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Obama Fights NSA Allegations; Teens Rescued From Cliff; Radio Hosts Fired For Mocking Lou Gehrig's Disease; Will Chrysler Comply with Recall?; Afghan Forces Formally in Control; Three 7-Eleven Managers in Court; Digging for Jimmy Hoffa; Screaming Passenger Detained
Aired June 18, 2013 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: NEWSROOM starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO (voice-over): Breaking this morning, your freedom is on the line and Obama on the defense.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, Obama was this raving liberal before but now he's Dick Cheney.
COSTELLO: The president insisting he's not Bush and Cheney-lite when it comes to spying on you.
OBAMA: The NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls. The NSA cannot target your e-mails.
COSTELLO: Also, shock jocks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Knock knock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do knock knocks on Thursdays.
COSTELLO: Three Atlanta radio deejays fired after mocking a former New Orleans Saints player with ALS.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I watch the Jersey Shore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just don't know if I want to play.
COSTELLO: What was the "Mayhem in the A.M." thinking? This morning, they're apologizing.
Plus, amazing rescue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thought we could walk across a ridge. That's when we realized we're in trouble.
COSTELLO: From more than a mile in the sky, two teens plucked from a rocky ridge only a few feet wide.
And Florida's Marco Rubio sending shock waves to would-be U.S. citizens. Should English be required to become an American? NEWSROOM starts now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO (on-camera): Good morning. Thanks so much for being with us. I'm Carol Costello.
We begin with President Obama hitting back at critics who charge the government is spying on American citizens. Mr. Obama says, "Come on, I'm no Dick Cheney." The president defending his administration against charges that it abused its power and trampled on American civil liberties in the process.
We begin this morning with White House correspondent Brianna Keilar.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a candid and unusually long interview with PBS's Charlie Rose, President Obama revealed how defending the homeland weighs on him, even as he discussed his goal of helping the middle class.
OBAMA: And that is the thing that I'm going to be focused on for the remainder of my presidency, along with the basics like making sure nobody blows us up.
KEILAR: Obama stood by newly revealed NSA programs that gather vast amounts of phone and online data from millions of Americans.
CHARLIE ROSE, PBS NEWS HOST: Should this be transparent in some way?
OBAMA: It is transparent. That's why we set up the FISA Court.
KEILAR: That's the secret court that rules on warrants for surveillance. At suggestions his administration has been heavy handed Obama bristled.
OBAMA: Some people say, well, Obama was this raving liberal before. Now he's Dick Cheney. My concern has always been not that we shouldn't do intelligence gathering to prevent terrorism, but rather are we setting up a system of checks and balances?
KEILAR: Obama discussed the bloody civil war in Syria where his administration recently said the government had crossed a red line by using chemical weapons against rebels. Some the U.S. support long overdue said Republicans like SeNATOr John McCain.
OBAMA: These aren't professional fighters, the notion that there was some professional military inside of Syria for us to immediately support.
KEILAR: In Northern Ireland Obama met with Russian President Vladimir Putin whose government is supplying arms to Syria. No breakthrough, though Obama and Putin said they will push both sides to negotiate a peace.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR (on camera): At the G-8 summit, the U.S. government also announced additional humanitarian aid for Syrian rebels and the countries around Syria - or I should say for Syrian rebels and for the countries around Syria that are taking in Syrian refugees. $300 million more dollars for a total of $800 million in humanitarian aid, Carol.
COSTELLO: Brianna Keila reporting live for us this morning.
President Obama may have more ammo later today to a fascinating House hearing later this morning. It will star the NSA director, General Keith Alexander. He is expected to tell us how the Snowden leaks, the Snowden NSA leaks, put all of us in danger. Also testifying today, James Cole, deputy attorney general, Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI, and Robert Litt, general counsel for the Office of National Intelligence Director. That hearing gets underway right around 10:30 Eastern Time.
Now on to a different scandal roiling the Obama administration, the IRS's targeting of conservative groups. Turns out Americans increasingly believe the White House was directly involved. A new CNN/ORC poll shows 47 percent of Americans think White House officials ordered the IRS to target those groups. That's up ten percentage points from just last month.
They say boys will be boys, but two teenagers really took things to the extreme while hiking. They wound up stuck on an 8,000-foot cliff. That's 8,000-foot high up cliff. Miguel Marquez has more on a dramatic rescue mission.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A rescue like none other, 8,600 feet up, two boys trapped on the rocky spine of a ridge only a few feet wide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As we went up there, we made decisions to get up that ended up making it so we couldn't get back.
MARQUEZ: Bad decisions, 16-year-old Austin Drechsler and a friend on a family camping trip will never forget, in gorgeous but unforgiving nature biting off more than one can chew all too easy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We thought we could walk across the ridge. When we saw the other side it was heartbreaking that's when we realized we were in trouble.
MARQUEZ: Serious trouble, high winds, gusts up to 30 miles per hour buffeting the helicopter's California Highway Patrol made four passes before with the precision of the surgeon plucking the boys to safety.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was the most challenging that I've ever done in the 12 years I've been in air operations.
MARQUEZ: The challenge lowering the harnesses the boys themselves had to put on and coming back around to have them hook up to be safely carried to a landing zone miles away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We lowered the hook a couple of times, but the wind would blow us out of our position and we'd have to go back to try again.
MARQUEZ: The harnesses must be worn correctly otherwise it's a long fall. For a nervous father watching all of this from below, heart stopping.
RICHARD DESCHLER, FATHER: It's my oldest son and that doesn't come back, right? I mean, you don't recover from something like that.
MARQUEZ: Thankfully, only a frightening lesson learned.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: Miguel Marquez is live. My palms are sweating, Miguel. I mean, just looking at the pictures. So I've got to ask you, did these teenagers learn an important lesson?
MARQUEZ (on-camera): Well, Austin Drechsler did say "stick to the trail" is the lesson for him. But look, if all of us - all of us faced those moments when we were kids. I did some certainly stupid things. They're darn lucky to have survived but they lucked out. Sticking to the trail. That's the lesson.
COSTELLO: Stick to the trail. How did they alert authorities anyway?
MARQUEZ: Well, it looks incredibly remote there, but they were actually just a few hundred feet or yards from a lookout point where they were able to yell at people looking out over this valley. And they alerted authorities and then kicked off this whole thing. The sun was also setting during all this time to even create more drama, but CHP did a pretty amazing job. Carol?
COSTELLO: Amazing job. Risking their own lives, by the way, to save those boys. Miguel Marquez, reporting live from Los Angeles this morning.
How low can you go? Turns out there's no limit. A sports talk sadly goes out of bounds, and now some shock jocks are out of work. The hosts of "Mayhem in the A.M." on Atlanta's 790 The Zone have been fired after making fun of Steve Gleason. He's a former New Orleans Saints player now battling Lou Gehrig's disease.
The segment from Steak Shapiro, Nick Cellino, and Chris Dimino consisted of a mock interview with Gleason. You see Gleason there. The real Steve Gleason has to use a computer to be able to speak. The voice the shock jocks used is a fake robotic one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You listening in New Orleans?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am. How was Jersey Shore?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just don't know if I want to play.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wish I could play.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You cannot play anymore, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
Knock knock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, Steve, we do knock knocks on Thursdays. We don't do it on Mondays. We just started doing that again. We do it on Thursdays.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I may not be here on Thursdays. Knock knock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who's there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Smother who?
UNDENTIFIED MALE: Smother me. Do me a favor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Ugh. 790 The Zone put out an apology on its website. Quote, "The Zone, our owners, sponsors and partners in no way endorse or support this kind of content. We sincerely apologize to Mr. Gleason, his family, and those touched by ALS," or Lou Gehrig's disease.
Those jocks, as I told you, have been fired and they have apologized continuously on social media but so far they haven't gotten their jobs back.
Today is deadline day for Chrysler to respond to the government's request for it to recall nearly three million older SUVs for a potential fire hazard. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange with more. Good morning.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. So Chrysler has got until midnight to formally respond to this recall request. Chrysler has made clear, though, two weeks ago that it's not going to comply with it.
Now, what it is expected to do today is add to its case. It's expected to submit more details about why it thinks the Jeeps are safe and why the recall request is unreasonable. I should also note that when these Jeeps first came out, they did meet all safety standards. So NHTSA is not disputing that, Carol, but it does say it can still go ahead and issue recalls anyway if a defect is found that makes the vehicle unreasonably unsafe and that's what NHTSA believes. Carol?
COSTELLO: So I'm curious, how much would a recall actually cost Chrysler? KOSIK: Well, that's the interesting thing is because there's this ten-year sort of guideline that NHTSA has. And it basically says that in order for there to be a free remedy, the vehicle can't be more than ten years old on the date the defect or noncompliance is determined, and for a lot of these vehicles, they're much older. They're from 1993 to 2002, 2004. So Chrysler really wouldn't be forced to recall these vehicles and ultimately wouldn't be forced to pay for these because of that stipulation, Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Alison Kosik reporting live from the New York Stock Exchange.
For the first time in more than a decade, Afghan forces are now in charge of their own country's security. The formal handover from NATO-led troops took place just a few hours ago. That international force, which includes about 66,000 American troops, now begins a support role.
But despite the handover, violence rages. In Kabul, a suicide bomber targeting a parliament member's convoy kills three people and injures more than 20 others.
Reza Sayah joins us now from Kabul. So are Afghan troops up to the task?
REZA SAYAH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's no option for them. Ready or not, they have taken center stage in the fight to defend their country. Much of what the U.S. and NATO have done here in Afghanistan over the past 12 years is now riding on how these forces do.
In a ceremony this morning, in Kabul, NATO officials transferring the lead role for security to Afghan forces. This is a process that started a couple years ago in 2011 with the safe districts. The process was completed today. What this means is, for the coming 18 months, U.S. and NATO forces will still be here, but only in a support role. Leading the charge will be Afghan forces.
In the ceremony today, President Hamid Karzai had some comments. Also present was NATO's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Here's what he had to say about today's milestone event.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: Five years ago, Afghan forces were a fraction of what they are today. Now you have 350,000 Afghan troops and police, a formidable force. And time and again, we have seen them dealing quickly and competently with complex attacks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAYAH: No surprise that Anders Fogh Rasmussen is praising the Afghan security forces. And if you talk to a lot of officials here, they say they've made a lot of improvements over the past few years. But you also have the critics who say this is a poorly trained army, that there's no way that they're ready to do the job on their own, to defend this country against the Taliban. But again, ready or not, they are now in charge and in the driver's seat.
COSTELLO: All right, Reza Sayah reporting live from Kabul, Afghanistan, this morning. Of course, important from the American perspective is it's a sign that American troops are coming home, or at least most of them, by 2014.
Just ahead in the NEWSROOM, big dig in Michigan. Did they find Jimmy Hoffa? I know, you've heard it all before. But this time even the FBI is excited.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Sixteen minutes past the hour. Time to check our top stories.
Charles Saatchi, who was photographed putting his hands around the neck of his wife, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, has gone to police voluntarily accepting a "caution for assault." He still denies attacking or choking Lawson and told London's "Evening Standard" newspaper, "Although Nigella made no complaint, I volunteered to go. I thought it was the alternative of hanging over us for months," end quote.
The gun allegedly used by the Boston bombing suspects in a police firefight was a Ruger 9 millimeter. Affiliate WCVB also says the gun came from Maine and had its serial number removed, making it difficult for police to trace. Investigators are now hoping to find out how the brothers got the gun and who sold it to them.
They're accused of smuggling people in from Pakistan and then forcing them to work at convenience stores for long hours, up to 100 hours a week, and then they took most of their pay. Now, three 7-Eleven managers in Virginia who own franchises there are due to appear in court.
Anne McNamara from affiliate WAVY has more for you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNE MCNAMARA, WAVY (voice-over): The three local men indicted on federal charges of harboring illegal aliens, identity thief and wire fraud all face a judge in Norfolk federal court. Two of them are brothers, Zahid and Shannawaz Baig, relatives of the New York couple accused of starting the scheme.
The indictment says the Baig brothers moved to Hampton Roads and with the help of the Pakistan citizen Tariq Rana (ph) operated four 7- Eleven franchises. The locations at West 26th Street in Norfolk, London Boulevard in Portsmouth, and two in Chesapeake, one on Taylor Road, the other on Portsmouth Boulevard. >
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my gosh, that's amazing, isn't it?
MCNAMARA: At the Norfolk location, customers stunned to hear the news, and workers less than happy to see us. They pulled down the shade and held the doors shut. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't comment on anything.
MCNAMARA (on camera): Another worker was taken away.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot comment on anything.
MCNAMARA (voice-over): The indictment says the three men knowingly smuggled illegal aliens from Pakistan to the United States and used stolen Social Security numbers to sign them up in the 7-Eleven payroll system. On paydays, the three men allegedly took a large majority of the workers' earnings.
Paperwork says the undocumented workers lived with the accused, in well-to-do neighborhoods like Zahid Baig. Neighbors in Chesapeake say he was arrested here this morning. Inside, we spoke to members of his family who communicated they don't speak English.
We met more family members of the accused outside federal court.
(on camera): Did you guys know anything about this smuggling or identity theft?
(voice-over): They kept their heads down and walked away.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: That was Anne McNamara from affiliate WAVY reporting.
If convicted, the three men face more than 20 years behind bars.
This could be it. Really. A mystery surrounding Jimmy Hoffa possibly solved. Investigators are digging up a field near Detroit for a second day. And they believe this time they may unearth Hoffa.
Susan Candiotti is in Oakland Township.
How's the dig going this morning, Susan?
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they've been pretty busy. They've been resuming their digging for over an hour now, Carol.
And the reason that there's a better expectation than maybe in years past is based on the credibility, according to our law enforcement sources, of this particular tipster. He's Tony Zerilli and he is very well-connected.
He was in prison back when Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. But he says when he got out, he talked with one of his buddies who told him what really happened to Hoffa, that he was allegedly buried back here, knocked out cold with a shovel and then buried alive under a concrete slab on this property.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Could this be Jimmy Hoffa's grave? The FBI once again digging for answers, uprooting waist-high grass and weeds on private property in suburban Detroit.
TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Why do we care? I don't know. We do.
CANDIOTTI: This time, the tip is more credible than most. It comes from Tony Zerilli, a retired Detroit mob underboss who himself did time. Sources say his dad used to run the show in the Motor City.
JOHN ANTHONY, RETIRED FBI CASE AGENT: He would have known if anybody would have known exactly what happened to Mr. Hoffa.
CANDIOTTI: When Zerilli got out of prison in 2008, an old La Cosa Nostra enforcer Tony Giacalone told him about Hoffa's fate. After the former Teamster boss was lured to a restaurant, he was taken to this property, killed and buried.
TONY ZERILLI, RETIRED MOBSTER: What happened to Hoffa was very simple. He got picked up over there. He was buried, where I said he's buried. And I have a witness.
CANDIOTTI: The search warrant sealed, but sources tell CNN it's several pages long and based on, quote, "credible information."
ROBERT FOLEY, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: If it didn't rise to that level, then certainly we wouldn't be out here because the judge has to move forward on that.
CANDIOTTI: Other searches were duds. Last year, soil samples were taken from beneath a shed outside Detroit but the tip went nowhere. In 2006, agents dug up a horse farm but found nothing. In 2004, they tested floorboards for blood and no Hoffa.
That 2006 search reportedly cost the FBI $225,000 to excavate a horse farm, compared to last year, CNN learned local police only paid $45 to replace a broken padlock.
Zerilli's motive is simple, he's writing a book and needs the money.
ZERILLI: If they dig up that body and find the remains, then I'm in a position to make myself a few dollars.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CANDIOTTI: Law enforcement sources tell us that Zerilli has declined to take a polygraph. He's not obligated to do so.
And, of course, he has a lot riding on this. If Jimmy Hoffa really is buried back there, he stands to make a lot of money from a book potentially, but if it doesn't pan out, Carol, I don't think he's going to get much out of this.
COSTELLO: So it looks from the pictures like this is a pretty big field. I mean, is there just a contained area where the FBI is searching?
CANDIOTTI: Yes, years ago, there was a house on this property and that allegedly is where he was killed or in that vicinity. And there was also a barn. So those don't exist anymore.
But what they did was they removed the concrete -- two concrete slabs, according to a couple of law enforcement sources, and they've been digging below that. It's unclear whether that slab was a foundation for the barn at one time, we're told, or what it was.
But they have a lot of time to spend. They've got some forensic anthropologists back there from Michigan State University standing by to test any soil samples, Carol.
COSTELLO: OK, we'll continue to follow it. I'm sure you'll be in Michigan for the duration. Susan Candiotti, thanks so much.
Still ahead, terror in the sky.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm dead! I'm dead! I'm dead!
(END AUDIO CLIP)
COSTELLO: A passenger screams "I'm dead" 23 consecutive times. He's taken down by passengers. We'll tell you what happens now.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: So imagine you're on a plane when a passenger stands up and starts screaming "I'm dead" 23 times in a row.
It happened on a flight from Hong Kong to Newark. The man seen in a passenger's cell phone video simply got up and started screaming that he'd been poisoned and he'd soon be dead. He also claimed he had the names of people at the CIA.
Rene Marsh joins me live from Washington.
I guess passengers took matters into their own hands, right?
RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They certainly did. I can tell you this morning, the FBI tells us that no charges have been filed against this man who really created quite a ruckus mid-flight. Not only did passengers jumped in, but they recorded part of the drama onboard, too.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead!
MARSH (voice-over): Dramatic cell phone audio captures a man screaming after he claims he was poisoned on board United Flight 116 from Hong Kong to Newark, New Jersey, stunned passengers forced to step in.
JACQUES ROIZEN, HELPED SUBDUE UNRULY AIRLINE PASSENGER: I got up along with a few other passengers and at one point, he reached out for something in his pocket, in his jacket and that's when about three or four of us basically tackled him to the ground.
MARSH: Jacques Roizen was one of the passengers who held him down while flight attendants supplied plastic cuffs to restrain him. Roizen snapped these photos of the unruly passenger who was described as paranoid and claimed to have information about NSA leaker, Edward Snowden.
PETER JONES, UNITED AIRLINES PASSENGER: He said he worked with the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi and he was being detained by the CIA and being transferred and his life was in danger and so, he repeated that over and over and over again.
MARSH: This mid flight drama is just the latest in a string of midair scares.
A man on board a Frontier Airlines flight from Knoxville to Denver claimed he had a bomb in his bag. No bomb found, the man taken into custody. And a passenger on board an Egypt Air flight from Cairo to New York's JFK Airport found a note inside the bathroom saying "I'll set this plane on fire."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MARSH: Carol, you know, the good news in this particular incident, the plane landed safely and the passengers were deplaned at the gate. Now, about the claim that he worked for the embassy in Abu Dhabi, we have reached out to the State Department after that claim. We have yet to hear back from them -- Carol.
COSTELLO: Well, let's hope that one's not true. Hope so. Rene Marsh, thanks so much.
Stories we're watching right now in THE NEWSROOM.
At just about 30 minutes past the hour. Stocks expected to open higher today, but all eyes are on the Federal Reserve. The Fed chair Ben Bernanke scheduled to hold a news conference tomorrow. We'll keep you posted.
In Florida, Governor Rick Scott has signed a bill that blocks cities and counties from forcing employers to offer paid sick days. It follows a move by Orlando to consider letting voters decide on a sick day measure. Supporters say the law will mean consistency for businesses across the state. Opponents say it puts a burden on poor and working mothers.
