Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Interpreter For Deaf Slams "Fake" Claims; House To Vote On Budget Deal Today; NASA Works To Fix ISS Cooling Pump; Facebook Shares Jump On News Of S&P 500 Add; Mom, Girl Leave Hospital After Icy Ordeal; Prosecutors: Bride Planned To Kill Husband; FCC Debating In- Flight Cell Phone Calls

Aired December 12, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THAMSANQA JANTJIE, MANDELA INTERPRETER: It was not my intention to harm any South African or any person in another country that is affected by the issue of my interpretation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: He is also revealing a medical condition that he reportedly said impacted his work on the day of the memorial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANTJIE: I would like to see the people who are deaf disability accommodated as much as I want to be accommodated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What sort of disability do you have?

JANTJIE: I suffer from schizophrenic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Brian Todd is following this story from Washington. Good morning.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Now as for the other reaction to this, the African National Congress has confirmed that over the years it has hired this had man. His name is Thamsanqa Jantjie. They've hired him as a sign language interpreter, but the ANC says this time it was the government who hired him for the Mandela memorial.

Now here is part of a statement from ANC spokesman, Jackson Mthembu, quote, "Up until yesterday, the African National Congress had not been aware of any complaints regarding the quality of his services." But according to various reports, members of South Africa's deaf community had actually previously raised concerns about Jantjie.

The South African government meanwhile admitted that mistakes planning of the memorial, but they say Jantjie is not a fake as some have accused him of being. Here is South Africa's deputy minister of Women, Children and People with Disabilities. Take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HENDRIETTA BOGOPANE-ZULU, DEPUTY MINISTER OF WOMEN, CHILDREN AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: What crime has he committed? Why must he be brought to justice? What would be the charges? Because I think we need to understand, dear colleagues, that sign language in itself is a language in transition and, yes, he did not sign whatever was expected of him, but I don't think he committed any crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: No one actually accused Jantjie of committing a crime. The issue is his competence and the competence of the people who hired him. His mistakes were very obvious to the hard of hearing and deaf community. I spoke with Melanie Metzger. She is head of the Interpretation Department at Gallaudet University here in Washington. That is the only liberal arts university in the world for the hard of hearing. Here is what she said about Mr. Jantjie's signs and gestures.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROFESSOR MELANIE METZGER, GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY: See the repetitive movements here and here? There's a repeated gesture, but the speaker is not repeating the spoken message. So you can see just by that, the interpretation is not accurate or equivalent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TODD: And so that speaks to the issue of his confidence. There's also, Carol, the issue of security. How did someone who was apparently a fake according to his accusers and who now admits he was a schizophrenic gets that close to the president of the United States? We're going to be kind of digging into the security issues.

The Secret Service says that all the proper security measures were in place, that they coordinated all of that with the South African government. The issue, of course, is vetting his background. There are a lot of unanswered questions regarding that --

COSTELLO: Let's talk about his background. He worked for a certain company, right? Supposedly the government hired the company and the company put him into place. What's the company saying about this?

TODD: The company, I don't believe, has spoken out. It's called SA Interpreters. The government says it had tracked down that company, but according to that one minister who we just heard from, the owners of the company, quote, "seem to have vanished." So I think there are some questions that they have to answer as well. But they seem to have gone underground, at least for now, Carol.

So, again, this man's background and the hiring of him, the vetting of him for his psychological issues or any other issues he may have, there's still a lot to be reported on this.

COSTELLO: Brian Todd, you'll have more later on this afternoon in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Thank you so much.

TODD: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: The House is set to vote on the bipartisan issue but there's a catch. Some conservative groups are pushing back, calling the budget deal a terrible deal. And some Democrats are upset it doesn't extend federal unemployment benefits. So, there is a possibility this deal could collapse.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before the big vote, a family feud over the federal budget between establishment Republicans and the forces trying to steer the party further to the right.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: They're using our members and they are using the American people for their own goals.

JOHNS: The House speaker himself with unusually personal pushback against conservative critics of the bipartisan budget deal.

BOEHNER: This is ridiculous. Listen, if you're for more deficit reduction, you're for this agreement.

JOHNS: Boehner was talking about groups like Heritage Action, Americans for Prosperity, The Club for Growth and others denouncing the plan because they say it increases spending $63 billion over the next two years, does an end run around the budget control act and uses gimmicks to raise revenue.

Heritage Action responding to Boehner said lawmakers will have to explain to their constituents, many of whom are our members, what they've achieved by increasing spending, increasing taxes and offering up another round of promises waiting to be broken. That will be a really tough sell back home. A difficult spot for some Republican street fighters defending it while holding their noses.

REPRESENTATIVE DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: It's the best compromise you can get in divided government. It's nowhere close to what Republicans like to have.

JOHNS: Tough even for the congressional golden boy and former vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, who co-authored the deal knowing his base will be watching if he ever runs for higher office again.

REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN (R), WISCONSIN: If I clog my judgment by what is good for me politically or not, or how does this help me juxtapose against somebody else? This is not right in my opinion.

JOHNS: But the conservative groups have their defenders on Capitol Hill.

REPRESENTATIVE RAUL LABRADOR (R), IDAHO: Anybody who thinks my vote is for sale to Heritage Action is sadly mistaken. I would ask anybody who is attacking these outside groups, what is it these outside groups said yesterday about this deal? That is false today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: CNN's Joe Johns is live in Washington now. It was only yesterday we were talking about a spirit of new bipartisanship. So where did that go?

JOHNS: That's a very good question. Still, remember, this is a party that has had this fight for a very long time, Carol, and it continues and going to continue after this. One of the big questions, of course, is what about unemployment benefits? This is something that Democrats said they wanted inside the bill. It didn't happen. It's not in the budget. And the question is whether they're going to do something down the road, either right now at the very end of the session or something early next year to try to get it through. Few options in this option so far -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Joe Johns reporting live from Washington this morning.

NASA says it's too soon to tell if astronauts will have to do a spacewalk to fix a cooling pump on the International Space Station. One of the station's two pumps went out Wednesday after hitting a temperature limit. Teams had to shut down noncritical systems. But NASA says the space station and the crew are not in danger. Still, it's worrisome.

CNN's John Zarrella joins me now from Miami. So how likely is it that they'll have to do a spacewalk?

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the mission management team is meeting this morning and going to have to come up with some contingencies. They certainly do have a contingency for a spacewalk. They've done them in the past, Carol. They did one back in May to fix a cooling loop. Back in 2010 they had to replace one of the two pumps out there on the outside of the space station.

In fact, the one that failed yesterday is the one that was used as a replacement back in 2010. Now, of course, any time you have to go outside of the space station to do any kind of work, it can be a dangerous situation. But what happened yesterday, of course, was the pump failed. They managed to get it restarted but have had to shut down some nonessential systems. They just don't have enough cooling capacity with the two pumps, with one not working at 100 percent.

They don't have enough capacity to keep everything cold. But the life support system is fine. Science experiments are fine. There's no problem there. We're just really waiting on the mission management team and the troubleshooting to be done to figure out if, indeed, they'll have to -- they can fix it another way or if they have to actually go outside and do the work -- Carol.

COSTELLO: CNN's John Zarrella reporting live from Miami. Thanks.

Facebook may have gotten off to a rocky start with investors. Now the social networking giant is making a major market achievement with the announcement it will be added to the benchmark S&P 500 index. Christine Romans is in New York to explain. Good morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This means the hoodie is all grown up. Its validation that Facebook belongs with some of the most important companies in the world in the S&P 500, it will happen on December 20th. That's when Facebook will go into the S&P 500. What it really means is that anybody who has a mutual fund or an exchange traded fund that tracks the S&P 500 will own a piece of Facebook. Facebook is now open up to a much, much bigger universe of investors and has really sort of come of age.

It has been a rocky start. Remember the Facebook face plant of an IPO? It had an IPO price of $38 a share, remember, and it fell all the way down to $17 and people said that was crazy, what a farce. Now it's up 3 percent this morning trading at almost $51 a share. Facebook, turned out, it's up 86 percent this year, turned out in the end to be a pretty decent investment over its short little life.

COSTELLO: Depends on when you buy, right?

ROMANS: Now it will be in the S&P 500. So you'll have it in your 401k.

COSTELLO: All right, thanks, Christine. I appreciate it.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, she is on trial for the murder of her husband of eight days. We'll talk about the evidence prosecutors say points to her guilt. We'll show you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking our top stories at 14 minutes past the hour. The 25-year-old woman and her 4-year-old daughter are back home today after their family survived two days of sub-zero temperatures in the Nevada wilderness. Christina McIntee's aunt talked with CNN about their ordeal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURIE MCDERMOTT, SURVIVOR'S AUNT: They burned woods. They burned sage brush. They heated rocks to keep the kids warm. They burned a spare tire. They had food and some water. Never saw such strength in little kids ever. They never cried. They were scared, obviously. But, you know, they would play a little bit during the day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: McIntee's fiance and three other children are still in the hospital this morning. Doctors say they don't expect any long-term health problems, though.

Senator Lamar Alexander's office is dealing with an awful scandal. His chief of staff has been arrested on child porn charges. Ryan Loskarn was arrested at his D.C. home by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. He is a long-time aide and confidant of Senator Alexander's. He says he's stunned and saddened by the allegations. The chief of staff is expected to be arraigned later on today.

More damaging testimony in the murder trial of a Montana bride accused of pushing her brand new husband off a cliff. Defense attorneys say it was an accident. Kyung Lah explains prosecutors introduced a piece of evidence that could play into their theory that she planned the whole thing.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, an emotional day in court where the jury saw pictures of the body, how steep this fall was and the prosecution has pursued its case that all of this was planned.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (voice-over): Cody Johnson's friends arrived for the third day of his murder trial, with their grief visible and still raw. They testify Jordan Graham was not an overwhelmed newlywed who accidentally pushed her husband of eight days off a cliff, but a regretful bride who planned to kill. Eddy Clone said he saw his friend, Cody Johnson, the day he died and asked him to go golfing.

Johnson said he couldn't because Jordan said she has a surprise for me. Three witnesses testified the same thing, including Steven Rutledge, Graham's own stepfather who said his new son-in-law also mentioned the surprise to him. The defense downplayed it and Graham later told the FBI the surprise was just a barbecue with friends.

Later that night, Johnson plunged to his death off the steep cliff at Glaciers National Park. Graham's lawyers call the death an accident and the couple was fighting on a cliff. Johnson grabbed her, she pushed and he fell to his death. Prosecutors have a different version. They say Graham wanted out of the marriage and plotted to kill her new husband.

Deputy Coroner Richard Stein testified downstream from Johnson's body he found a black cloth. Prosecutors have raised the theory that at the cliff, Graham blindfolded her husband possibly with a black cloth before pushing him in the back with two hands face-first to his death.

Defense attorneys have already began fighting how this cloth was handled by police alleging contamination of evidence. Prosecutors say Graham spun a web of lies, lying to one of the groomsmen, Cameron Fredrickson, who said in court what he told CNN this summer.

CAMERON FREDRICKSON, GROOMSMEN: She actually changed her story and stated she was at the house when Cody left, and that she saw him leave in a dark-colored car. So, between the two days, two completely different stories, and at that time, that's when I became suspicious and then actually went to the authorities.

LAH: Where she continued lying to Detective Corey Clarke.

(on camera): Have you had many people lie to you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to talk about that. LAH: But he did talk on the stand, testifying Graham created a fake e-mail account so she could send e-mails that would cover her tracks. Jordan Graham continued the lies to police, friends and family until an FBI interrogation where she was shown this image. It's a snapshot on surveillance camera at the entrance of Glaciers National Park. It's clear Graham is a passenger in the car sitting next to her husband, putting her at the scene of the crime.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: The prosecution now winding down its case. The defense expects to present its side, their explanation for what may have motivated this young bride -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Kyung Lah, reporting live -- reporting for us this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, should you be allowed to chat on your cell phone while you're up in the air in an airplane? The FCC is considering making the changes today. Rene Marsh is watching it from Washington. Hi, Rene.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Carol. I can tell you the FCC is moving forward with their proposal with a vote happening later this afternoon. We'll have more on that coming up on the other side of the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The FCC is debating whether to allow you to chat on your cell phone mid-flight on an airplane. FCC is seeking public comment. Take a look at how people feel about this poll from Quinnipiac shows 59 percent of Americans don't want people using cell phones on airplanes, 30 percent say it's OK, and some people feel pretty passionate about the issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You might want to talk the entire flight at a loud voice about every single problem you have in your family, right? Blah, blah, blah. I'm afraid it won't work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's lots of work that I do that I need to be in touch with people and the hour and a half that I spend flying between Atlanta and D.C., I lose that time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But do you need to do it on the plane, on the phone? You could use the internet, right? You could send e-mail now. Right, Rene Marsh? Rene Marsh is covering this story. I just can't believe they are considering this.

MARSH: They are considering it, Carol. You saw those live pictures. FCC is moving forward today with its proposal to allow fliers to text and talk on their flight. This afternoon, all five FCC commissioners going to vote on whether to consider lifting the ban on cell phone use above 10,000 feet. In an op-ed this morning, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said dozens of countries around the world permit use of cell phones and airlines have taken advantage of the flexibility that those systems offer.

So he calls the ban outdated and he says that technology has advanced enough that cell phone transmissions from the air would not interfere with towers on the ground. We should say after the FCC does complete this vote today, the issue going to be open for public comment and this will be a topic of discussion -- Carol.

COSTELLO: I'm just thinking about it. On a train, you can go to the quiet car, right, where people aren't allowed to talk on their cell phones. But on a plane, you're sort of trapped.

MARSH: You're stuck.

COSTELLO: So I guess the airline -- individual airlines could decide whether to allow you to talk on the phone or not, in spite of the FCC decision, right?

MARSH: Absolutely. And that's what the FCC is saying. They're saying, look, we're just lifting the band. It will be up to the individual airlines to decide whether they will allow their flyers to use the phones or not. But you know, Carol, there are a lot of people who feel like you. Some lawmakers don't like the idea.

Congressman Bill Shuster introduced a bill to block cell phone use. Some people feel it would lead to fist fights in the air because people would be annoyed. Some aren't really jumping to allow cell phones even though they allow tablets. Delta said they would not allow cell phone use. Flight attendant union has some concerns. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VEDA SHOOK, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS: The ability for those who might wish to do harm to coordinate during the flight or amongst flights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right, so here is the bottom line. After the FCC reviews the public comments and they draw up their final rule, carol, good news for you, it would be at least a year or even more before you actually have to worry about that annoying person talking next to you the entire flight.

COSTELLO: Envisioning, I'll have to bring ear plugs that block out all sound on flights. Rene Marsh, we'll check back. Thanks so much.

MARSH: Sure.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a deal finally hammered out on the federal budget. Not everyone is happy. We'll stage our own debate right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)