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New Day

Christie Scandals; Snowstorm Blankets Northeast; Rant Heard Around the World

Aired January 22, 2014 - 08:30   ET

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


RUDY GIULIANI, GIULIANI PARTNERS: So I see in the pile on effect, the usual political thing that happens when you have a guy that's a front- runner. After all, this was the only Republican that was leading Hillary Clinton in any poll. Every other Republican has always lost to her. He didn't lead her in every poll, but he was leading her in some polls.

Also, the man running the inquiry for the state assembly and senate has announced that Chris Christie is lying. A week and a half ago or a week ago he said he didn't believe the governor, and he's the person in charge of the investigation. So I'm really casting doubt on, is this really a legitimate investigation or is this an attempt to take out a very promising candidate, you know, on the other side.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: But as you know, Mr. Mayor, the USA is looking into this as well. Obviously the governor, a former member of that office. You as well. So you have them looking into it. And, of course, you've got MSNBC. You've got Fox using this as a political football. That's the game they play.

GIULIANI: Right.

CUOMO: But when you look at even just this one situation with this AG taking this indictment away from local prosecutors, and there seems to be no reason for, it's working its way through the state courts, that's a troubling allegation that far exceeds political footballs, don't you think?

GIULIANI: I don't know the facts of the allegations. Everybody jumps to conclusions about it. I can't tell you how many disputes I was involved in as U.S. attorney with local district attorneys trying to take cases away from me, my trying to take cases away from them. There are a lot of good reasons for it. You know, sometimes infighting among prosecutors and there's sometimes political intrigue.

But when something like this happens, immediately everyone jumps to the conclusions before there's even been an investigation, which is what's wrong with the assemblyman who's running this investigation. He jumped to a conclusion before. The U.S. attorney's investigation, I'm sure it's a completely legitimate one.

So far -- let's remind people, Chris Christie has denied any of these allegations. He's denied them flatly. He's used very unambiguous language. He held an hour and a half press conference. Far different than the president or Hillary Clinton in dealing with Benghazi where they haven't even had a press conference or answered any questions.

CUOMO: But why make the analogy? You know we here at CNN, we take on Benghazi. We did an hour special on it. We looked at it every time there's something new to look at. And even if we get criticized. So it's not about us. But why should there be any comparison in the two? Benghazi is what it is. Hillary Clinton's got to deal with it. She's already faced a Senate hearing on it, but that issue will continue. This is Christie's mess. There's no reason to conflate the two.

GIULIANI: Excuse me if I don't think the reason that Christie has become the subject of so much scrutiny (INAUDIBLE) attention by Democrats is because he is the only candidate that was leading Hillary Clinton. So you can't ask me to ignore the political motivation that exists here or to compare the way things are treated. For example, the IRS scandal in which President Obama has yet to answer many questions about it, hasn't held anyone accountable.

Chris Christie has answered questions. He's held everyone accountable. So far there is no proof he knew about it, yet we cover this day after day after day. And then new allegations emerge, many of which have been contradicted in the past. So this is a political show that's going on, so you have to deal with it politically to some extent.

CUOMO: Right. Although, you know, I mean, we've seen you be comfortable, many comfortable saying, look, I don't know everything that went on here. That's one of the problems is that we don't know what happened. This AG scandal I'm talking to you about, nobody's really covering because it's complicated.

And the concern becomes, if something comes out that says, yes, that AG improperly took the indictment, what's going on there is really wrong and she was a political appointment of his or something with the mayor or something with bridge-gate, then what do you think is the correct course for Chris Christie?

GIULIANI: I think Chris has actually made it pretty simple. He's denied any involvement, any knowledge. If, in fact, that's untrue, then he's in deep trouble and he can't extricate himself from it. On the other hand, if it's not true, then he has handled it in the way in which a leader should handle it. Things go wrong around you all the time that you can't control until you find out about it.

When you find out about it, you've got to deal with it (INAUDIBLE) rightly, you've got to hold people accountable. If he's telling the truth, I think he survives this and he becomes stronger. If he's not, then that's - you know, that's a whole other story and I think you know what the consequences of that would be.

CUOMO: Mr. Mayor, let me hit you real quick on the Sochi Olympics.

GIULIANI: Sure.

CUOMO: Now as we're learning everything that's going on, and just so people understand, at Giuliani Partners, the former mayor is involved with the planning for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, so he's familiar not just with security as we saw here on 9/11 with his brave efforts to protect the city, but Olympics as well. Do you think, with everything we've learned, Mr. Mayor, that sighting (ph) these in Sochi was a mistake?

GIULIANI: Well, you know, it's too late. When you look back on it, it's awfully close to one of the - one of the worst situations in the world in terms of terrorism, exportation of terrorism. It happens to be in a country that has tremendous security. We know sometimes what the price of that is, but it does have tremendous security.

They've devoted more resources to security than frankly I've ever seen. And I'm also familiar with the Winter Olympics right after September 11th in Utah in Salt Lake City that Mitt Romney ran, which were almost canceled because of the attack of September 11th. That had an enormous amount of security.

So this is a very hard one to call. I mean this - the threat is there. The threat is not only there, it gets repeated publicly. On the other hand, the amount of security is overwhelming. So, in retrospect, could you have picked a place that's safe? I guess you could.

But the point that I make to all of these Olympic committees, and I've dealt with, you know, a few of them, the minute you hold the Olympics in a place, where it's Salt Lake City or it's Rio de Janeiro, or it's London, you have actually brought all the world problems to you. So, yes, Sochi is dangerous because it's close to the Caucasus. However, the minute you have an Olympics, every one of these causes gets attracted to you and you've got to have enormous security.

CUOMO: Mr. Mayor, you look great. Thanks you for your first appearance on NEW DAY. Always a pleasure.

GIULIANI: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: God bless.

GIULIANI: And great job on the North Korean story, as I told you earlier.

CUOMO: Thank you.

GIULIANI: It's really wonderful what you're doing.

CUOMO: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate it.

GIULIANI: Thank you.

CUOMO: High praise.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up next on NEW DAY, a CNN exclusive, does Richard Sherman regret his famous -- now famous rant. His first sit down interview in an exclusive with our Rachel Nichols. Hear what he says is really behind his feud with San Francisco wide receiver Michael Crabtree.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

Let's get right to the breaking news, the storm blanketing the Northeast with snow and ice. People in the region are now starting to dig out and hopefully get going but they're not going to have a really easy time getting around. Just take a look at what it's like in New Jersey. There's so much snow, you can't see the sidewalks or the curbs. That's very dangerous. Some parts of the state saw as much as 16 inches, so it's inevitable the dig out's going to be tough.

BOLDUAN: And, of course, that means some air travelers are stranded this morning. These people, as you see right here, they decided to camp out in New York's LaGuardia Airport last night. Probably didn't have another option. Let's get back over to meteorologist Indra Petersons, who's in Boston, with how much fell and where things go from here.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know it's interesting, here in Boston itself we only have about five, six inches of snow. South to us, closer where that low actually was, they're talking about snow drifts that are a good 18 inches. So a good foot of snow plus all that wind really enhancing the snowfall.

I know everyone does it, but I've got to show you guys the snow anyways because, take a look, I mean this is still that very cold air out here, so the snow is really dry. You try and compact it, you try and make a snowball, you throw it, absolutely nothing comes of it.

But there's another side of this. Keep in mind, if you're throwing it and you see it blow apart like that, that's what we're going to be dealing with here as we go through the next several days. I say next several days is what we're concerned with is all this snow on the ground and the winds still picking up. The temperatures are cold. The snow is not going to be leaving as the winds kick up as this low continues to strengthen over the next several days. You're going to talk about snow like that blowing around for the next few days.

So this chill. Let's talk about this chill. It's not going anywhere. Not only do we have the low still out there today, still producing even blizzard conditions down at the Cape here about 1:00 p.m. or so. But then you have another arctic clipper still kind of making its way through.

It's another Alberta clipper that's going to bring those temperatures down for the next few days here. So we're all going to be talking about highs just maybe in the single digits in the upper Midwest. Only in the teens into the northeast. So, yes, we're going to be roughing it here for the next couple of days, Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm not going to tell you, Indra, about the criticism of your throw that Chris had. We'll talk about that offline.

PETERSONS: Great.

PEREIRA: Time now for the five things that you need to know for you new day.

As Indra was just mentioning, it is going to be cold. Very, very cold in the northeast today. That huge winter storm forcing over 4,000 flight cancellations since yesterday.

President Obama offering hi-tech security help to the Russians with just 16 days left before the start of the Winter Olympics in Sochi as Russians search for possible black widow terrorists.

The Geneva II Convention is underway to - working to find a way to slow violence in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry already saying Bashar al Assad shouldn't be part of any transitional government.

Mexico, the nation of Mexico, urging the state of Texas not to execute convicted cop killer Edgar Arias tonight. The Mexican citizen was convicted of killing a Houston police officer. But Mexico is arguing that the execution would violate international law.

And at number five, Toronto's embattled mayor, Rob Ford, now admitting that he fell off the wagon. He says he was drinking a little when he was caught on this video babbling in a phony Jamaican accent and criticizing the city's police chief.

We always update those five things to know, so be sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the very latest.

All right, next up on NEW DAY, Seattle Seahawks star Richard Sherman sitting down exclusively with our Rachel Nichols to set the record straight about that unforgettable post-game rant. The question is, is he sorry?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back. Does Richard Sherman regret the now famous rant that made him a household name? That's the question. He talked exclusively with CNN's Rachel Nichols in his first sit-down TV interview about his comments. Rachel Nichols is, of course, the host of "UNGUARDED" and she joins us now from Los Angeles.

Great interview to get.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN HOST: Thanks so much, Chris. And here's what's fascinating about Richard Sherman. He's one of the most brash, one of the most outspoken guys in the NFL, but he's also one of the smartest guys in the NFL. He not only graduated from Stanford, he also started working on his masters while he was still playing football there. So it's not surprising that while what happened the other night was certainly really emotional when he sat down to talk to me he was extremely reasonable and thoughtful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLS: There was the moment on the field when you made the play. There's the choke sign. There's the interview on the field post-game. Then there's the press conference interview. What do you regret about all that? What you do not regret about all of that?

RICHARD SHERMAN, NFL PLAYER: Well, there isn't much about it I regret. Mostly I regret the, I guess, the storm afterwards. The way it was covered, the way it was perceived and the attention that it took away from the fantastic performance of my teammates. And that be the only part of it I regret the way it's covered.

You know, it is what it is. What I said is what I said. I don't say -- I probably shouldn't have attacked another person. I don't mean to attack him and that was immature and I probably shouldn't have done that. I regret doing that.

But I just felt like my teammates deserved better and I have to apologize to them and I have.

NICHOLS: Your brother has said that Michael Crabtree was rude to you at an event this past summer, a charity event. That he shunned you, he wouldn't talk to you and you said at the time "All right I'm going to show him on field." Is that the background of all this?

SHERMAN: That's the short version of it.

NICHOLS: Is that the clean version?

SHERMAN: That's it. And we're going to keep it clean. And I've --

NICHOLS: Does it get nastier than that?

SHERMAN: We're going to keep it clean.

NICHOLS: OK.

SHERMAN: And I told -- I said I would keep it on the field. I will show you on the field. That's always been my thing. Everybody is like "Oh man, this guy's pushing in your face, doing this, doing that."

You know, I'm not is going to fight anybody and embarrass myself, embarrass my family, embarrass my organization like that. There's no need for that. There's no need for that. There's no need to be that kind of barbaric human being.

But on the field we're playing a very barbaric sport and you can do as you please. That's when I take all my animosity and all my anger and all my frustrations on the field with the discipline of football, playing (ph) football. It takes a different kind of person to be able to turn that switch on and off and be able to step into the ring or step on the field and be the intense, incredible focus and kind of, you know, I guess angry human being that you have to be to be successful in those atmospheres.

NICHOLS: How do you do it?

SHERMAN: You have to have that switch. You take it off, you treat it totally different. And that's why sometimes it crashes and doesn't go all so well because you catch me in the moment on the field while I'm still in that zone, when I'm still as competitive as I can be and I'm trying to be in the place where I have to be to do everything I can to be successful on the football team and help my team win then it's not going to come out as articulate, as smart, as charismatic because on the field, I'm not all those things. I'm everything I need to be to be a winner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Just as you said, Rachel -- very thoughtful and very impressive. Rachel is going to stick with us and in just a moment we're going to find out how Richard Sherman responded to criticism against him following this famous rant.

Rachel is going to bring us bring us that part of the interview next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back.

We're talking with Rachel Nichols about her exclusive interview with Seattle Seahawks star Richard Sherman and his now famous rant. You see right there. Rachel is joining us once again from Los Angeles. Hey there.

NICHOLS: Hey Kate.

Well Richard Sherman told me that he was seven or eight years old when he first stumbled upon some old film of Muhammad Ali. And he was transfixed. He just loved the way Ali wasn't afraid to go against the grain, say what he really thought. And he was also so clever and entertaining at the same time.

Sherman patterned some of his own approach after that but like Ali there's been some backlash and some of it has gotten very nasty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLS: We've seen this. We've seen Deion Sanders, Terrell Owens and Bart Scott. And you can go much further back -- Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali. We've seen guys get excited in the moment and make big pronouncements. What interested me so much about what happened to you was the reaction afterwards, the way it mushroomed. And the fact that race so quickly became involved.

SHERMAN: Yes. You know, it was really -- it was really mind- boggling. It was kind of sad at the way the world reacted. You know, I can't say the world -- I don't want to generalize people like that because there are a lot of great people who didn't react that way.

But for the people who did react that away and threw the racial slurs and things like that out there, it was really -- it was really sad especially that close to Martin Luther King Day. You're not judging a guy. I'm not out there beating on people or committing crimes or getting arrested or doing anything. I'm playing a football game at a high level and I got excited.

But what I did was within the lines of a football field. What they did was in actual reality they showed their true character. Those were real comments not in a moment, not in a, you know -- they had time to think about it. They were sitting at a computer and they expressed themselves in a true way. I thought society had moved past that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLS: Guys, Sherman tells me that he intends to just be himself when he gets to New York for Super Bowl week but that means being the whole person that he is. Not just the character that some are trying to create from what happened in those few minutes on the field that he is going to be brash but he's also going to be confident. He's going to be smart and he's going to be thoughtful as you can see in that interview.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. And also you know, a lot of this we talk about -- a lot about is the brand -- his character on the field, his character off the field. What does he think? Does he think this is going to affect his brand, affect his marketability?

NICHOLS: Hey, so far it is helping his brand. This guy is a fifth round pick and a defensive player -- usually not the kind of player to get marketing campaigns. He has a national ad running right now. And his agent says that since this happened on Sunday he's only gotten more interest from advertisers, people know who Richard Sherman is and for all the people who didn't like what happened on Sunday night there's a lot of people who really liked it. It was Reggie Miller and Spike Lee at the Garden all over again.

People like seeing those kinds of rivalries and they like that bravado in sports.

CUOMO: And there's little question the guy got stereotyped by some people initially. And when they did it contributes to a lot of the ugliness there.

Let me ask you though. I'm blown away about his intelligence. I think the thoughtfulness that goes on to the artifice of who he is on the field versus who is off is uniquely intelligent. Where does he rank for you?

NICHOLS: I think he's great. He's one of the smartest players in the NFL. Everything that he does is for a reason. It's not an accident. And it's a pleasure to see someone who can kind of talk about the social issues involved here as well as what happens on the field

And hey he's also a great football player. Let's not forget that he made the play that put the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. Without him that would have been a touchdown and instead we would be talking about the 49ers.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely right. Great interview -- Rachel. Thank you so much for waking up early and that to us. And of course there's a lot more to Richard Sherman as we're seeing right here in this interview that Rachel did than what we saw of him on the field the other night.

You can catch his full story on this Friday's "UNGUARDED" with Rachel Nichols. 10:30 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

CUOMO: All right. That's it for us here on NEW DAY. "NEWSROOM" is just a minute away. There's a lot on the winter storm and other news. We'll get you there in just a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)