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Suspicious Envelopes Found at Brussels Mosque; Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; NYT: Trump Mocking Reporter Disability is "Outrageous"; NFL Admits Protocols Failed for Rams QB. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired November 26, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

More and more emergency vehicles arriving to the grand mosque, one of the oldest and largest mosques in the city of Brussels. It's situated amid a number of government buildings here. They are still inside. They are still trying to test this material that was discovered in at least 10 envelopes. That's what we're hearing from the fire department and also the police department. A white powder was discovered in those envelopes. We've also got something called the Civil Protection Unit - I'll step out of the way - which is on scene. They're operating some of these emergency vehicles, which you can see, particularly the blue vehicles that are backed up against the mosque there.

Everyone is being kept at a distance from the mosque, allowing people to go in there and do the work that they need to do. Carol, what we've been seeing since we've been standing out here are a number of emergency responders, many of whom are wearing protective suits and paper masks. They're, of course, trying limit their exposure to this substance. However, it needs to be said, that it is entirely unclear right now what the substance is, what that powder is, and how significant of a threat the powder could pose.

So you've got the Civil Protection Unit out here with their equipment. They are doing the preliminary tests on the powder to try and determine what exactly the substance is. But in order to be safe here, in order to be cautious, they have removed people who have been exposed to the powder. We're told as many as 11 people could have been exposed to the substance and they are being treated for - by medical professionals. They're being checked out at this point.

Carol, it has to again be said that given the threat level in this city, given this highest terror alert level that people have been living under for days now, emergency responders were very quick to respond to this. They're taking it very seriously. And clearly, as you can see behind me, they're throwing every asset, every resource they have right at it.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alexandra Field reporting live from Brussels, Belgium, this morning. Thank you.

The war of words ramping up between Russia and Turkey after a warplane is shot out of the sky. And the Turkish president is not backing down off of his strong rhetoric. Minutes ago he sat down for an exclusive interview with CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN, TURKEY (through translator): Well, I think if there's a party that needs to apologize, it's not us. Those who violated our air space are the ones who need to apologize. Our pilots in our armed forces, they simply fulfilled their duties, which consisted of responding to a violation of the rules of engagement. I think this is the essence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All of this setting the scene for a meeting between Presidents Francois Hollande and Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Joining me now to talk about this, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. He's a senior fellow at the Foundation of Defense of Democracies.

Welcome, Daveed.

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, SR. FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Good to be with you.

COSTELLO: The Turkish president says he would do it again, that is shoot that Russian warplane out of the sky. Russia is acting tough, tough talk from Vladimir Putin. The French president is trying to get everyone on the same page. What should we make of this?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: It's an extraordinarily messy situation and both Russia and Turkey are known for basically provocations. On the Russian side, you can see what they've done in the Ukraine, and they pretty routinely will basically test the patience, test the limits of what they can do around various, you know, aircraft and vessels within the region. On Turkey's part, it's taken an very aggressive posture towards Syria, including bombing Kurdish positions following an ISIS attack in Turkish territory.

But when we think about Turkey and Russia, they're both dominantly part of the anti-ISIS side of this conflict, but they're also on opposite sides when it comes to Assad. Russia is in Syria to protect Assad's regime and Turkey is hell-bent on toppling him, including supporting the opposition. So in one part of this conflict, they are on opposite sides.

COSTELLO: OK, so it's a mess. So what are the odds that President Hollande convinces Putin to fight ISIS and not rebels, protecting the Syrian president?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Putin is fighting ISIS, although he's hitting (ph) other factions as well. Part of this deals with the very, shall we say, messy situation that the U.S. itself is in. That one of problems in Syria is that, you know, the extremist faction, aka (ph) al Qaeda, are so deeply embedded in the opposition that it's very difficult to support an anti-Assad side of the conflict without getting in bed with some of those groups that we've been at war with for about 15 years. So I think when it comes to Hollande talking to Putin, he'll be successful in getting Putin to commit to fighting ISIS. Put will saying to him, but I have been fighting ISIS. But it's not going to get to flip on his other commitment, which is that he doesn't believe that Assad should fall. Hollande, on the other handmade, has made clear that in going to war with ISIS, he also believes that it's unacceptable to have Assad remain in power.

COSTELLO: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, thanks so much for joining me this morning.

[09:34:59] Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it is Thanksgiving, so eat up and, as the president says, be vigilant and live life as normal. I'm about to head outside to join millions of American enjoying the holiday, despite their anxiety. Hang on, Snoopy, I'm coming.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: And happy Thanksgiving, everyone, from 58th Street in New York City. Three million people from all over the world are celebrating Thanksgiving Day together, despite what happened in Paris, despite threats from ISIS. As President Obama said, there is no credible threat, and security is out in force across the country.

[09:40:06] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want the American people to know, entering the holidays, that the combined resources of our military, our intelligence, and our homeland security agencies are on the case. They're vigilant, relentless, and effective.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: So police are everywhere. Officers from New York's new counterterrorism unit are patrolling the crowds. There are bomb sniffing dogs and special radiation detectors used to track dirty bombs. The governor of New York also debut this special app. I have it on my phone right now. It's called "see something, send something." In fact, I just downloaded it this morning. It allows me to take a picture of anything I see suspicious and send it to the state's homeland security department.

With me now, the Whistle (ph) family. They're here from the Bronx. Seven-year-old Angel (ph) and his three sisters, Rose, Mayly (ph), and Ashley (ph).

Hi. Happy Thanksgiving.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy Thanksgiving.

COSTELLO: So, Angel, I'm going to start with you because you have some fancy headgear on.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: What was your inspiration for this headgear this morning?

Are you planning to eat lots of Turkey? Yes. I got a yes. OK, which one of you is Rose?

ROSE: Hi.

COSTELLO: You are Rose. So you're out here. You guys live in the Bronx. You ride the subway every day.

ROSE: Yes.

COSTELLO: You've heard about what's happening in Paris and you heard a - you know, you can see the big police presence out here. Are you nervous at all?

ROSE: Not at all. I feel very secure. There's a lot of cops walking around. So seeing here, and sitting now and watching the parade, I'm not really scared at all. At first we were thinking, we were like, oh, we don't know about coming, but, you know, it's a very special thing. We wanted to bring him out here to see the balloons and everything. So -

COSTELLO: Gotcha.

ROSE: But security's really like top notch. But -

COSTELLO: I know. Have you ever seen so many police officers in your life?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I actually haven't. We came off the train and I saw like the police officer with the dog, the guard dog, and I was like, whoa, there. But I feel very safe. Like the parade has always been very important. Like, we've always watched it as little girls, watched it on TV. So now that we're actually here, it's like very important to us. So the, like, we feel safe here. Like, we have no worries right now.

COSTELLO: Like do you even think of ISIS?

ROSE: Not at all. Not around here. Hopefully not, I mean - so -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

COSTELLO: Thank you all for - and enjoy the parade.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: And, Angel - bye, Angel. Oh, he spoke to me. I feel really good about that.

All right, again, I'm Carol Costello. I'm out on 58th Street. I just wanted to give you a flavor of what's happening in New York City, that Americans are living their lives, they're coming together, they're having a good time despite their anxiety. And isn't that what America is all about? Three million people coming here to New York. They're expecting a record crowd. Fifty million people will be watching on television. And we haven't - oh, there's a big balloon, Ronald McDonald. Are you guys looking at Ronald McDonald? You should be looking that way. It's pretty awesome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, "The New York Times" firing back at Donald Trump for mocking one of its reporters. What Trump said that has so many people upset, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:47:34] COSTELLO: "The New York Times" calling it outrageous that Donald Trump ridiculed a reporter by mocking his physical disability. The GOP frontrunner was campaigning in South Carolina when he took aim at a journalist whose name is Serge Kovaleski, who had written an article after 9/11 about Muslims detained in New Jersey for allegedly celebrating the attacks.

Later, Kovaleski said he could not recall talking to any witnesses who saw any large celebrations in New Jersey. Here's what Trump said, imitating Kovaleski's disability.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Written by a nice reporter, now the poor guy, you got to see this guy, oh, I don't know what I said, oh, I don't remember. He's going like, I don't remember. Oh, maybe that's what I said. This is 14 years ago. He still -- They didn't do a retraction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Okay. So "The New York Times" was flabbergasted. A spokesman told CNN, quote, "We found it outrageous that Trump would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters." Not known for backing down, Trump has been firing back at "The New York Times" through his twitter account.

So for more on that let's go to Athena Jones. Good morning.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. This takes the cake when it comes to shocking displays by a politician on a stage. You don't usually see people running for office mocking someone's disability. Now, it's probably -- it's likely the crowd there in South Carolina didn't realize that Trump was mocking this reporter's affliction, but that's what he was doing.

I should clear up the fact that this reporter, at the time, back in 2001, worked for "The Washington Post," Trump had been citing his article a few days after September 11 that referenced these reports of people celebrating in Jersey City. But the same reporter, when people went back to him, said that he did a lot of shoe-leather reporting in Jersey City, couldn't track down any witnesses at time who had witnessed seeing thousands of people celebrating. This is, of course, what Trump has claimed head saw. So Trump was trying to use that past article to prove his allegation, which many fact-checkers have disproven.

Now Carol, we know that Trump has not been punished for anything he said in the past. We'll see if this changes. But he took to Twitter to slam "The New York Times" for defending their reporter. I'll read just a couple of his tweets.

[09:49:56] He said, "So since the people at 'The New York Times' have made all bad decisions over the last decade, why do people care what they write? Incompetent!" Another tweet said, "The failing 'New York Times' should be focused on good reporting and the paper's financial survival and not with constant hits on Donald Trump.'

So, again, Trump is attacking the media. This is one of his favorite targets and we'll see if this hurts him.

Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. So the Trump campaign says he's going to pick up a big African-American endorsement on Monday. Tell us about that.

JONES: This is really interesting. You've heard Trump say numerous times on the stump, Hispanics love me, he African-Americans love me. Well his campaign has announced that on Monday he'll have a press conference where 100 black evangelical pastors and religious leaders will endorse him. This endorsement is supposed to come after a private meeting between that group and Trump at Trump Tower. They have not released the names of these leaders yet. So we'll be watching that very closely.

Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Athena Jones, thanks for that report.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, NFL legend, Frank Gifford, the latest former player to be diagnosed with brain disease. Up next, how the league is responding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:55:30] COSTELLO: The NFL's concussion issue is in the headlines again this morning. This after the family of Frank Gifford announced that he suffered from the brain disease CTE. Gifford played for the New York Giants, where he suffered one of the worst hits ever in a football game. You remember this. This is NFL history. Oh, it's brutal. Happened almost 55 years ago. Gifford took that vicious blow that would knock him out of the game for an entire year.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell releasing a statement following the Gifford announcement, he writes, quote, "We are working now to improve the safety of our game. The NFL has made numerous rule changes to the game all to enhance player health and safety at all levels of the game."

Let's bring in CNN's Coy Wire along with Dr. Steven Flanagan. He's a co-director of the NYU Concussion Center. Welcome to both of you.

Doctor, I want to start with you because Frank Gifford, obviously, has passed away and the Gifford family wanted tests done on his brain. So how might CTE have affected him? Because we didn't see it publicly.

DR. STEVEN FLANAGAN, CO-DIRECTOR, NYU LANGONE CONCUSSION CENTER: So CTE is a condition that has been a around actually for a long time. Initially learned about with boxers back in the 1920s. Symptoms include changes in behavior, changes in cognition, the way we think, the way we plan and organize. We don't know what Frank Gifford's symptoms were, but his family did donate his brain. And findings were consistent with what is now referred to as CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

COSTELLO: So Coy, did it surprise you that Frank Gifford suffered the effects of CTE?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: It did, Carol. It's a bit misleading because he seemed to live a pretty coherent life, I will say. He was very successful late in life. But again, his family said that they had suspicions that he was suffering from CTE. And so it reminds us that this disease does exist. And Carol, you know, it also, in light of this coming just days after a situation where the St. Louis Rams quarterback had his head smashed to the turf and he wasn't pulled from the game, not even for one play, despite all the work the NFL has done and this persist proclamations that they are taking concussions more serious, how could something like this happen, Carol? That's the big question right now and one that the NFL has already started to address. They addressed that the Rams got this one wrong. They essentially reprimanded them by making all 32 teams jump on a conference call and discuss these concussion protocols once again, Carol.

COSTELLO: So - I just can't help, but I want to ask the doctor, when you see something like this, what goes through your mind?

FLANAGAN: Well, that was a pretty significant blow he took to his head. When he was not able to stand up on his own power immediately afterwards, I think it was fairly clear that this was most likely a concussion. And when someone has a concussion in a sports event like that, one of the most important things is to, one, recognize it, and, two, just get them out of the game. They shouldn't be allowed to be put back in. Really all you're doing is allowing them to play injured and, perhaps, make themselves more susceptible to another injury. So when in doubt, take them out. That's the most important thing you can do in a situation like that.

COSTELLO: So Coy, this happened on national television. Everybody saw it. But the coach said he didn't see it. I don't understand that.

WIRE: Yes, Carol, coach said he didn't see it and the trainer said, well, Case Keenum said that he was OK. Of course Case Keenum is going to say he's OK. And you know what, maybe Case Keenum didn't even know where he was. I remember I played an entire series in an NFL game, Carol, and I didn't remember any of it. I was eventually pulled from the game and I didn't believe it until I saw film the next day of that game and I was on autopilot. Hit my head, big collision, I didn't remember anything.

And that's the scary part. You have to have someone looking out for this player. What about the trainer on the sideline who is supposed to see this? There's a spotter now, new protocol by the NFL as of last year, they're supposed to look out for players possibly suffering concussive symptoms, and no one saw this? It's hard to believe. And then you had his player, his teammate, and that's where it can really get powerful. His teammate was right there helping him stand up. The guy couldn't stand up. Someone has to step up and start saving -- literally saving guys' lives potentially and adding years to their life, Carol.

COSTELLO: It's just so hard to watch. And Doctor, it's not like you can repair a brain when it's injured like that, right?