banking center. A lot of very wealthy Russians, for instance, had their money here.
The mom and pops on the street, they should be getting all their money back. There still will be controls on their bank accounts for a couple of weeks. But the people with under $130,000 in their bank account, in their savings, should get all of their money back. But, of course, they haven't had access to the money. So we've seen some shops that say "cash only."
I can't say that people are -- I mean they're in the streets demonstrating, but it's not violent. Students, today, protesting as well because they're really worried about their future. They're hurt because the reputation of Cyprus has been damaged. They see it this way. They don't think that Europe has supported them in the way that they should, guys.
MALVEAUX: Yes, it's reputation, it is fear. And some people describe it as, you know, humiliating experience to be portrayed in this way, you know, for the rest of the world.
HOLMES: Yes. Hard times head, that's for sure. Jim, good to see you there.
Well, it has been a long and difficult climb to the top many will say. Tiger Woods. Well, he's again number one in the world of golf. But what does it change?
MALVEAUX: Yes. Does winning really change everything? That's what Nike says.
HOLMES: People have an opinion on this, that is for sure.
MALVEAUX: Yes.
HOLMES: Yes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MALVEAUX: Tiger Woods, number one golfer in the world again. He actually reclaimed that title after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
HOLMES: Yes, which he's --
MALVEAUX: Impressive.
HOLMES: Which he's won a bunch of times before. This is at least some professional redemption for Woods after struggling through all the scandal, divorce, and injuries. Here's Zain Asher.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tiger Woods is number one again in the world of golf rankings after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational Monday afternoon in Orlando. The last time he reigned was October of 2010.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does it mean to you to now be back on top?
TIGER WOODS, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: Damn, it feels good.
ASHER: It's been a long road back for Woods. He fell as low as number 58 in the rankings. But this is his third win of the season. His sixth in the last year.
WOODS: It's been incredible to have all the support and, you know, all the hard work has paid off to get me to this point and it feels good to have won this event.
ASHER: Nike was quick to post a provocative new ad online, "winning takes care of everything." A good win for Tiger, but also a good win for golf.
MARY SCOTT, SPORTS MARKETING EXECUTIVE: The world of golf is celebrating really that Tiger is back on top and the number one. He has such an impact on all aspects of golf, from viewerships, to ratings, to sponsorships. And really, when he's on top, everyone's on top.
ASHER: He was on top of the golf world. The game's biggest draw until early one morning in 2009, when he drove his car into a mailbox outside his Florida home. And in what seemed like an instant, his whole life and image came tumbling down.
Tales of scandalous affairs filled the tabloids. His wife of almost six years filed for divorce and a nagging leg injury, along with tournament losses, left him and the golf world reeling. He spent years rebuilding his golf game and his reputation. He's also rebuilt his love life. Last week revealing a new love, Olympic champion skier Lindsey Vonn.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tiger, what relevance do we attach to the fact that you get back to number one in the same week that you announce your new FaceBook status? WOODS: You're reading way too much into this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lots of people will.
WOODS: Shocker.
ASHER: She tweeted moments after his win, "number 1," with 13 exclamation marks. He may be number one for now, but the number most likely in his mine is five. That's the number of years sense he won a major tournament. He'll try to end that drought in April by winning the green jacket at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MALVEAUX: Zain Asher is joining us from New York.
So, Zain, you know, we've been talking about this personal versus professional redemption here. How do his sponsors see any of this?
ASHER: Well, this is interesting because Pepsi, Gillette, AT&T all left him after those extramarital affairs. 2010 reportedly one of his worst years in terms of earnings. But Nike stood by him amid all this. His win no doubt good news for them. But the Nike ad -- I do want to mention that the Nike ad we just saw in the story where it say "winning takes care of everything" is causing some controversy, Suzanne. People are saying, well, is Nike saying that his extramarital affairs aren't a problem anymore because he's won. They have felt some heat for that.
Suzanne.
MALVEAUX: All right, Zain, thank you. Appreciate it. It's interesting.
HOLMES: His 2010 earnings suffered. Probably he only earned $20 million that year. I mean --
MALVEAUX: It's not that bad. Yes.
HOLMES: Yes. No, no, nothing sort of (INAUDIBLE).
MALVEAUX: Uh-huh.
Police, traffic light, going to slow you down. But how about this? We're talking about this cardboard cut-out.
HOLMES: Oh, you gave it away. We should have (INAUDIBLE) and said, guess what this is. Would you stop for that man?
MALVEAUX: Yes.
HOLMES: We'll talk about it when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MALVEAUX: In Bangalore, India, city officials are now experimenting. This is pretty cool. With a quirky new way to get drivers to obey the traffic laws. They're actually literally paper cops.
HOLMES: Yes, cardboard cut-outs. Check this out. Three of these have been placed at key intersections around Bangalore. Apparently it's working. There, drivers say they slow down thinking they're the real thing.
MALVEAUX: That's kind of -- that's a cheaper way of doing it, I guess.
HOLMES: Yes.
MALVEAUX: The experiment is so realistic, this one guy even started talking to the cardboard cut-out.
HOLMES: It was a short conversation, you hope.
MALVEAUX: Hopefully he didn't talk back to him.
HOLMES: Yes.
MALVEAUX: The town plans, of course, to put I think about seven more.
HOLMES: Yes. Yes. Yes. One of them got stolen, too, by the way.
MALVEAUX: Oh, OK. Your own cop.
Several stories catching our attention today. Photos as well.
In India, Hindus are celebrating Holi. That is the festival of colors.
HOLMES: Yes, and look at this. People sprinkling one another with colored powder. You may have seen this before. It's a tradition that comes from the stories of Hindu gods coloring the faces of their loved ones. It's said to be the most awaited festival on the Hindu calendar.
MALVEAUX: That's beautiful.
HOLMES: That is. It's fantastic.
MALVEAUX: Yes, nice.
HOLMES: Unless you get in the middle of it and you're not ready and you didn't expect it to happen. Then --
MALVEAUX: And then you turn purple. A little powder.
HOLMES: Head to the laundry. Well, I've got to go. Good to see you, Suz. You carry on.
MALVEAUX: You've got to go. I'll see you tomorrow. I will. I'll carry on, mate.
HOLMES: See you tomorrow.
MALVEAUX: All right, thanks.
Can states ban same-sex marriage or is it unconstitutional to prevent gays and lesbians from tying the knot. That is the issue before the Supreme Court today. And people on both
