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GOP versus GOP over Threat of Government Shutdown; Teens Trash Ex-NFL Player's House; Teens Tweeted Photos during Party; Lawmaker wants to Change Secret Spy Court; Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff; Dodgers Clinch Playoff Berth

Aired September 20, 2013 - 09:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY RAY CYRUS, MILEY CYRUS' FATHER: You know, she's really very focused and loves what she's doing. That's the main thing for me as a dad to see my little girl doing what she loves, making the music that she loves to make, and hanging out with some incredibly talented producers, singers, songwriters, the musicians, the people that's around her right now.

It's just a great abundancy of creativity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: There you have it. Billy Ray also says he thought he had seen it all until he saw all of the reaction toward Miley over the last few weeks.

Here is a look at what's coming up tonight on CNN.

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ANNOUNCER: CNN tonight. At 8:00 on "ANDERSON COOPER 360" a new resident of a small North Dakota town wants to make it all white.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not hate. It's the First Amendment.

ANNOUNCER: But see how some longtime locals are fighting back.

And on "PIERS MORGAN LIVE" at 9:00, who is really to blame in the death of Michael Jackson as the defense rests in the wrongful death trial? What does it mean for the doctor already behind bars for his death? Piers gets Conrad Murray's side of the argument.

It's all on CNN tonight, starting with "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" at 7:00, "ANDERSON COOPER 360" at 8:00 and "PIERS MORGAN LIVE" at 9:00.

Tonight on CNN.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

We are 10 days away from a possible government shutdown. In just about an hour the House of Representatives expected to vote on a bill to try and prevent that from happening, at least that's what they say. But that same bill would also kill Obamacare by stripping it of cash.

Some Republicans have said the bill is a bad idea, and that's leading to a battle within the GOP. Even Senator Ted Cruz, the champion of defund Obamacare, has become a lightning rod for frustrated Republicans like Congressman Peter King of New York.

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REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: We as House Republicans should stop letting Ted Cruz set our agenda for us. He should stay in the Senate and should keep quiet. If he can deliver on this fine, if he can't, then he should keep quiet from now on and we shouldn't listen to him.

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COSTELLO: Of course in the middle of all of this is essentially the state of our economy.

Joining us now, Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the Tea Party Express, who supports Ted Cruz, and has campaigned to defund Obamacare, and Jason Johnson, HLN contributor and professor of political science at Hiram College.

OK, so John Boehner says he can deliver the votes and this thing will pass and they're going to vote on it in about an hour.

Jason, what do you think?

JASON JOHNSON, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: I think that this is a waste of time but the GOP is dedicated to doing it. I think the most important lesson from all this needs to be to Ted Cruz right now. He is ruining his chances in 2016 if he does not repair some of these relationships in the House. But this has no chance in the Senate and Obamacare is going to continue.

COSTELLO: Well, do you think, Amy, that Ted Cruz can repair the damage? Because remember, yesterday he came out with that tweet saying, yes, I don't think it can pass in the House and then conservatives got really angry at him. It's like you're the champion of this, you're giving up. And then he came back and said no, no, no, I'm not. In fact I might filibuster.

AMY KREMER, CHAIRWOMAN, TEA PARTY EXPRESS: Well, the thing is Ted knows that the fight is going to go to the Senate but it's not like it's not going to go back to the House. I mean, we've seen this play out before. We would be having this volley regardless if Ted Cruz and Mike Lee were leading this defund Obamacare effort.

He doesn't have a problem with the people in the House. The people that are upset with Ted Cruz are the people that are upset with Ted Cruz and conservatives anyway. You saw yesterday a press conference with Tom Graves, Mark Meadows, Raul Labrador, a number of, standing with Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and they're united on this front now.

COSTELLO: I also saw a lot of press conferences with Republicans not united behind Ted Cruz, kind of slamming him.

JOHNSON: Exactly, talking about how certain representatives from the state of Texas had more strength than him and they were willing to do a filibuster.

Look, this is all about I think putting the House in a very, very difficult position. At the end of the day, this is going to end up passing. Everyone knows it's going to end up passing and all of this playing around --

(CROSSTALK)

KREMER: I disagree.

JOHNSON: -- it just damages the economy one way or another and we're going to end up coming all too close to a government shutdown. And that's the problem. And Cruz needs to think long term, not just about these sort of simple fights and raising money which is what he's trying to do.

KREMER: You know, I disagree with you there. I mean, Mike Lee got -- is the one that started leading this charge. Ted and a number of other ones have come on board and we support this effort. We're going to come to this point anyway because President Obama and Harry Reid have said a number of times that they're willing to shut down the government over the sequester.

They want a government shutdown because they think it's good for them politically in 2014. This is the thing. What is the problem with delay defund for a year if this --

JOHNSON: This is the problem with delaying it.

(CROSSTALK)

KREMER: Wait, let me finish.

JOHNSON: The issue with this is people are prepared.

KREMER: No, people are not prepared. "The Wall Street Journal" --

JOHNSON: The president is prepared right now to sign it.

KREMER: The "Wall Street Journal" just had an alert last night that there are a problem with -- with glitches for the online exchanges. This is not ready for primetime. It was passed into law three years ago. It's not ready for primetime.

Are you going to pay for a car that you're going to get in 2015? No.

JOHNSON: Mitt Romney -- Mitt Romney's own health care adviser has a chart on "Forbes." You can go check it out right now. That shows several states where the rates are already going down. Some go up, some go down, but this fight doesn't help the Republican Party and that's ultimately the issue here.

KREMER: It's not the issue.

COSTELLO: OK. We're going to have to leave it there because we could go on and on about this, but the vote is going to take place in about an hour in the House of Representatives. We'll see if it passes or not, and goes on to the Senate. We expect it to pass. So we'll see.

Amy Kremer, Jason Johnson, thanks so much.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

KREMER: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, teens tweeting while partying at the home of a former NFL player. Sweet? No. The homeowner was out, his place got trashed, and now he wants these teenagers to at least take responsibility for this.

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COSTELLO: Brian Holloway battled in the trenches as an NFL offensive lineman for seven years. Now he's got a fight on his hands with the parents of teenagers who busted into his home to party while he was out of town. He had no idea who these teenagers were.

The partygoers trashed his house and tweeted about it. Well, Holloway's plan to use the incident as a teachable moment is falling on deaf ears.

Randi Kaye has more for you.

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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's Labor Day weekend. Brian Holloway is about 1200 miles away from his farmhouse in upstate New York when he learns there's a party going on there and he wasn't even invited. Confused? Holloway is, too, as he watches it all unfold in real time on his Twitter feed.

Holloway is in Tampa, Florida, on this night when his son and a friend start funneling him tweets from the partygoers, mugging for the camera, taking selfie photos in the bathroom, and dancing on the kitchen counter. All from inside Holloway's house.

BRIAN HOLLOWAY, FORMER NFL PLAYER: We started listening to these tweets, I can't believe we're in the house, I can't believe how we trashed it, I can't believe how much alcohol is here, we're going to be partying for three days, I cannot believe she's passed out, look at her over there. This is an amazing night. I can't believe, you know, they're on meth, give me some of those drugs.

KAYE: Some of the more memorable tweets, "Yes, it's like so trashed." "Cannot get over this, did a keg stand." And "Yes, mom, I went to a party and got drunk but hey, at least I'm not a meth addict, right?" In all, 300 teenagers are at Holloway's home causing at least $20,000 in damage. They tear the place apart, punching holes in walls, spraying graffiti everywhere, scratching the floors with kegs, even urinating inside, and through it all, stupidly documenting nearly all of their antics.

They also helped themselves to whatever isn't nailed down, including this statue of an eagle which had been on Holloway's grandson's head stone.

Desperate to save his home, Holloway, a former NFL player with the New England Patriots, quickly called police, who rushed over. When they arrive, more tweets from the uninvited guests. "Busted or not, it was still the best party in the 518 of the summer." "Crazy ass night" and "Pigs showed up with K9s and I was out, yo."

(On camera): What makes this even worse, Brian Holloway recognizes many of the teens partying at his house. They're friendly with his son and have been to the house before when Holloway was there and invited them. The teenagers slept overnight and Holloway would make them burgers and hotdogs and hundreds of pancakes in the morning. At those parties, he says, there was never any alcohol or drugs.

HOLLOWAY: The window, this window was just replaced today.

KAYE: Now back at his home, Holloway is getting it repaired, and you might say getting even. He's turning the tables on these teenagers and teaching them a thing or two about the power of social media.

On his newly minted Web site, helpmesave300.com, Holloway posts tweets identifying about 200 or so teens from the party. It's not out of spite, he says, but a call for action, to turn the moment into a movement, create a dialogue about teens behaving badly and drugs. But some parents are actually upset with Holloway's postings.

HOLLOWAY: I don't really know how to respond to a mother that says "You know I'm mad at you because you put my son's picture up there. I'm going well -- actually he's at my house and he's robbing and breaking in and drinking and doing drugs and you're upset with me posting the picture that he posted on Twitter.

KAYE: In another attempt at goodwill, Holloway invited the partygoers to his home to clean up and own up to what they did. Only one teenager showed up to help. Holloway said that was like a slap in the face.

But on a bright note remember the Eagle statue that had been stolen it was returned so maybe after all of this, one of these teens must have discovered their conscience.

Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: He's a much nicer man than, well, than I am, I guess. Wow. Still to come in the NEWSROOM some Dodgers celebrate their NL West Crown with a dip in the Diamondbacks pool. And boy, the Diamondbacks were not happy.

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COSTELLO: Because of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, we now know about a secret government court that deals with electronic communication surveillance involving all of us. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court handles requests for surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. That court the FISA Court authorized the NSA collection of data from companies like Verizon, Google and Facebook, information about phone calls, text messages and e-mails made by millions of Americans.

But the only people who can ask permission from the FICA Court for access to this kind of personal information are with the government. But that could change.

Congressman Adam Schiff is introducing a bill today to reform the court and allow non-government attorneys to become public interest advocates. Good morning, Congressman.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Tell us what this bill would do.

SCHIFF: What it would do is introduce an adversarial process within the FISA court so that court in cases involving novel legal theories or constitutional issues could draw upon an independent voice that could speak on behalf of the public interest, the privacy interest of the American people. Almost all courts that have a significant constitutional dimension as this one are adversarial in nature.

You have both parties represented the court hears from both sides but that's not true in the FISA court. I think it's one of the reasons why the public has less confidence in the court. And by introducing this privacy advocate, I think the public would have more confidence, I think the court would be better informed in making its decisions. I think the court would appreciate the opportunity to hear from another side on some of these very tough legal issues and that's what the legislation would accomplish.

COSTELLO: I guess because as long as this court is secretive, Americans will remain skeptical of it. I mean how will public interest advocates, as you describe, help restore the faith?

SCHIFF: Well, I think that's part of the challenge. Some of the courts were by necessity is going to have to remain secret. A lot of this involves very confidential classified sources of information, sources that could be put at risk if it was a public process.

At the same time, I think the public would have more confidence that the decisions were being made properly if it knew that this court was hearing from both sides, that there was someone who was well trained to articulate the constitutional legal principles, that was there to represent the privacy interests of the public.

Some of the former FISA court judges have now spoken out publicly saying that they believe that this would be a step in the right direction to have that adversarial process so I think it will help restore some of the public confidence in the court and in the intelligence community's work.

COSTELLO: Now for the toughest question. Is there bipartisan support for your idea?

SCHIFF: I think there is. And the administration has signaled its willingness to have an advocate of this kind and I think in discussions with other members on the intelligence committee and in the House generally, I think there is bipartisan interest in more safeguards within the process. We're not talking about having a private advocacy interest in every single case that goes before the FISA court because actually what the court does most routinely is weigh in on an individual warrant that is much like a search warrant where there's no adversarial process in the criminal court system.

But on these large cases, these constitutional cases, the authorization of new programs, there I think you would really have bipartisan agreement that there ought to be an independent voice the court can draw on.

COSTELLO: Congressman Adam Schiff thanks so much for joining me this morning.

SCHIFF: Thanks Carol.

COSTELLO: We're back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The Los Angeles Dodgers become the first National League team to clinch a spot in the post season. So how did they celebrate? Well with a big pool party.

Andy Scholes is here with "Bleacher Report".

ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Yes Carol all the Dodgers had to do yesterday was beat the Diamondbacks and they would win the division. And the Diamondbacks asked the Dodgers one thing. Please don't celebrate on our field if you win the division but they didn't say anything about the pool in right field.

So after winning the game, the Dodgers went to the locker room, popped some bottles in the clubhouse, and then they went straight for the pool in right field. And check it out. Nick Punto the first guy there and he goes Ron Burgundy with the cannonball. Now as you can imagine the Diamondbacks were not pleased about L.A. celebrating like this.

Arizona's second baseman Willie Bloomquist called it tired and disrespectful.

COSTELLO: Oh come on.

SCHOLES: And a week three of the NFL season kicked off last night with Andy Reid's much anticipated return to Philadelphia. The Eagles fans gave Reid a warm ovation before the game but they probably weren't very happy with him afterwards. Reid's Chiefs forced five turnovers and never trailed on their way to a 26-16 win. Kansas City's now 3-0 which is pretty amazing considering they only won two games all of last season.

Well Tiger Woods he had a pretty rough opening round at the tour championship yesterday. He failed to birdie a hole and finished the day in second to last place. Now Tiger's one of five golfers who can win the FedEx Cup title and its $10 million prize by just winning this weekend's tournament. Henrik Stinson also one of the five who can bring home big money with the win. Right now he's on pace to make that happen. He's their leader at six under heading into today's second round.

In the lineup section of BleacheRreport.com, you'll see Troy Polamalu why? Because he's finally going to cut his iconic head of hair. Polamalu is losing his famous locks to help raise money for the veterans of Foreign Wars Organization. He's going to do it November 11th which is Veterans Day Carol. Now we're not exactly sure how much hair he's going to be cutting off --

COSTELLO: He makes a lot of money off that hair.

SCHOLES: He could. Yes. He's a spokesperson for shampoo companies. So this rumored ten inches, two inches, who knows what it's going to be. But either way, it's a great cause.

COSTELLO: Absolutely great cause. And I'm interested to see what he looks like without all that hair.

SCHOLES: Yes I've seen him in his college in his USC days and he had a really short hair. He probably he hasn't like cut it since then right.

COSTELLO: Probably not. Andy thanks so much.

The next hour of the CNN NEWSROOM after a quick break.

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