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Blizzard Walloping Chicago Area; Whitney Houston's Daughter Found Unresponsive in Bathtub; Friends Remember Kenji Goto; Who is Jihadi John?; Cleveland Clobbered by Winter Storm; NFL Report on Deflate-gate; Football Maker Denies Leak

Aired February 01, 2015 - 17:00   ET

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


POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, everyone. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Poppy Harlow in New York.

Super Bowl Sunday could be one for the record books, for the game of course, and for another dangerous winter storm that is already within hours will affect as many as 100 million people.

Here's what it looks like right now in four cities in the path of this storm. Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and New York. But it is Chicago that is feeling the brunt of it today. Blizzard conditions that could rival some of the city's biggest snowfalls.

We have full coverage for you, of course. Our national correspondent Ryan Young is in Chicago, Martin Savidge in Cleveland and meteorologist Tom Sater joins us from the Severe Weather Center to track this storm.

Let's go first to Ryan Young in Chicago.

Ryan, I always say this. You know, it's best when your first assignment at CNN is in a blizzard because then you really know what you're in for. So welcome to CNN, my friend. How is it looking there?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Poppy. I can honestly say I didn't know what I was going to be in for because I've never felt a blizzard before. And guess what, the snow has just been falling all day.

We've been up since 3:45 a.m., tracking this storm. And I can tell you the conditions have gotten worse as the day goes on. In fact I want to point down this direction. You can see some of the guys right now trying to clean the side streets here. They've done a really good job keeping the major roads open.

One of the things they told us is that all the public transportation is still running. There are more than 300 trucks out on the road, steel trucks trying to plow the roads here. We've also learned more than 15,000 people are without power. You can just imagine the temperature starting to drop and it's getting cold. But you can see the snow blowing sideways at this point. It pelts you in the face.

Right now they want to make sure that the roads are ready for tomorrow. In fact school will happen. Not only will school happen, they want to say people will be able to get to work. Now we've seen people all day like this gentleman right here just walking through the snow saying this is not too bad. But just know, they are getting as much snow today as they got all last month. So a major snow event.

HARLOW: And when it comes to the airports I've heard it's pretty much a nightmare at O'Hare.

YOUNG: A nightmare with over 1100 flights cancelled. You know how important that airport is to the entire nation. So you can just imagine all the business travelers that will be affected throughout the area, especially with the cancellations. And with all the snow flowing you never know what's going to happen tomorrow with everybody trying to get out of certain places in the Midwest.

HARLOW: I'll tell you, I grew up in the snow for many, many, many years in Minnesota. You're going to get used to it. It just takes about five or 10 years so good luck.

YOUNG: Well, you know what, everybody in Chicago says this is not too bad. So you've got to go along with it.

HARLOW: It's not too bad at all.

Thank you so much. Stay warm.

All right. Let's go to northern Ohio. They are feeling the force of the storm right about now. Marty Savidge is there in Cleveland, his hometown.

Marty, I thought we'd talk about this. You were not going to go cover this blizzard.

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm not sure what happened, but here I am. Great to be back home. That's for certain. Cleveland is no Chicago, at least when it comes to the weather. But like Chicago, they're probably dealing with what is the worst snowfall of this winter season so far. Admittedly we still got a long way to go.

They've got about five inches maybe on the ground here. It's really -- it's really pretty, actually. This is where it's a pretty snowfall. The trees are coated with it. The streets look nice. But unfortunately this is the hour where things are beginning to turn.

The amount of snow that's expected, nine inches or so. The city can handle it but we could go from pretty to pretty miserable in the span of the next four or five hours. It's expected that from this point on through the night the most intense snowfall is going to happen. The streets right now, they're snow covered here on the square. Highways are slushy to wet.

It's tricky out there. But right now it's Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday, so most folks are staying home, staying warm, staying safe. The next 12 hours is going to be critical here. Cleveland not so bad. Western Ohio, though, they're facing the

conditions that Ryan was sort of seeing there in Chicago. A snow emergency level three in Lucas County. That's Toledo. They're expecting maybe a foot of snow. And the wind is starting to pick up, Poppy. That's always bad news.

HARLOW: Yes.

SAVIDGE: Because the good thing just makes it much more treacherous -- Poppy.

HARLOW: And, Marty, and you know, of course it is beautiful there and people there are used to the snow. But I worry about folks after the Super Bowl driving home late at night. Are the officials there warning people in terms of, you know, being really, really careful when they're driving?

SAVIDGE: Yes, they have been. In fact, they've been telling people -- snowplow operators, for one, they've been saying, hey, you know, even in the daytime they've been encouraging people to turn their lights on. Be aware it's treacherous out here. Maybe it's not the blizzard of the century but if you've gone to a Super Bowl party, if you stayed out late, it snowed while you were inside enjoying the game. The conditions changed. Be aware of that. Be careful. Take that extra measure of care -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Martin Savidge, at home, in Cleveland for us. Thanks, Marty. Appreciate it.

Cities farther east are bracing for their second big snowstorm in a week. Boston, hometown to the New England Patriots expected to get up to a foot of snow late tonight after the Super Bowl. Boston public schools already closed for tomorrow.

New York City, where I am, also preparing for this storm. The storm could create a nightmare in terms of the condition in New York City beginning late tonight. We got this warning from the mayor earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: For anyone leaving Super Bowl parties, you're going to have to be ready to be careful at that point. You could have some beginning of accumulation snow. You could have slippery driving conditions. I want to urge people to think ahead, have a designated driver. Obviously don't drink and drive under any circumstance but particularly not on a night where it could be snowy and icy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: And the temperatures have already plummeted here out east. Take a look at these firefighters. This picture I saw this morning and I found it incredible. These are firefighters that were battling a huge blaze in Brooklyn yesterday. And it was so freezing you can see what happened. It is just as cold today. Let's get a look at the big picture of this storm. Here with me, CNN

meteorologist Tom Sater.

Hundred million people.

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes.

HARLOW: Affected by this storm. How is it going to get so bad and what hours are we talking about where people need to be particularly careful?

SATER: Well, this is an elongated storm. It's unlike like week's nor'easter where half as many people were affected. It really varies on where you live. There's a variety of weather going on here. Now the blizzard warning in Chicago for the nine and a half mill in here, Poppy, is mainly because the winds were up to 35. The blowing of snow, visibilities dropped. North of I-80 it's much colder.

It's a good 10 degrees colder so it's a drier snow. Therefore you're going to find the snowdrifts. You get closer down to where it changes over to rain or that ice line. And this is the heavier snowfall. So there's a variety.

Notice Columbus, Pittsburgh in the advisory or just below, they're changing over now. New York is in the warning. Boston, too. You're not going to warm up in Boston, you're looking at all snow. But let's break it down.

Chicago already some areas, 11, 12, 13, even 14 inches. If you get 14 in O'Hare that's going to break your top 10 greatest snows. And your records go back to the 1800s.

Indianapolis has been right at freezing mark. So they've seen a little bit of a mix. Columbus, you're now above freezing. Pittsburgh, you're at 33. Just above freezing. Doesn't mean you're not going to see any more snow because the wraparound cold air will give you a blast right behind it which could drop maybe -- you know, a dusting to an inch.

But if you have heavy rain it's going to wash off all the salt and the chemicals on the roadway. And this could be a slick problem.

Washington, D.C., you're all rainfall. Philadelphia, maybe a dusting before it changes over. New York, this is interesting. Around the midnight hour you'll get into the snowfall. And then around 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning it changes to an icy mix for your morning rush. Then we think it briefly goes over to rain until an afternoon rush hour of a brief patch of snow. So, again, everything is just crazy.

Now on Cape Cod you go to rain. And that's great for Nantucket and everyone that had the storm surge problems. But in Boston you're looking easily at a foot. Some interior sections. Fourteen and it goes all the way over toward Detroit, Cleveland eight to 10. So the numbers vary but this is the same region that had one to two feet. Interior sections of New England. That'll be hit by an additional mound. Should mention back behind us, frigid air which not only single-digit

low temperatures but wind chills minus 10 to minus 20 that go from the upper Midwest straight toward the northeast and it's going to be a couple of days of this.

We may, Poppy, even have a secondary blast later in the week to keep all the snow around and keep the wind chills dangerously low.

HARLOW: Yes. No kidding, I just cancelled my flight to Boston for tomorrow morning because I know exactly what it's going to look like.

SATER: Yes.

HARLOW: At the airport trying to get there.

Tom, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Quick break, and then coming up next, the daughter of Whitney Houston, she is in a medically induced coma as we speak after being found unresponsive face down in the bathtub. Now we have the breaking details on her condition, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right. Breaking new details on the condition of Whitney Houston's daughter, Bobbi Kristina. She, of course, yesterday was found unresponsive in the bathtub of her home by her husband and a friend.

Our Victor Blackwell joins us now from outside the hospital where she is being treated.

And I know, Victor, you've just received some new information about her condition. What do we know?

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Poppy. We have known that she was in this medically induced coma but a source tells CNN's Sunny Hostin that Bobbi Kristina Brown is in the intensive care unit here at this hospital near Atlanta. Her condition has been stabilized, the source tells Sunny. However, she is breathing with the use of a ventilator.

We have also received a statement from Bobby Brown, singer Bobby Brown, Bobbi Kristina's father, in which he says, "Privacy is requested in this matter. Please allow for my family to deal with this matter and give my daughter the love and support that she needs at this time."

Obviously a very difficult time for Mr. Brown as well.

HARLOW: And Victor, I know also that there's been a lot of talk about how doctors are going to be able to measure her brain function, her brain condition, because she was found unresponsive.

Do we know anything about that if they're going to be reducing the medication at all? Sort of what the steps are going forward? BLACKWELL: Well, they have to determine -- once those sedatives

dissipate a bit they'll have to determine then how much brain activity she has. And that really relates to why they put her in the medically induced coma in the first place. When -- a doctor told me this on our show this morning that when the brain is robbed of oxygen or blood for an extended period of time there's difficulty sometimes in getting blood to parts of the brain.

So they reduce the need for blood to get to all the parts of the brain by reducing the activity. And that's why she's in this coma. Sometimes people are in it for days, sometimes weeks, in rare cases months. But not many details coming from the hospital. A source tells Sunny Hostin that this will be a waiting game.

HARLOW: Yes. Absolutely.

So, Victor, stay with me. I want to play our viewers some audio. This is police dispatch audio obtained by CNN from yesterday when this all happened. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Responding to an ECHO-level response. Possible cardiac arrest. Twenty-one-year-old family in the bathtub, face down. PD's en route.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: So, of course, Victor, there are still a lot of questions. You know, was anything happening? We know that there are these Instagram photos of her, just normal selfies, taken at 2:00 a.m. the night before. Then she's found at 10:30 a.m. in a bathtub.

Do we know, for example, her husband and a friend who found her, were they in that home at the time or had they've been out and just come home to find her like this?

BLACKWELL: Yes. Police have not -- if they know that, they have not made that public. She was found at about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. And as you said the question is, were they or her husband, Nick Gordon, was he inside the home all night or did he just come home and find her in that condition? That's one of the things we do not know. Of course we do not know why she was face down in that bathtub full of water and how long she'd been there.

HARLOW: All right, Victor Blackwell, reporting live for us from outside of that hospital. Bring us any updates as you get them.

Thank you, Victor.

Coming up next, Japan mourning the loss of Kenji Goto. A 47-year-old journalist killed by ISIS. The nation's emotional tribute to him, next.

Plus this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AKI PERITZ, FORMER CIA OFFICER: All these months later he certainly is the boogeyman that scares the West. He's articulate. He's scary looking. You can't see anything about him besides the knife and his eyes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: He's got a nickname, Jihadi John. The British militant fighting for ISIS and the man behind the gruesome beheading of several hostages. The FBI believes they know who he is and where he's from. So why has he been so hard to track down?

We'll discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: After the brutal ISIS beheadings of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto and also his fellow Japanese citizen within the past week officials in Jordan are anxiously waiting for word on their military pilot captured by ISIS now more than a month ago.

Moaz al-Kassasbeh is his name and so far they have gotten no proof of life, no evidence has been offered to assure Jordan that this 26-year- old pilot is indeed still alive.

ISIS has suggested it would kill al-Kassasbeh if Jordan does not release a convicted terrorist in prison there.

Meanwhile, the mother of Kenji Goto is vocalizing her grief. She wants people to remember her son's efforts to make this world a better place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUNKO ISHIDO, MOTHER OF KENJI GOTO (Through Translator: But I don't want this sorrow to create a chain of hatred. Kenji worked for children who suffered from conflicts and poverty and his goal was to create a society without war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Kenji Goto also leaves behind a wife and two young daughters.

Japan is refusing to let ISIS dominate the news cycle as this nation mourns. Instead, Japanese focusing their attention on telling powerful stories about how Kenji Goto lived his life instead of dwelling on his brutal murder.

More now from our Will Ripley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When the word around him was at its worst, friends of Kenji Goto say he was at his best.

HIROMASA NAKAI, FRIEND OF KENJI GOTO: Man with the heart. Man with the heart.

RIPLEY: A heart that pulled Goto where few others dared go.

NAKAI: I found him different from the others.

RIPLEY: Hiromasa Nakai remembers Goto's strong handshake and his even stronger passion for journalism.

(On camera): Why do you think he went into dangerous places like Aleppo, like Iraq?

NAKAI: Because he wants to tell us the stories.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Stories he shared with anyone who would listen giving lectures like this one for UNICEF last year about Syria's bloody conflict.

KENJI GOTO, JOURNALIST KILLED BY ISIS: Syrian people suffering three years and a half. It's enough.

RIPLEY: Goto made this video in late October just before what would be his final trip to Syria. He disappeared hours later in ISIS held territory and reappeared about two weeks ago in this propaganda video next to his friend Haruna Yukawa captured by ISIS two months earlier.

(On camera): Why do you think he went to Syria?

TAKEHARU WATAI, JOURNALIST AND FRIEND OF KENJI GOTO: Maybe he want to rescue Mr. Yukawa.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Longtime friend and fellow wartime journalist Takeharu Watai says Goto always made time to call his family when he was on the road which made his direct pleas to his wife Rinko in separate ISIS videos last week all the more heartbreaking.

WATAI: Why they kill him?

RIPLEY: The final video showed Goto facing death with courage and dignity.

"I have nothing now by tears," said his mother, hours after the news broke.

Japanese newspapers printed special editions. Goto was the lead story on every channel. Protesters stood in silence.

WATAI: It's very sad. But Japanese journalists have to go coverage a war zone.

RIPLEY: Watai fears Goto paid the price for his prime minister's public pledge to support the coalition against ISIS. He says despite the risk he's willing to go back.

WATAI: We have to continue to report like him.

RIPLEY: He says Goto's final story is his own life, a story of kindness, courage and compassion. A story to share with Goto's two young daughters who lost their father to the same conflict he dedicated his life to cover.

Will Ripley, CNN, Tokyo.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Will, thank you for that report.

Coming up, he is the monster inside of ISIS who has brutally murdered hostages on camera. He speaks English. He will not show his face. And security officials here and abroad are pretty sure they know who he is.

We'll talk about the ISIS executioner known as Jihadi John, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: All right, now to the -- hunt for the so-called Jihadi John. The hooded ISIS militant with the menacing voice and the British accent showing up again in another ISIS video appearing to behead yet another hostage. Beginning of course with American journalist James Foley and now most recently Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERITZ: ISIS is absolutely capturing the PR war, at least using this individual. All these months later he certainly is the boogeyman that scares the west. He's articulate. He's scary looking. You can't see anything about him besides the knife and his eyes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Well, back in September officials said the hunt for Jihadi John was getting warmer. But he is still taunting the world five months later.

Let's talk about it more now with former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes.

Tom, we do know that not only officials in Britain but also those in the FBI telling our Pamela Brown here, for example, she reported extensively on it, that they're pretty certain they know not only where he is from in the UK but who he is. However, of course, they are keeping his identity a secret.

Why is that?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, the main reason, Poppy, is that they don't want to alert everybody that may be in communication with him, even indirectly, that they're onto him or onto them, in particular. So they have to try to identity his support cell. Who he communicates with back in England or in other Western countries. So I think that they're trying to keep his band together in that sense so that they can try to track them better, have better opportunity to track him. HARLOW: So it's a good point in the hunt for Osama bin Laden,

ultimately one of the keys was a courier who went to and from the --

FUENTES: Exactly.

HARLOW: Home in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden was camping out and that's eventually what led -- what led intelligence officials to be pretty certain that's where he was. That's the same tactic being used here?

FUENTES: I think so. I think that's a big part of what they're doing here.

HARLOW: When you look at the importance of him, do you believe that he is strategically important to ISIS or do you see him much more as a propaganda tool?

FUENTES: I think both. I think the fact that someone becomes that big of a propaganda tool makes them increasingly, strategically important. I think we saw that with Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen over the years. He was just an imam talking and promoting jihad and suddenly he did so much success at recruiting people, putting out his DVDs and extremist literature that it elevated his status to becoming increasingly more powerful within Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

And I think that would apply here with Jihadi John. That the more he is able to symbolize the movement, get people to join and travel from Western countries to go to Syria in particular and join up, I think, gives him great value.

HARLOW: So the fight against ISIS is a fight not just in one place. Right? It is a fight in Iraq. It is a fight in Syria. And many have said look, we're making much more headway in Iraq than in Syria.

Are you concerned about the lack of ability to gather intelligence on ISIS in Syria, in particular?

FUENTES: Absolutely. We don't -- we don't have the same extensive networks to penetrate them. You know, we have people in Iraq. And we have relationships with the Iraqi Police and the Iraqi military that we just don't have in place, you know, with maybe a handful of Free Syrian fighters in Syria.

So when you're not there or when you've given such a head start to ISIS to place themselves in powerful position in Syria, in Iraq, you make it very difficult than to try to penetrate them afterward and get in. So now it does become a battle of the propaganda war.

HARLOW: Yes. And remember ISIS holding three more hostages at this point in time and there could be more. T

Our Tom Fuentes, thank you. We appreciate it.

FUENTES: Thank you. Poppy.

HARLOW: President Obama defending his decision to not label the fight against terrorism as a war on radical Islam. The president sitting down for an exclusive interview with our Fareed Zakaria discussing just that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't quibble with labels. I think we all recognize that this is a particular problem that has roots in Muslim communities, and that the Middle East and South Asia are sort of ground zero for us needing to win back hearts and minds particularly when it comes to young people. But I think we do ourselves a disservice in this fight if we are not taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject this ideology.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: A Republican senator, though, slamming the president for his stance on that. Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire says that labeling the enemy is critical.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)