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Prominent Dems Eschew Weiner; Markets React; Our Nixon; Suspension Looms but A-Rod Ready to Play

Aired August 02, 2013 - 09:30   ET

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


ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Run on some unique platforms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Record's too damn high (ph).

FLORES: Lacking political clout, but full of character and confidence. Never giving up. Much like Anthony Weiner.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Now, Anthony Weiner plans to hit the campaign trail starting today at 10:00. Now, earlier this week, he was in the area of Flushing in Queens and he spoke a little mandarin yesterday. He spoke some Spanish.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh.

FLORES: And, Carol, we'll just have to see today to see what surprise he has for us.

Carol.

COSTELLO: Can't wait. Rosa Flores, many thanks to you.

Opening bell is just about to ring on Wall Street. Let's go there now. Investors getting their first chance to digest the latest jobs report. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange.

Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Looks like it's kind of a thumbs down. You're looking at stocks starting out in the red. The reason is because the jobs number came in below expectation, showing that employers added only 162,000 jobs in July. And then, also, they added fewer jobs in May and June than originally thought. So what you're going to wind up seeing investors do today is kind of unraveling what these jobs numbers are going to mean for the Federal Reserve.

You look at the unemployment rate. It fell to 7.4 percent. So you're seeing that unemployment rate, Carol, creep ever so slightly closer to the Fed's target for when it raises interest rates. But the problem is, that lower unemployment rate that came in, it may be for the wrong reasons because the number of people counted in the labor participation rate fell. So people literally left the labor force, they gave up looking for work. That's really not the reason you want to see the unemployment rate tick lower. You want to see people getting jobs and that's the reason you want to see the unemployment rate go lower.

So, the good news. What's the good news? The good news is, the Dow and the S&P 500 is beginning the day at record levels. It's also a Friday in August, so it could turn out to be a pretty quiet day as the session wears on as everybody kind of gets out of here and takes their long weekend.

Carol.

COSTELLO: I like ending with the glass half full. Thank you, Alison Kosik.

KOSIK: I do too.

COSTELLO: Up next in the NEWSROOM, coming face-to-face with a monster. Michelle Knight's emotional statement about her years of abuse and what her incredible courage means to other victims across the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: People across the globe are still talking about the incredible Michelle Knight, no longer victim, but a woman with a voice. Knight is only 4'7", but when she walked up to the judge with Ariel Castro glaring at her, those watching her couldn't help but say, yes. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE KNIGHT, SURVIVED IMPRISONMENT BY ARIEL CASTRO: Ariel Castro, I remember all the times that you came home talking about what everybody else did wrong and act like you wasn't doing the same thing. You said, at least I didn't kill you. You took 11 years of my life away. And I have got it back. I spent 11 years in hell. Now your hell is just beginning. I will overcome all this that happened, but you will pay in hell for eternity. From this moment on, I will not let you define me or affect who I am. You will - you will live -- I will live on, you will die a little every day as you think about the 11 years in atrocities you inflicted on us. What does God think of you hypocritically going to church every Sunday, coming home to torture us. The death penalty would be so much easier. You don't deserve that. You deserve to spend life in prison. I can forgive you, but I will never forget. With the guidance of God, I will prevail and help others that suffered at the hands of others. Writing this statement gave me the strength to be a stronger woman and know that there's good - there's more good than evil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Incredible. So let's talk about this. I'm joined by Sondra Miller. She's the interim executive director of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

Sondra, welcome.

SONDRA MILLER, INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CLEVELAND RAPE CRISIS CENTER: Thank you. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

You've counseled hundreds of rape victims. What message did Michelle Knight send them?

MILLER: Michelle said, you did not silence me, you did not take my voice away. I am strong and that healing is possible.

COSTELLO: I'm telling you, I talked all night last night with my friends about Michelle Knight and, I mean, we were all empowered by her, you're right.

MILLER: Yes. She is a hero among heroes. And I don't think we can overestimate the amount of courage that it took for her to walk in that courtroom and say what she said yesterday.

COSTELLO: Ariel Castro clearly had an emotional reaction to Knight's presence in court. You could see his face was flushed. He kept looking at her as she sat in the courtroom. And he reacted strongly when Michelle Knight said that he would spend the rest of his life in hell. I know he's a monster, but what do you suppose he was thinking as Michelle Knight was talking?

MILLER: I don't know that any of us can pretend to know what is going through his head, but I hope he was thinking about how long those years are going to be ahead of him.

COSTELLO: It clearly bothered him, though, that she was in court.

MILLER: Yes. And for some survivors, it's so empowering to walk up and read that statement. It's just like taking your life back and taking back power from a person who tried to take it away from you. It can be very therapeutic and very empowering.

COSTELLO: Amanda's cousin also read an impact statement in court. She said Amanda Berry doesn't want to talk about what happened, doesn't want anyone to talk about what happened, doesn't want anyone to write about what happened. But here's Michelle. She's out there. Why the difference between these victims?

MILLER: You know, not -- no two survivors have the same reaction to trauma. And I think we have to give Amanda, Gina and Michelle, we have to give them as much choice as possible because their choices have been taken away from them for so long. So for Michelle, this may have been very powerful, very therapeutic. But for Gina and Amanda, that doesn't take anything away from them that they didn't want to show up in the courtroom. We have to trust that they are going to make the decisions that are best for them.

COSTELLO: And just a last question. We couldn't help but notice that in Michelle Knight's impact statement, she didn't mention Amanda Berry. Should we make anything of that? MILLER: I don't think so. I don't think we need to read anything into that.

COSTELLO: All right, Sondra Miller with the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. Thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.

MILLER: Thank you, Carol.

Still ahead in the NEWSROOM, a pro football player and a fallout from a racial slur. Riley Cooper does not get a warm welcome at the Philadelphia Eagles training camp, despite Michael Vick's forgiveness.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking our top stories at 43 minutes past the hour.

In the Middle East, a terror threat prompting the State Department to close U.S. embassies across the region. Embassies in Egypt, Israel and other nations will shut their doors on Sunday. Republican Congressman Ed Royce tells CNN he believes the threat is al Qaeda linked.

Edward Snowden now staying with Americans in Moscow after Russia granted him asylum for a year. The NSA leaker left the Moscow airport yesterday, where he'd been holed up for six weeks. Snowden's attorney says his clients hosts are people he doesn't know personally but who reached out to him on the Internet.

Remember this. There were big, big celebrations when 33 workers trapped underground for months in Chile were finally rescued nearly three years ago. But today there's only outrage because prosecutors say no one is to blame for the collapse and now they're closing the case. Two of the miners say they want the mine's owners to be held accountable.

In D.C., a court hearing is happening this hour for the woman accused of splattering green paint inside the national cathedral. The hearing is to determine if this woman will remain in custody. She's been charged with felony destruction of property.

Fans of the hit film "Avatar" are going to love this. Fox Studio says three, count them three sequels are in the works on the highest grossing movie of all-time. Director James Cameron will be back at the helm. The first sequel is expected to hit theaters in December of 2016.

Up next in the NEWSROOM, an intimate look at the Nixon presidency as you've never seen it before. Discover the footage the FBI had locked away for 40 years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's Richard Nixon like you've never heard or seen him before. Hundreds of reels of behind-the-scenes footage shot by President Nixon's closest aides have just been released from the government's vault. Now it's part of a new CNN film titled "Our Nixon" airing Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern -- 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time I should say.

You can listen to Nixon talk about TV, about hippies, about homosexuality and the downfall of the Greeks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD NIXON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I told Bob the other day I was trying to tune into the damn baseball game and then the game went off, and CBS came on with a movie.

They had two magnificent handsome guys and a stupid old fellow in it. They were glorifying homosexuality.

HALDEMAN: Was that a panel show?

NIXON: Hell no. It was a movie.

HALDEMAN: No, that's a regular show, it's on every week. And usually, it's just set in the guy's home and it's usually just that guy, who's hardhat.

NIXON: That's right, he's a hardhat.

HALDEMAN: And you know he just looks like a slob. Looks like Jackie Gleason and he has in his hippie son-in-law. And usually -- the general trend of it is to downgrade him and upgrade the hippie son-in- law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's real family entertainment, isn't it?

NIXON: (EXPLETIVE DELETED), is it? I do not think that you glorify on public television, homosexuality. You ever see what -- you know what happened to the Greeks. Homosexuality destroyed them.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Of course, he's talking about "All in the Family." Joining me now is Brian Frye, he co-produced the documentary. Good morning, Brian.

BRIAN FRYE, CO-PRODUCER, "OUR NIXON": Good morning Carol, how are you?

COSTELLO: I'm great and I'm glad you're here because I watched this movie and I thought it was terrific. What it really does.

FRYE: Thank you so much.

COSTELLO: What it really does, it immerses you back in the time. You really feel like you're back in the 70s and you really gained to better understanding of the times of who Nixon really was.

FRYE: Thanks. That's really the feeling we wanted to evoke. I mean obviously, I was not alive then myself but we really felt like we -- we got a feel for who these people were while we were working on and making the film. And hopefully that came through in the movie that we made.

COSTELLO: The other thing I noticed is that I mean you can learn things from the past, we all know that. But when you watch this movie, you really know that. Is that another -- well maybe I should ask you that question. What can we learn from Richard Nixon and his men?

FRYE: Well I mean I think one thing we can learn is, you know, sort of what -- what not to do, like how not to react to people who -- who criticize you or who treat you badly. And I think we see at least some of that with -- that the current administration. I think that, you know, President Obama certainly has learned not to -- not to break the law when responding to people who have been -- who have been critical of him.

COSTELLO: The other thing that really struck me, and we all -- we've all heard that Richard Nixon was so paranoid, right? So he was talking about, to one of his aides about a speech he had given and he was saying how great it was like what a great delivery he had. He was really complimenting himself.

But at the end of the conversation, he said, "Oh I didn't hear back from so-and-so. Can you call him and ask him what he thought about the speech?" What does that tell you about Nixon?

FRYE: It was really typical of Nixon's reaction or his sort of his relationship to his aides as well. He -- I'm -- as much as he is kind of criticized I think today for being paranoid, I think he -- there was a deep kind of narcissistic streak to him as well, where he really needed the approval of the -- the people who worked for him and the people he knew. And he always wanted to know what people thought of his speeches, what people thought of everything that -- that he did.

So after every speech, he spoke to H.R. Haldeman, who was his chief of staff. They had like an hour's-long sort of rundown of all the press, you know, talking to all the different cabinet members and so on. So it's -- you know, that was very typical of his relationship to his -- to his staff members.

And we really wanted to capture that relationship in the film. I mean the movie is really about Nixon's relationship to his staffers, to the people who -- who worked for him. And a sort of Nixon seen through their eyes was the sort of the Nixon we wanted to capture.

COSTELLO: Well, you did. It's a terrific film. Brian Frye, co- producer of "Our Nixon". Thanks for joining us this morning.

FRYE: Thank you so much Carol.

COSTELLO: And again "Our Nixon" airs this Sunday night 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.

All new in the next hour of NEWSROOM: Having it all without children. It's a choice more and more women are making. But why?

Plus, ex NFL star Aaron Hernandez proclaiming his innocence in a jailhouse letter, saying, "God has a plan for me and at least I'll know my true supporters."

And Glee -- goes on. After the death of actor Corey Monteith, the show decides how to move forward. That's all new in the next hour of NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Alex Rodriguez's representatives continue to negotiate with Major League Baseball to try and reach a deal. In the meantime, A-Rod returning to the field. Andy Scholes is here with "Bleacher Report." Good morning.

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: And good morning Carol. Right now it's business as usual for A-Rod. Tonight he'll be back on the field in Trenton, New Jersey as he begins another rehab assignment. The Yankees announced that A-Rod would play for the Trenton Thunder tonight and tomorrow.

A-Rod's reps in Major League Baseball continue to try to work on that deal that would allow A-Rod to avoid a lifetime ban and instead serve a lengthy suspension for his role in the Biogenesis drug scandal. A- Rod could rejoin the Yankees early next week but Major League Baseball is expected to announce his suspension before then or at least we hope they do.

And Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper continues to deal with the firestorm he created when he used a racial slur towards a security guard in a Kenny Chesney concert. Cooper's apologized for that incident, it was caught on video. Quarterback Michael Vick came to his defense saying he knows what kind of person Cooper really is. However Running back, LeSean McCoy wasn't as kind saying he no longer respects Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESEAN MCCOY, NFL PLAYER: It's new. Hopefully it wears off but at this point, I just -- I speak for myself and other teammates, I know it's definitely different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: They called it the X Games for a reason. During practice yesterday, Javier Villegas, very scary moment, going for the backflip, he bails, falls very hard. Carol he ended with a broken and dislocated right hip. He had to have surgery late last night.

There was another scary moment at the X Games. Bob Burnquist, competing in skateboard big air competition, goes up for this jump Carol and he face plants, as you can see. He was in a lot of pain. Guess what, Carol? Got right back on the board and ended up getting the bronze medal in the competition.

COSTELLO: Good for him.

SCHOLES: He's definitely a lot tougher than I am, I can say that.

COSTELLO: Man, I would have been crying and started sobbing right there -- unbelievable.

SCHOLES: I would have been down for the count. I'm not getting up after that one.

COSTELLO: Thanks, Andy. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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