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More Snow for New England; Aaron Hernandez Trial Continues; Security at the Super Bowl; NFL Deals with Year of Scandals; Ray Lewis Talks Football.

Aired January 30, 2015 - 11:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news at this hour. Mitt Romney has just told supporters that he will not make a run for president in 2016. He made the announcement on a conference call about 30 minutes ago. The former Massachusetts governor says that he believes it's best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become the nominee, and that he will do whatever he can to help a Republican win the White House. We'll have much more coverage of that throughout the day.

But this, New England is about to get hit with even more snow. Yes it's winter, folks, but this is a whole lot of snow and it's still digging out from this week's blizzard. Boston's expecting between 3 and 6 inches between this morning and late tomorrow and Portland, Maine should see nearly a foot. That combined with some serious wind could mean another big mess.

That's where our Sara Ganim is right now.

Sara, what are folks saying?

SARA GANIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's looking like it's snowing again in New England. Fortunately this is not like the blizzard conditions we saw earlier this week. You can see I'm in the downtown square in Portland, Maine. There are plenty of people out here walking around, driving around. It's snowing but it's not nearly as bad. The reason that this snowfall is significant is because look around here, Kate. Look at how much snow is already on the ground. Here in Portland, this is from earlier this week. 27 inches were already on the ground from the blizzard this week and that makes snow removal really, really difficult because today even more snow is falling. Between six and 10 inches. When we got here this morning, we saw crews were trying to get rid of the snow piles. The plow piles that have built up because they need to get snow out of the city to plow again as this storm moves through. And then possibly a third storm that might be coming Sunday night into Monday -- Kate?

BOLDUAN: We'll watch this and everyone will be interested in it throughout the weekend.

Sara, thank you so much.

At this hour, jurors are hearing testimony in the murder trial of former NFL star Aaron Hernandez. A trial that's taking place just days before his former team, the New England Patriots, will take the field for the Super Bowl. Earlier today we heard from the man who called 911 after a jogger found Odin Lloyd's body. He's the man Hernandez is accused of killing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID SWITHERS, FOUND LLOYD ODIN'S BODY: I saw an African-American male that I guess between 25 and 35 years old lying on his back. He was stiff and motionless and there were flies flying in and out of his nostrils.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Hernandez's defense team says he had no motive for murdering his once friend, Odin Lloyd. A semipro football player who was dating Hernandez's fiance sister. In opening statements, the defense said he was targeted by prosecutors because of his fame.

Joining me now live from the trial in Fall River, Massachusetts, Alexandra Field; our legal analyst, Sunny Hostin.

Alexandra, what's the focus so far in the courtroom?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They've been calling in people who were at the crime scene at the time Odin Lloyd's body was still there. We know that part of the prosecution's case has to do with a piece of evidence they say is Aaron Hernandez's sneaker print they found at the crime scene. They call in the jogger that first found the body. Two people that came to help by calling 911. One of the first responders. They are having those people testify about what kind of shoes they were wearing and shoe prints those shoes would have left there. At the same time, the defense is taking an opportunity when able to question these witnesses to try to advance their theory was that there was shoddy police work here. They ask questions about how evidence may have handled and what kind of weather conditions happened at the time including rain. They are asking questions about what kind of area this was. They are trying to establish whether or not this was a secluded area and one interesting point here, Kate, at one point defense attorneys asked a witness if he recalled telling police at a certain point that he had heard about a black SUV in the area while the body was still there back in June of 2013. First we heard about this black SUV. We'll have to see if we hear more about that from prosecution or defense now.

BOLDUAN: It continues at this very moment.

Thanks so much. Stick with us.

Sunny is here with us talking about some of the evidence.

But there's other evidence that we could say prosecution kind of laid out in opening statements. A marijuana blunt. DNA on shell casings and this footprint. What's happening?

SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, this is a very difficult case for the prosecution. It's a circumstantial case and jurors are uncomfortable with that especially in a first-degree murder case. Jurors want to see forensics. They want to see the murder weapon. They want fingerprints on the murder weapon. They want a confession. They want an eyewitness. The prosecution has none of that here and they also have a celebrity defendant. I think it's going to be up to the prosecution to really try to bring those jurors back at the scene and that's what we're seeing. We're seeing testimony of people that saw his body. They are also trying to make him be very present in the courtroom and you want to do that as a prosecutor. You want the victim to be present. You want these jurors to know this was a person who was loved. This was a brother. This was a son to someone. They've done a good job with that.

BOLDUAN: Is that the thinking behind potential behind his girlfriend maybe having to take the stand and his mother? There's a conversation of that as well. Odin Lloyd we're talking about.

HOSTIN: Absolutely. We've already seen it when you hear witnesses say I saw flies coming out of his nostrils. That piece of evidence made his mother dry, Odin Lloyd's mother cry, but jurors are affected when they hear that. Prosecution will have to do more of that. It's a circumstantial case.

BOLDUAN: You have the defense saying he has no motive. He had his whole life in front of him. We're talking Aaron Hernandez now. He had no motive. That could resonate with a lot of people.

HOSTIN: I'm struggling with that myself. People are talking over dinner and talking about this case. Why would he do this? $12.5 million guaranteed. A $40 million contract in total. He had a fiance. A child. You know, the Patriots are in the Super Bowl. People really are going to think what is the motive? As a prosecutor you don't have to prove motive. It's not the element of the crime. What juror isn't thinking, why would he kill his friend, which is what the defense is playing up hard. The defense said it probably over 10, 15 times during opening statement. He said Odin Lloyd was Aaron Hernandez's friend. Why would he kill him?

BOLDUAN: That's the lingering question.

Alexandra, what can he expect for the rest of the day?

FIELD: This is a half day for court here. The session will end around 1:00. We know that Odin Lloyd's girlfriend is on the prosecution's witness list. She could be called to testify next. His mother may now testify next week. They are appealing to these emotions that Sunny is talking about. We saw close-ups of Odin Lloyd's bullet wounds in court. The mother walked out of the courtroom at that point, Kate.

I should also point out, we've seen Aaron Hernandez's brother. He's back in court today sitting right behind Aaron. We have not seen his mother or his fiance here today.

BOLDUAN: We'll continue to follow it.

Alexandra there on the ground, Sunny, always good to see you, thank you so much.

When we come back, when you pack tens of thousands of fans into one of the world's largest stadiums, security is, of course, a worry. What's being done to keep the Super Bowl safe?

And a guy who knows a thing or two about Super Bowls, former Baltimore Raven, Ray Lewis, joins us live from the site of the big game to weigh in on the drama on and off the field and a new project of his.

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BOLDUAN: Just into CNN, Governor Jeb Bush just released a statement obtained by CNN released on his Facebook page regarding the announcement by Mitt Romney that Mitt Romney has said this morning he will not be pursuing a third run for the White House. In part the statement from Governor Jeb Bush says, "Mitt is a patriot and I join many in hoping his days of serving our nation and our party are not over." And he says that he and his wife wish Mitt and Ann and their entire family the very best. The breaking news surrounding the Republican race for the White House continues to interest all of us. We'll continue to follow the breaking news coming from Mitt Romney throughout the day. There you go. Jeb Bush, one of the people we got our eye on making a statement on his Facebook page just now.

When it comes to the big game, defense will be a key focus both on and off the field. As the threat of lone wolf-terror attacks looms, the Super Bowl is a high-profile target, of course. Still officials say they have the right plan in place to protect their fans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEH JOHNSON, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I think the key is vigilance. We devoted a lot of resources and effort to making sure this event is safe and secure.

JOSEPH YAHNER, CHIEF, PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT: We have 24 expert work groups that have thought of everything from cybercrimes to intelligence analysis and everything else. We are prepared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Can imagine everything that goes into it.

Let's discuss what goes into it with CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyam.

Juliette, you've been involved with the planning around security for massive events similar to this. What all goes into it, first off?

JULIETTE KAYYAM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, first it's just the challenge of flow that we call it. People are at the Super Bowl. They're at these major events for entertainment, for competition and we have to from the security perspective you have to respect that. So a lot of the focus is, how do we maintain the why people are there while making them safe and secure. As Secretary Johnson said, the biggest challenge tends to be coordination. You have so many different agencies, so many potential risks that just managing different pieces local, state, federal and in some instances international becomes the biggest challenge. An event like the Super Bowl they had a long runway and knew when it was so that planning has been going on. I never promise perfect security but as far as these things go, there's been tremendous planning so people are protected and they do enjoy themselves at the event.

BOLDUAN: To the point you just made, I did read that you said that there is no such thing as perfect security when it comes to an event like this. Should that concern folks?

KAYYAM: Only if they live in a world if which they think there's anything like perfect security. There's not. We have too many events and too many people and so we take a certain amount of risk. One area that public safety does focus on that doesn't get enough attention is assuming something bad happens, and we can think of things like ISIS or just a generator going off, how do you limit the consequences of that bad thing happening? We saw the successes after the Boston Marathon that while there was a bad thing, very bad thing that happened, it was the reaction of public safety that really brought the city together, gave people a sense of grip. When you think of the Super Bowl blackout a couple years ago, the Blackout Bowl, I know people hated that but on the other hand, you look at it and only half of the stadium went in darkness. The other half was in lightness. That's because they had systems in place in which the generator would sort of cut off massive darkness. Those are ways security planners think about protecting the most number of people given that the risk -- that there will be risks that we both imagine and then ones we don't think about right now.

BOLDUAN: So interesting. You do in the end on the security front you have to balance the need for security at these events and the inconvenience for anyone who will attend and wants to watch it because it would be a huge headache to lock down a stadium like that.

Juliette, always having you here. Thank you for being here.

KAYYAM: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: We'll talk to you soon.

Today, Commissioner Roger Goodell will announce the state of the NFL. After clearly a rough year of scandals for the league from domestic violence to air pressure in footballs, what do you think his message will be? We'll talk about all that and Sunday's big game with two- time Super Bowl winner, Ray Lewis, coming up next.

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BOLDUAN: Even as the NFL season winds down, the league continues to deal with multiple scandals, among them, video of star player, Ray Rice, knocking out his then-fiancee, now wife, and as you saw earlier in the show, one of the leagues former stars, Aaron Hernandez, in court right now for his first murder trial. But has the NFL's rough year hurt the brand?

Our John Berman took a look and has some answers.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What do you call a championship game whose league and players have been accused of nothing less than attacking the brain, assaulting the body and compromising the soul of competition? That's the Super Bowl. Yeah, super. A fitting end to a season filled with defensiveness --

ROGER GOODELL, NFL COMMISSIONER: I got it wrong in the handling of the Ray Rice matter. And I'm sorry for that.

BERMAN: -- denials --

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK: I didn't alter the ball in any way.

BERMAN: -- and discipline.

ZYGI WILF, MINNESOTA VIKINGS OWNER & CHAIRMAN: We have decided that the appropriate course of action for the organization and for Adrian is to put them on the exempt list.

BERMAN: Star running back, Ray Rice, caught on video hitting his now wife. Star running back, Adrian Peterson, copping a plea to charges that he beat his son with a switch. Star quarterback, Tom Brady, dodging cheating allegations, with a barrage of talk about ball inflation. And the head of it all, Commissioner Roger Goodell, facing questions about how he handled it all.

You might think this would put the success of this enterprise in question. You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Attendance is up. For 17 straight weeks, an NFL game was the most watched show on TV. And now teams are splitting more than $6 billion in revenue. Money, there is lots of it.

MARSHAWN LYNCH, SEATTLE SEAHAWKS RUNNING BACK: I'm here so I won't get fined. I'm here so I won't get fined. I'm just here so I won't get fined.

BERMAN: Money might explain why the Seahawk's Marshawn Lynch is there answering questions when he doesn't want to. That's why here is there. But why are we there, the fans? If there's so much outrage over scandals, why do we keep watching? The fact is we do. We like it. The game, at least.

More than 100 million people will watch this Sunday. And for the NFL, that simple fact can be described with one word -- super.

John Berman, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: John lays it out.

But let's talk about this and more with Ray Lewis, who led the Baltimore Ravens to two Super Bowl championships during his 17 seasons in the league. These days, he's an ESPN analyst and has a new reality show on Spike TV, called "Coaching Bad."

Ray, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for coming in.

I want to talk about the Super Bowl and the super scandals but first, let's talk about this TV show. This is a reality show that you've got. You're taking on the angriest coaches in sports across the country. Why are you doing this? I watched the trailer and they're pretty scary.

RAY LEWIS, ESPN ANALYST & REALITY SHOW HOST & FORMER BALTIMORE RAVENS: Yeah, Kate, I'm doing it because I've been in sports my entire life and one of the things that we're finding is a real epidemic America is bad coaching. And it's going so bad to where we're affecting kids to where kids -- I'm a father. My kids are beautiful and I don't want my kids treated no differently than the way I treat them. And so this whole show concept takes the -- we took nine of the angriest coaches and put them in remote places in Los Angeles. We went through so many different exercises of working with each coach trying to get to the bottom line of what these anger issues are all about.

What's ironic is when we started getting into why they yell and why they curse and why they hit kids, the thing I found out the most is going back in most abuse cultures past, most of them have been mistreated or has mistreated people in their past. This is something that they've been dealing with for years. And a lot of parents don't know the extent to how much time or who we're letting our kids spend time with. When we sat down to figure out this show and what we wanted to do with this show, this hit in my heart with me. I've been a part of this time of program and system my whole life. It's relationship-building. It's telling people how to deal with people.

BOLDUAN: It is a fascinating concept for a show and also an important maybe public service that you're doing for sports across the country. I'll be tuning into that. But if we can, going from the playing off the name of your show to a bad year for the NFL, you've been watching all this. You've been speaking out about all this. I watch you all the time on ESPN. You've made headlines yourself in some of the comments you've made, some about the New England Patriots. Do you think in light of the deflated football controversy, do you think that means a tainted win for the Patriots?

LEWIS: I'll say it a million time from my heart. If -- that's why I want everybody to make sure my comments are what they are because I'm not afraid to say it. But if this is true, then we've found a bad place in sports, if this is true. That's why I use the word "if" because you get into all the speculation and you don't know how the story is fabricated. If this comes out as true, and then we let a team go on to the Super Bowl, you talk about the NFL and how the players are treated and the rules that are in place, this is the integrity side of the game now. Now you're tapping into the integrity of this is how you've got to go about your way to get wins in the national football league. And once again, if that's true, then we have taken a back page to what we have created and what the forefathers have created with this game. BOLDUAN: Ray, thank you for your time. You watching the game this

weekend?

LEWIS: I think I'm going to watch it at my hotel.

BOLDUAN: Probably a lot of people would like to join you --

(CROSSTALK)

LEWIS: I've got a little private spot, Kate. I'll sit outside and enjoy the scenery. First time you get to watch the Super Bowl with the sun up on the West coast.

BOLDUAN: Ray, great to see you. Thanks so much. Good luck with the show.

LEWIS: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Next up, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will be giving his State of the League address in Phoenix. See it live here on CNN at 1:30 eastern. And join Rachel Nichols with Hall of Famer, Dan Merino, with the guide to the big game, on Saturday at 4:30 eastern.

Thanks for joining us. Happy Friday, everybody. A lot still to come on CNN.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield starts right after this.

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