Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Trail Of Destruction; Anatomy Of A Typhoon; Prostitutes And Payoffs; Two Teens Die At House Party; Plane Engine's Cover Flies Off; Miley Sparks Controversy; Alleged NFL Bully Speaks Out: "I Am Not A Racist"; Iran Nuclear Talks; Is Christie Conservative Enough?

Aired November 11, 2013 - 06:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is really, really like bad, bad, worse than hell.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Worse than hell. The super typhoon wiped away entire towns. Right now, there are too many dead to count. This morning, the search for survivors and how you can help efforts to save the living.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Boots on the ground. U.S. Marines arriving in the Philippines this morning ready to launch a massive relief effort, but another storm is now on the way. We are covering it all.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hitting back. Miami Dolphin, Richie Incognito, finally talking, insisting he's not racist and that he never meant to bully Jonathan Martin. Was it all just locker room trash talk?

CUOMO: Your "NEW DAY" starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is "NEW DAY" with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to "NEW DAY." It's Veterans Day, Monday, November 11th. We want to thank the men, women, and families who have served this country.

All right. It is six o'clock in the east, and we are still learning just how bad it is in the Philippines. Thousands are dead, and again, many estimates are just premature in terms of how much life was lost. This is the view over the eastern town of Guiuan. It suffered nearly a direct hit. It is now almost entirely gone. Those used to be homes and businesses, obviously, no more.

Some have taken extreme measures to try to get help. Take a look at this. A man trying to flag down a rescue helicopter. Many saw their homes swept away. And they're now left with no place to stay, no electricity, food, or water.

BOLDUAN: American marines have arrived with aide for the damage areas, unloading cargo planes full of supplies. They're trying, of course, to get the airport in Tacloban repaired and running at full capacity. Again, the airport has become truly a relief center. Dozens are lining up to try and get their share of food and water and also to get out.

But flights, pretty understandable, few and far between at the moment. And in the city, itself, there's a frantic effort to get residents what they need. But there are simply too many people and not enough supplies to go around. Right now, Haiyan is over Vietnam where it's weakened to a tropical storm, but it's turned deadly there as well.

We're covering the storm and the recovery this morning with correspondent spread across the region like no other network can. We're going to be getting to them.

CUOMO: All right. Let's start with the status check. What we know about what has been lost, both physical and human, at this point. Andrew Stevens is in one of the hardest hit areas. Good morning, Andrew. What do we know?

ANDREW STEVENS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris. It's been just a weekend of devastation and destruction here. Let's try and put this in perspective for you. It's been a massive story. It's been a massive event. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS (voice-over): Overnight, a weakened Haiyan, still carrying winds of more than 90 miles an hour battered the coasts of Northern Vietnam and Southern China just days after the typhoon struck the Philippines with apocalyptic force. The massive storm, stretching 300 miles wide, smashed through cities and its close to 200-mile-an-hour winds and storm surge swept these gigantic ships onto land.

Early estimates, as many as 10,000 may have died and over a quarter of a million people are left homeless. A half a mile from the shoreline where our CNN crew was sheltering, the surge was waist deep as we rescued a family trapped in their hotel room.

MAGINA FERNANDEZ, LOST HOME AND BUSINESS: Get international help to come here now. Not tomorrow, now. This is really, really like bad, bad, worse than hell.

STEVENS: The aftermath, a humanitarian crisis of enormous scope. Rescue workers began the grim task of finding the dead in the rubble.

MAR ROXAS, PHILIPPINE INTERIOR SECRETARY: It's a great human tragedy.

STEVENS: In the city of Coron, Haiyan ripped the roof from a building where many people were sheltering.

MAYOR ALFRED ROMUALDEZ, TACLOBAN, PHILIPPINES: I have not spoken to anyone who hasn't lost someone, a relative, most of them.

STEVENS: Officials estimate most of the housing on Leyte Island was damaged or destroyed. The U.S. is flying in emergency shelters and supplies for thousands.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will help them in their need.

STEVENS: And in the hard hit city of Tacloban, storm victims with no food, shelter or water rushed to the demolished airport desperate for supplies. Cebu City received a batch of rice and canned foods Sunday. Delivering aid to the many other remote communities is a huge challenge. While in Tacloban, key roads are impassable and communications are severed.

The only functioning medical facility can't admit any more patients. Thousands breaking into grocery and hardware stores increasingly desperate for food and water. Haiyan leaving an entire city on edge.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEVENS: The president of the Philippines, Aquino, told me yesterday we need to concentrate on the living and not the dead now, but it is an enormous task that face officials and help is needed in just about everywhere -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Help seems to be on the way, but is it enough? Andrew, thank you so much for that. American Marines are now in the Philippines bringing aid to one of the area's hardest hit by this typhoon. CNN's Paula Hancock has that part of the story for us this morning. Good morning, Paula.

PAULA HANCOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kate. Well, the U.S. Marines did arrive this afternoon here at Tacloban Airport and they said they are coming with a tremendous amount of hardware. It's hardware that is desperately needed in this relief effort. They will be coming in with C-130s, four of them with helicopters, with truck, with forklifts, everything you need to get the supplies into this airport and to try and clear this bottleneck and get it to those who desperately need it.

One crucial thing that they will be doing as well as they will be making this operation a 24-hour operation. The Marines will be lighting the runway and also putting in radar. So basically, the operation could continue through the night whereas at the moment the helicopters stop when it gets dark so this is very good news for those who are still desperately waiting for food and water -- Chris, back to you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right, thank you very much for the reporting from the ground. We are going to continue now with what made Haiyan such a powerful storm. Meteorologist Indra Petersons joins us with the look at the anatomy of this typhoon. What do you see here that made it powerful and different, Indra?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Here is the thing. We are talking about winds that are strong. It's 195 miles per hour. I want to put this in perspective. If you were talking about tornadoes, we're talking about an EF-5 about 200 miles an hour. This is like an EF-5 tornado. It didn't last 10 or 15 minutes. This is like a storm that lasted for an hour at EF-5 strength. You combine that with a 15- foot storm surge on top of it, truly unbelievable.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETERSONS (voice-over): Howling winds and pounding rain, Super Typhoon Haiyan ravaged several islands of the Philippines early Friday morning. Fierce winds swept across shore at 195 miles per hour with gusts up to 235 miles per hour.

JAMES REYNOLDS, STORM CHASER (via telephone): During the height of this storm, you know, the scream of the wind was deafening. We could hear thunderous crashes of debris flying through the air.

PETERSONS: What set this tropical cyclone apart is that it did not weaken much once it made land fall. The area consumed by the storm was massive. Violent winds laid a path across the central Philippines that covered an area the size of Montana. Take a look at these satellite images of the storm. For a time, storm clouds covered the entire Philippines stretching 1,120 miles, roughly the distance between Florida and Canada.

But what caused most of the damaged was mammoth storm surge, a wall of water rushed into low-lying areas reaching the second story houses in Tacloban, an estimated height of 16 feet, leaving people frantically searching for higher ground. Many predict Haiyan was likely the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall anywhere in the world in recorded history.

It was 3.5 times more forceful than Hurricane Katrina. Superstorm Sandy's tropical storm forced winds stretched a further distance, but were only half as powerful. In fact the wind gusts in this typhoon were stronger than those of Hurricane Katrina and Sandy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PETERSONS: Well, take a look at the system right now. We are still talking about 70-mile-per-hour winds. It is continue to weaken now that it is making its way into the mountainous region of China. Now keep in mind though, we are still talking about heavy amounts of rain in a short period of time as much as 6 inches. So with that the flash flooding concerns will still be high, especially in Hunan Province.

I also want to mention there is another system building out there, still high chances for development. With that, they are looking at even more rain today in the hardest hit areas, especially even heavier rain Tuesday night in through Wednesday -- Kate, Chris.

BOLDUAN: All right, Indra. Thanks, so much.

CUOMO: Especially when they're so vulnerable. That's why this next coming storm is something we have to track carefully. It is going to affect what they do in the ground to help those who survive. It may also change that situation for the worst. Again, so we will be marking that.

Anderson Cooper specifically headed to the Philippines. We will report from there tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on "AC 360." Now if you would like to help the victims of the typhoon, you can go to cnn.com/impact your world. We will keep updating with the organizations that need your help to help the people there.

PEREIRA: All right, we want to look at your headlines at this hour, making news, two Navy admirals suspended this morning in connection with a bribery scandal in Asia involving prostitutes and payoffs. Vice Admiral Ted Branch, the director of Naval Intelligence and Rear Admiral Bruce Lovelace, the director of Intelligence Operations were put on leave. Three other Navy officials have been arrested after the investigation into illegal and improper relations with a Singapore- based Navy contractor.

This morning, investigators are searching for two gunmen allegedly involved in a deadly shooting at a house party in Texas. Two teens were killed, dozens more injured during what officials described as a birthday party gone wild. Gunshots rang out Saturday night in Cypress, a town 30 miles northwest of Houston.

Federal investigators are looking into what caused the metal covering of a Spirit Airlines engine to fly off. It happened Saturday right after the Chicago to Fort Lauderdale flight took off. The plane successfully returned to O'Hare and no injuries have been reported.

MTV awards show and Miley Cyrus controversies seem to go hand-in-hand there days. A 20-year-old singer appeared on stage at the European MTV Music Awards show in Amsterdam on Sunday and lit up what appeared to be a joint during her acceptance speech for the best video award. Cypress was a two-time performer at the show. We should note marijuana is not illegal in the Netherlands.

On this Veteran's Day, a glimpse of a very special painting, a mural depicting two military servicemen in uniform kneeling before Jesus. It had been covered for some 60 years. Church-goers at St. Peters Chelsea Church in New York City finally got to see it Sunday. See, back in 1954 the congregation decided to cover it up because of its military theme. Now it is available for all to see in time for Veteran's Day.

CUOMO: It is perfect timing. It's also better to let people judge for themselves.

PEREIRA: Yes, absolutely. Make their own decisions.

BOLDUAN: All right, we are going to continue to watch the storm track in Southeast Asia and the devastation that is leaving. But we also let's get back to Indra for a look at the national forecast as well. What are we looking at, Indra?

PETERSONS: Yes, a pretty big change. Actually, a lot of strong winds picking up from the mid-west all the way to the north east and Mid- Atlantic today. The reason for that, yes, some cold air making its way in, but look at the gust, anywhere from 20 miles to even 40 miles per hour expected today. So if you have flights, you definitely want to be watching for delays with that.

You can actually see it's the jet stream that is really going to be dipping down, bringing a lot of cool air in from Canada. You can actually see some light dusting in the region. You can see it's expansive. It will go to Ohio Valley, then off shore in the northeast tonight.

So with that, remember, it is a cold system. It's usually pretty dry, very moisture starved. So with that, yes, some light rain around the Ohio Valley, but think about the lakes. Of course, off the lakes worry talking about the moisture source. We have the lake effect snow three to five around Erie and also maybe one inch to three inches around the great lakes out there.

But overall the big story that we are all going to be talking about is the cooled air behind the frontal system. Unbelievable how cold we are going to start seeing these temperatures. Omaha today your high is only in the 40s. Minneapolis today, just into the 20s. Let's take a look at Chicago. We are talking about highs just into the 30s. That's 16 degrees below normal.

All of this will be spreading east. By the time we make it to Wednesday, notice, New York City, your highs expected to be in the low 40s. That's a good 15 degrees below normal. Definitely, this cold chill is making its way across the region. So strong winds and cold air, always a great combination, but that's all relative, I mean, really mild weather compared to what we are doing.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely right. Still, when it reaches to Atlanta, that's the real chill. Thank, Indra.

CUOMO: We are going to take a quick break. When we come back on NEW DAY, the Dolphins locker room has been reported to be a crucible of hate and hazing, but was it? A Miami Dolphins player suspended for allegedly harassing a teammate now claims we have it all wrong and, in fact, he was harassed, too, if you want to define it the way the media is. You are going to hear from Richie Incognito coming up.

BOLDUAN: And "60 Minutes" says it is sorry. The on air apology that has everyone talking about the attack in Benghazi. We'll have that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back to "NEW DAY". Richie Incognito, he insists, he is not a bully or a racist. He answers the questions about the situation in a new interview and gives a lot of food for thought. Nischelle Turner is here with the story of the Miami Dolphins locker room gone wild.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yes. We heard that term locker room culture. We heard a lot in this interview yesterday. You know, the Dolphins take the field tonight for Monday night football. But on Sunday, Richie Incognito went on the offensive and gave us all a play by play of his version of the truth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHIE INCOGNITO, MIAMI DOLPHINS LINEMAN: It sounds like I'm a racist pig. It sounds like I'm a meathead. It sounds a lot of things that it's not. I want to clear the air by saying I am a good person.

TURNER (voice-over): Miami Dolphins lineman, Richie Incognito, defending himself against allegations that he bullied his teammate, Jonathan Martin.

INCOGNITO: I've taken stuff too far and I didn't know it was hurting him.

TURNER: Incognito explains the threatening voice message he left for Martin, which reportedly said, "Hey, what's up, you half N-word piece of plank. I'm going to slap your real mother across the face. Laughter. And you're still a rookie, I'll kill you."

INCOGNITO: I'm embarrassed by it. I'm embarrassed by my actions. What I want people to know is the way Jonathan and the rest of the offensive line and how our teammates, how we communicate, it's vulgar. It's not right.

When the words are put in the context, I understand why a lot of eyebrows get raised. But people don't know how Jon and I communicate to one another.

TURNER: Incognito talked up his use of the N-word to locker room rapport.

INCOGNITO: I'm not a racist. To judge me by that one word is wrong. There is a lot of colorful words thrown around the locker room that we don't use in every day life. The fact of the matter remains, though, that that voice mail was left on a private voice mail for my friend and it was a joke.

TURNER: Incognito says he and Martin have exchanged 1,142 text messages in the past year and continue to communicate as the scandal plays out.

INCOGNITO: He texted me and said, I don't blame you guys. I blame some stuff in the locker room. I blame the culture. I blame what was going on around me.

And when all this stuff got going, swirling and bullying got attached to it and my name got attached to it, I just texted him as a friend, and he was like, what's up with this, man? He said, it's not coming from me. I haven't said anything to anybody. I'm like, you know, OK.

As his best friend on the team, that's what had me miffed, how I missed this. And I never saw it. I never saw it coming.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TURNER: Now, we should say CNN did reach out to the Miami Dolphins for their response for the Richie Incognito interview. They had no comment about this.

There are still some questions to this -- first of all, were they friends? Did they have a friendship? Absolutely. It definitely seems that way. He had proof back and forth. Pictures of them hanging out, cutting up. They were friends, definitely.

He did not answer that question -- was he ordered or encouraged by the Dolphins organization to, quote/unquote, "toughen up" Jonathan Martin. That is something he didn't want to get into, I don't know for legal reasons or what, but he would not answer that. So those are two things, one thing we did learn. One thing we didn't.

PEREIRA: You know, it's interesting, when I have been listening to all of this I was curious, is part of the problem here that he broke code, Jonathan Martin broke the code and went public with all of what happened in this locker room. You talk about this locker room culture.

That's a part of the backlash, we do this, we handle our own, why did you have to go out and tell everybody what we do and say?

TURNER: I think there's a lot of people who feel that way. I think there is a lot of players current and former who feel he crossed the line and he pulled back the veil of something they kept very private and that they hold dear to them and that is the locker room culture.

PEREIRA: Right or wrong, right? I mean --

BOLDUAN: And the more you hear about it, the more the text message you see back and forth, the more -- I think folks start to wonder, why is this even become and issue?

It's become an issue because Martin has legal actions happening right now.

TURNER: There are racial implications, too.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Jonathan Martin was the one that brought it to light.

PEREIRA: I don't -- that does not resonate with me.

CUOMO: The text came out, he's using the N-word, everybody goes, whoa, there are texts and context. I think the more we got into this story. My initial push back was don't throw the word bullying around. It's an important word, we need to make more of it. You can't slap it everywhere because PC likes it. And that's what was happening early on here.

Well, adults don't bully. It's called harassment. There's a lot of things in place, it's not the same for kids, text and context. I think this story, yes, we need to hear from Mr. Martin, himself, and hear exactly what it was.

But I will say this -- if the language was as offensive as it would be to us here at this table, then why was it allowed to continue by these huge powerful alpha males?

TURNER: African-Americans in large part. I agree with you on that. It's a bit appalling to me. I agree. We're on that same wave length there. I think it's very interesting about this whole culture and how accepted it is. And we all think that it's --

CUOMO: I was surprised by this guy in the interview, also. He was much more articulate, much smarter, and much more thoughtful and raised a lot more issues than I expected.

(CROSSTALK)

TURNER: I had a player tell me yesterday, I felt like I was watching Richie Cunningham, not Richie Incognito, because it wasn't the person they felt like they knew.

CUOMO: A little of that also.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much, Nischelle.

CUOMO: So interesting discussion. Don't you think? Why don't you tweet us with #newday, and we'll keep the conversation going.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on "NEW DAY": Secretary of State John Kerry is saying major powers have unified on a nuclear deal. But Iran is the one that's not ready to accept it yet. So how close are they to an agreement? John King will be here with our political gut check, coming up.

CUOMO: And we will have the latest from the Philippines throughout the morning. The aid effort is just beginning after Typhoon Haiyan flattened entire towns. You can go to CNN.com/impactyourworld and find out how to help.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to "NEW DAY", everyone. Time now for our political gut check.

Negotiations on Iran's nuclear program are not erased (ph). Those new remarks from Secretary of State Kerry saying the major powers are unified on a nuclear deal from weekend negotiations, but Iran was not able to accept yet. While critics including the Israeli prime minister have said the terms do not go far enough.

What does this all mean?

Well, CNN's chief national correspondent John King is here to break it down for us.

Good morning, John.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Happy Monday.

BOLDUAN: Happy Monday.

So, there is quite a lot of hope going into these weekend negotiations to hammer out a deal. Clearly, they did not get there yet. None of it, though, playing very well at home.

What has been the reaction here with new threats of further sanctions?

KING: Well, you have conservatives saying since this first round didn't work out and what they have what a break that Secretary Kerry said he hopes is only several weeks. Lindsey Graham and other conservatives are saying let's ratchet up the sanctions.

And part of that, Kate, is the reaction to what became public last week when they thought they were close to the deal. The president, himself, said he was hoping to easing sanctions in the short term and giving Iran a chance to comply. But a lot of people didn't like that, they didn't like putting the carrots out there before seeing if Iran would comply.

So now, you have whether it's the prime minister of Israel or a lot of conservatives and some Democrats in Congress who generally are aligned with Israel on issues like this, saying, wait a minute. You guys were in too much of a hurry.

And Secretary Kerry says all the powers are united. It was interesting. The French foreign minister was on the record after those talks saying he thought the proposal was too advantageous to Iran. Those public comments are being seized not only critics at the administration here at home, but by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

BOLDUAN: And some of the commentary I'm seeing surrounding this also being seen through the lens of what does this mean for the other big international push, the push to move the Israeli Palestinian peace talks forward. Do these talks with Iran complicate that?

KING: Well, certainly, anything that complicates the relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu, whether he's willing to make extra concessions, whether he thinks he has the political standings back home, whether he is willing to be open minded to a proposal that might come from Secretary Kerry or from the Palestinians, you would hope there would be two separate issues. On the one hand, they have nothing to do with each other.

But on the other hand, look at the map of the neighborhood. How closely packed it is, look at how important and how difficult these issues are for the prime minister. And, of course, they're connected.

CUOMO: Let me ask yourself, John, there was a lot of talk as you said going into this. Was this oversold by the U.S. administration in terms of the possibilities? Because was what it seems from Israeli is they're never going to give anything that they don't want to give, no matter what you say. Was this overhyped?

KING: It's so hard to say, Chris, because there is so much talk about this. You know, if you listen just to the Israeli position, their position is we will never trust them. If you talk to Secretary Kerry or people in the White House -- well, you can't go into a negotiation saying we will never trust you. Then why have the negotiations?

They insist the way Secretary Kerry puts this, I have been at this a long time. Worry fought blind and we're not stupid. He says they want to have a very detailed deal that puts a very tough test on Iran to dismantle some things, to provide transparency for verification, and yes, it gives them some short-term sanctions relief so that they can deal with their local politics.

Remember, this isn't just a tough political situation for the president of the United States or the prime minister of Israel. Iran has some very interesting domestic politics as well. So was it oversold? I think publicly the sense of a deal got out there probably ahead of the administration having to taken the time to sell it to the co-players back here that it needs to.

BOLDUAN: Before you go, I want to get your quick take on more domestic politics. Chris Christie, after his big win, made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows. The one question he got at every turn was, conservative or moderate? Pick one, and prove it.

My question is why does he have to prove it either way right now?

KING: He has to decide how he wants to run. He says he is a conservative. He is often described in media counts as a moderate. Look, the biggest challenge for Chris Christie right now, he is the biggest dog in the Republican Party right now and he is an ascendant after his big reelection victory.

He has to decide how often will he be out will? Some people said he was overexposed already after this election. Then he has to decide what he wants to focus on. So, he wouldn't be specific in a national immigration reform bill. He's going to have to be if he wants to be the next president.

Some conservatives question his credentials on gun control. He's going to get asked questions about as he moves around. But first and foremost, he has to study what John McCain did to cater to the base, study what Mitt Romney did to cater to the business and decide who am I going to do, who am I going to be?

There is a long way to go before Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina in 2016. But he's going to be in the spotlight every day because of that big win. The next few decisions are his to make looking in the mirror.

BOLDUAN: That's a good position to be in, at least. That's for sure.

CUOMO: Key words position, I think. He did get totally right. He got the questions about the labels, that's the easy way to report, you know? His positions on the issues that are going to matter.

The problem is the labels have power to people, right? When I hear what somebody is, it forms your opinion. Hopefully, going forward, he'll take on this issues that John and Kate were outlining, instead of just throwing a label on, because it won't be helpful to him.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, John.

There is so much fighting within the Republican Party. He has become a symbol of a moderate or conservative of what direction are we going? That's a lot of the conversation.

All right. Let's get back to our top stories. Michaela has got all that for us.

PEREIRA: Yes, our top story, of course, it's the situation in the Philippines. Survivors are going to desperate lengths to stay alive, breaking into grocery stores, even cash machines. But much needed aid is finally starting to get to the hard hit areas.

Anna Coren is live in Cebu with the latest on relief efforts -- Anna.

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Michaela, a short time ago, a C- 130 Hercules aircraft landed with a plane load of people. They are survivors to some of these disaster sites, from the worst hit areas, from the Super Typhoon Haiyan.