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New Day

Dedicating the 9/11 Museum; Heat Rally Late, Advance Past Nets; Condoleezza Rice Speaks On Sterling; Women And The Pay Gap; Barbara Walters One-on-One

Aired May 15, 2014 - 06:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY. We're going to look at your headlines now.

Nearly 100 degree temperatures are expecting today, pushing firefighters in southern California to their limbs as they fight a series of wildfires in the state. Thousands of homes, a university campus, a nuclear plant, a Lego theme park, even parts of Camp Pendleton has been evacuated. The fire chief says nine wildfires have so far charred 9,200 acres.

It is being called serious and urgent. The spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, MERS, the World Health Organization expressing its concern but insisting the illness does not yet constitute a global health emergency. There are now two confirmed cases in 18 countries, including two here in the United States. One is Indiana, the other in Florida, 171 people have died because of MERS worldwide.

Now located, radio icon Casey Kasem just hours after the daughters found a missing persons report. The 82-year-old was found in Washington state where he was reportedly on vacation with his wife. Kasem suffers from a form of dementia that has left him barely able to speak. His daughters had accused their stepmother of kidnapping him.

A mystery solved but, again, not really because they haven't been able to get him back home. It's a whole mess.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Unbelievable.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: No family is immune from ugliness.

PEREIRA: No.

CUOMO: You know?

PEREIRA: The one we love most, right, we're capable of doing all the things --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Anyway, this is a big day today. After 13 years of construction, challenges of every kind, especially political setbacks and endless red tape, the 9/11 Museum will open today for the families of the victims. The museum is loaded with artifacts and photos and other memorabilia that tell the story of that day in a way it has never been told. President Obama will be there to dedicate it this morning in a ceremony that we'll bring you when it happens.

We have Deborah Feyerick live this morning outside the museum for us.

Deb, big day to be down there.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And as you said, Chris, this has been a long time coming. The president is expected here in the next couple of hours.

But, you know, there was so much controversy where it should be built, how it should be built, do you charge, do you let people in for free. But the one thing that there's no dispute a all is the labor of love for the thousands of people involved in building this museum, from the construction workers who dug out that hole to the people who planned it, who conceded this idea.

You walk through that museum. It is a living testimony to those who died on that day. Their souls are so present you can feel it as you're walking through the museum. It is powerful, emotional, and it is a stamp of that day, what happened.

You can see there the fire truck where debris fell. That was the devastation. Frankly, you look at that, that is a symbol of how raw we all felt -- something that was whole one minute and then shattered the next.

There are letters of papers that were taken that floated off that building. I mean, it is really a museum, Chris. The only way I can describe it and I know Kate was down there, it breaths. It completely breathes. It is a magnificent testament to what happened.

There's the Slurry Wall that held back the water. There was the greatest fear that that Slurry Wall broke, in fact, all of lower Manhattan would indeed be flooded. There is a steel from that point of impact where Flight 11 pierced into the north tower.

And, of course, I don't know if you can hear it behind me, a low roar. Those are the wading pools, the reflecting pools built. Those opened a year ago. You look down into that. This is an extraordinary, extraordinary place.

The museum is that building just behind it. And I have to tell you, it is something that simply took my breath away. It brought me back to that day but it also made me realize just how powerful the human spirit is and everything that happened after that as much of a presence in that building, Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Deb, thank you very much. I think you said it very well, Kate, that it's unusual, this museum, is that there is no whitewashing. You will really see what it was like that day from the way they were able to preserve it. So, we hope you watch this ceremony and if you get a chance, you go to visit it. I'll be there later this morning as we cover it.

BOLDUAN: You're going to lead some of our coverage. Great to have you down there, of course.

Let's make a turn, though. We got to talk sports. Let's talk some playoff basketball, if we can.

It took a late rally against the Nets, but the Miami Heat are heading back to the Eastern Conference final, everybody.

CUOMO: That was good.

BOLDUAN: Brian McFayden has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report" -- Brian.

BRIAN MCFAYDEN, BLEACHER REPORT: That was -- that was really, really good.

BOLDUAN: Did you see Brian's eyes when I turned.

MCFAYDEN: Good morning.

BOLDUAN: Good morning.

MCFAYDEN: Brooklyn gave Miami all they could handle last night and looked like they would keep the series going until the end.

Nope. About 30 seconds left. The ageless wonder Ray Allen wide open for three. You just don't leave him open from out there. Allen nails it giving the heat the lead.

Last chance for the Nets. LeBron strips the ball away from Joe Johnson, and the Heat are going to their sixth eastern conference finals in the last 10 years.

The Spurs completely routed the Trailblazers last night. It got so bad for the Blazers, Spurs, Leonard went all double pumped slams. Spurs win 104-82, to advance to the Western Conference Finals. They will play the winner of the Thunder/Clipper series.

Trending on BleacherReport.com, does this make you a bad person if you laugh at this video? A Dodger fan going for a foul ball while holding his daughter and without thinking decides the daughter is more important than his kid and pushes her to the side and falls back to her seat.

She wasn't happy either. She gave her dad the business.

By the way, pops, he didn't get the ball. So that was it. Back to you guys.

BOLDUAN: I'm giggling because I can imagine if Chris had done this, what kind of grief I would be giving you.

CUOMO: If that ever happened to me that would be the last time you saw me. It wouldn't be by my choice.

BOLDUAN: I like the little girl, she's like, you're a jerk, dad.

CUOMO: Yes, she's right.

BOLDUAN: Yes, she is right, dad.

Thanks, Brian.

CUOMO: That is terrible.

BOLDUAN: Yes. It would have been decently OK if he had caught the ball.

CUOMO: Well --

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

CUOMO: If he gave it to her right away.

BOLDUAN: Right, insult to injury.

Coming up next on NEW DAY, Condoleezza Rice opening up in a new interview. Global affairs, and even sports all on the table and some of what she says will surprise you. Our exclusive preview is after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

This morning, we're hearing from Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, speaking out about who she would support in 2016, her take on Donald Sterling's racist remarks, and also how involved she thinks the United States should be in the crisis in Ukraine.

Carlos Watson is the co-founder of Ozy, a digital newsmagazine. He's here to premier his interview in a broadcast exclusive.

Great to see you.

CARLOS WATSON, OZY: Good to be here.

BOLDUAN: How are you?

WATSON: Good. Really good.

BOLDUAN: This interview happened this week.

WATSON: This week. We sat down in California, Stanford University where she's now teaching. And she was very open, very relaxed.

BOLDUAN: She was relaxed. WATSON: She was very relaxed. You said out of politics, I said she's been stumping for candidates like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, so you're never fully out of politics when you do that. She has a book coming out.

BOLDUAN: She's a got book, too?

WATSON: She's got a book coming out.

BOLDUAN: When you have the itch, you never get out of it. But let's talk about some of the topics because you really hit a range of topics. First off, on Ukraine, specifically on Vladimir Putin and what his motives are, and how far he's going to go.

She had said at one point in the interview -- she had said that if you go any further, you're going to meet real resistance, she said. And you pushed her on what that resistance could be. Here, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: He does not want to take on the United States of America. He wants to push as far as he can without real resistance. But he's not going to fire on a country in which American forces are stationed.

WATSON: You really believe that?

RICE: Of that one, I am pretty certain.

WATSON: And so, how many troops would make sense here? What would be a real deterrent?

RICE: Abrogate (ph) or so, got a division. Abrogate or so. Tens of thousands.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: Kate, that's a lot of -- that's a big statement.

BOLDUAN: That's a lot more than the 600 they've got over there now.

WATSON: Big statement, lots of confidence coming from a soviet specialist. What was interesting is she talked about Putin personally. She said he feels the Soviet Union was unfairly disbanded, has an itch to put it bag together, harbors a grudge and she thought that sheer force would make a difference.

CUOMO: She's not flying blind here, though, right? Because, was there any discussion about the context of what happened in 2006 or '08 with Georgia because that was the Bush administration. They tried to do what's being tried right now with very bad results. You know, any type of --

BOLDUAN: But they're still in Georgia.

CUOMO: Yes, sure. And it was violent, how they overtook it. We did nothing.

WATSON: Well, that's why I think she's now arguing for troops and not just a few troops but tens of thousands of troops.

I'm not as convinced, and she clearly as secretary of state would know more, I didn't ask her whether or not the war wariness of the American people would be a factor as well and I think that would be a conversation whether or not we would want to send more troops to a very difficult place.

BOLDUAN: Interesting to get her take on that, for sure.

Tens of thousands definitely raised my eyebrows for sure.

WATSON: And again, that has been her specialty for years. Where else she weighed in was Benghazi and we know that there's been a senate report on Benghazi, but she argued the House, should continue to pursue it, which you've heard a lot of more right wing Republicans. But you haven't heard moderate Republicans like her say the House should continue to pursue it, that there are real questions.

BOLDUAN: Especially coming from a former secretary of state herself.

WATSON: Who has been on the other side of that and hasn't always wanted to be called. When the 9/11 Commission called, I went and she thought others and she didn't say Hillary Clinton by name, but that others should be available.

CUOMO: Weapons of mass destruction and yellow cake was never looked into the way Benghazi is.

WATSON: You know, she didn't touch that at all.

CUOMO: Of course, she didn't.

WATSON: Not surprisingly.

CUOMO: Of course she didn't.

She wasn't afraid of hot topics, even our friend Donald Sterling who you guys were talking about earlier.

PEREIRA: I wanted to ask you about that because we know that Ms. Rice is a gigantic sports fan and she was one of the names considered for NFL commissioner. I can't imagine that she didn't have an opinion about the Donald Sterling. Can we play some of the sound from that?

WATSON: Please, yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICE: When you are someone for whom African-Americans work and then you say something like that, how do you really expect them to feel working for you? And I think it's a disgrace for the league, and I'm glad the commissioner did what he did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: So she fully supports Adam Silver's really decisive idea of, look, we've got to get him out of there and strip him of this team.

WATSON: She's been heavily involved in sports. You mentioned football, but she says her favorite player of all time was a basketball player, Dr. J.

PEREIRA: A member of Augusta, right?

WATSON: Augusta, involved in golf. I noted to her that several of the players who recently have been in the news from Richard Sherman to Jonathan Martin to Jason Collins were all Stanford players with whom she had a connection to her and she was clear it needs to be strong, swift, unequivocal action. This comes from a person who feels strongly about executive power. As you said, has been thought about for the NFL commissioner's role. The other question I asked her, I said, well, look, there might be a team for sale. You now are invested in Silicon Valley.

PERIERA: What did she say?

WATSON: Oprah is talking about it. Floyd Mayweather is talking about it. She smiled and said Oprah has done a little bit better with her investments than I have, which is true of all of us, most of us.

BOLDUAN: Carlos, you cover a lot of topics. You are hitting on a lot of other stuff. GOP politics, you asked her about Rutgers and the commencement speech. Thanks for sharing a little bit about it.

BOLDUAN: It's great to see you.

CUOMO: Coming up on NEW DAY, the one and only were Barbara Walters. She's made even the most hardened guests weep, now as she prepares to step back, we'll hear about the tribute that almost had her in tears. We turned the tables or the chairs on the legend and sit down for a really cool interview. Straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Big business story. "New York Times" executive editor out. The New Yorker reports she was fired after she was discovered she was making less money than her predecessor, confronted her boss about it. Overall in the United States, gals, we're still making less money than the fellas. Chief business correspondent, Christine Romans is here with me in our money center modified. What exactly happened here?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: She's out. She's out as executive editor of "The New York Times" and business and media world are buzzing about this story this morning. And the New Yorker is saying there was a pay disparity that was part of the problem that led to this confrontation to her and her bosses. She is out. Whatever happened with her pay highlights this conversation that women in all different kinds of parts of the economy are talking about. They make on average 82 cents to a man's dollar and that's something that women are confronting every day at the office. PEREIRA: What can we do if we find out we're in a situation where our male counterpart is making that much more?

ROMANS: Studies have shown that women don't negotiate on the front end, from the very first job they say I'm going to pay you $24,000 a year and you say thank you very much. If you negotiate $5,000 more, it's up to $600,000 over the course of a 40-year career. A lot of people who studied this told me a man out of college is much more likely to say, $24,000? I'll take $29,000. OK, you're hired. Women need to start to think that way, too.

You need to ask for a raise. There's this great antidote of the woman who is confronted by her boss and he said you need to ask for a raise and she said, why, how do we trust you to negotiate on behalf of the company if you don't negotiate for yourself. Women are less likely to ask for a raise. Ask for one every year.

PEREIRA: Great advice, take it to heart, ladies -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Mick, thank you very much. It is easy to overstate people's accomplishments when they retire. Often we should do that, but not this time. This time we're going to be deadly accurate. You know why? Because the truth is no one comes close to Barbara Walters. A five-decade career just loaded with firsts. Here are just a few. First woman to co-host a morning show and went on to be number one in the morning for ten years.

First woman to co-host the evening news, to make a million bucks in the business, to have huge specials, to own bran "2020" and to create a show like "The View." and right until the end, she has big exclusives she takes from people like me, the two women at the center of Donald Sterling's warped world. There is no question, Barbara Walters and still a cut above the rest. Take a look at the interview we had.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARBARA WALTERS: I'm very happy to see you.

CUOMO: I'm very happy to see you.

WALTERS: I miss you. I'm happy to have you interview me.

CUOMO: My first question is this. Too soon, are you afraid you're doing this too soon?

WALTERS: I knew it was time. I like all the celebration, that's great. But in my heart, I thought I want to walk away while I'm still doing good work. So I will.

CUOMO: But the work in that way is too good. You just beat me out for the Shelly sterling interview.

WALTERS: You noticed, right?

CUOMO: I couldn't get a phone call in there because they only wanted to talk to you. You're still getting the big interviews. You're still all leaving us in the dust. Why leave now? Just to make it easier for us?

WALTERS: You have to leave sometime don't you? I don't want to be she's still here? You know. We can't get rid of her. I want to leave when people like you saying, why are you going? I will miss the people and I will miss the challenges. But I just know it's the time to go.

CUOMO: Here's a word I know you don't like, legacy. You don't like the word legacy.

WALTERS: I don't like to talk about my legacy in terms of my work. I mean, I know that I've done some important interviews. I know that I have been a part of history at least viewing history. But my legacy, I think, is paving the way a little bit for women who did not have the opportunity when I was beginning. And I see so many wonderful women now on television and that's my legacy. Maybe I helped pave the way for them.

CUOMO: You started off outsider. They didn't want you in the business. You went from an outsider to now your name is on the outside of the main ABC News area.

WALTER: Isn't that amazing. Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, pulled the velvet cloth and there was this plaque with my name. What a wonderful honor. I mean, I'm going to visit it every single day.

CUOMO: When you look at what you achieved, do you list this was most important to me?

WALTERS: No, no. I'm proud of "The View" because I created it and it will be on when I'm no longer there. And I think that a lot of shows have sort of copied the atmosphere and the idea of "THE VIEW" but when I look back at my career, the opportunities that I've had to be -- to be able to, as I said, witness the peace agreements between Egypt and Israel, to interview all of the presidents, to interview Vladimir Putin, I mean, I'm pretty impressed with myself.

CUOMO: You should be.

WALTERS: Yes. No, not really. I just think I've had the most blessed career and I never expected it. I hope I have the sense to realize how good my life is and not just think of how good my life was.

CUOMO: That is very well said. When I was trying to figure out how to go through what you've done, it's too hard. It's just too hard with all that you have achieved, all you've meant to the business and to society in general because a lot of it was historic. Let's do it as almost like a checklist. When I say words you tell me a name that jumps to your head. Funniest.

WALTERS: Robin Williams.

CUOMO: Smartest, present company excluded. WALTERS: I have to name you. I have to name you. I've interviewed many smart people. A lot of dumb ones.

CUOMO: Sexiest.

WALTERS: I love Hugh Jackman.

CUOMO: What about Eastwood?

WALTER: I forgot Clint Eastwood. How soon we forget. Yes, if I had only played my cards right I could have been Mrs. Clint Eastwood. Too late.

CUOMO: How about scariest?

WALTER: I know I should say Vladimir Putin because people are afraid of him and I did ask him if he ever killed anybody. No, I won't say him. Yasser Arafat maybe, Saddam Hussein. But you know when you're working you're not scared. It's when you look back and think about it you are. When I've actually been doing the interviews I'm never frightened.

CUOMO: The one that got away.

WALTERS: I've always wanted to interview the Queen of England. She doesn't do interviews. I would love interview the pope. You know, it's the ones that everybody is talking about, the hard to get. The ones that are the get.

Let's leave with this. Give me some advice. When I got the opportunity and I spoke to you about it first, to become the anchor of "20/20" was the high point of my career at that time because what it meant about trying to carry the mantel.

WALTERS: And you did.

CUOMO: What is the advice to the rest of White House are still in the grind?

WALTERS: Get your foot in the door, be the first one there in the morning, be the last one there at night, and do your homework. Do your homework. I'm very proud of you. You've done OK. It's all my fault.

CUOMO: I learned from the best.

WALTERS: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: You are in love with her, even in that conversation.

CUOMO: She's very different from who you get to see in TV.

PEREIRA: She softens you. You soften right up.

CUOMO: It's really just more fear and respect.

BOLDUAN: I was going to wait for scariest, I thought you were going to win the scariest category.

CUOMO: Only Barbara Walters can say Vladimir Putin, I did ask him if he had ever killed anyone.

PEREIRA: It's interesting. Right after that conversation with Christine Romans about disparity and equal pay for women we go to the conversation about this woman who opened the door, Kate, for you and I --

BOLDUAN: First anchor to make a million.

PEREIRA: And so many young women now don't necessarily realize how hard it was for her.

CUOMO: In a business where now stars are made, she made herself with resistance every step of the way. She will tell you right up until today.

BOLDUAN: And her advice applies to every industry and that's the key to her success to the final interview still which you make good point, probably isn't her final interview that she's done. First in the door in the morning, last out the door at night. That's how you succeed.

CUOMO: That's what really stings. You want to say because she's Barbara Walters, she beats you because she outworks you.

Anyway, we're covering a lot of news for you this morning. So we want to get you the best start for your NEW DAY. Let's start right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've had nine confirmed fires.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This extreme. This has gone from dry conditions to horrible conditions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lifeless bodies are being brought out one by one.