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Historic Flooding Hit the U.S.; U.S. Spy on Israel During Iran Talks?; "Affluenza" Teen & Mom Returning to U.S. Today. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired December 30, 2015 - 09:00   ET

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


ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

[09:00:05] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow in today for Carol Costello. 9:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. And we have historic deadly flooding that is striking the United States. More than 16 million Americans under flood warnings right now.

Take a look at this. This is a rescue unfolding live on our air right now. It is all happening in the city of Eureka, Missouri. You see a wide shot there. If you pan in you see crews trying to get a stranded driver out of a truck that is nearly submerged in flood waters there.

You have entire neighborhoods under water this morning. Flood waters killing at least 13 people in Missouri alone. Roads completely impassable. The water expected to rise for days. Governor Jay Nixon activating the National Guard overnight, issuing this warning to residents just hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JAY NIXON (D), MISSOURI: We're very concerned about how the next 35 hours going to go. We're going to make sure that the people are safe in that St. Louis area there. You've got Pacific, you've got Eureka, you've got Valley Park, you've got areas where the water is rising high. These are highly populated areas so setting up shelters at places like Francis Howell senior high school and places like that, so that folks who do have to leave their home, we're going make sure that they are warm and safe.

We've never seen waters this high and when it goes above record, not by an inch but by two or three feet, you really don't know exactly how far that water is going to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You heard him say, we have never seen flood waters this high.

We have live team coverage this morning. Jennifer Gray and Alina Machado along the river there in Missouri.

Alina, let me begin with you. You are in the town of Pacific. And I know you were there yesterday. Talk to me about the difference between yesterday and today, how much worse it's gotten, how people are doing.

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, we know that hundreds of people who live in this town have left simply because of what you're seeing behind me.

I'm going to move out of the way so you can get a better sense of the situation here. Look how high the water is. Look around the Opera House Building, the water is about several feet high. And if you look to the left you can also see several homes that are completely surrounded by water. This is the Meramec River. And it's been at flood stage since Sunday and relief is still days away.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO (voice-over): Missouri bracing for historic dangerous flooding, dozens of counties facing a severe threat as the Mississippi, Missouri, and Meramec Rivers approach record levels.

NIXON: Now that the rain has moved out, the threat has changed but it is not by any means over.

MACHADO: The deadly floodwaters claiming more than a dozen lives. Many fear this is just the beginning as swollen rivers rise and crest in the next 48 hours.

NIXON: You're talking about almost 10 more vertical feet of moving water, so the power we're talking about as well as the volume is extremely significant.

MACHADO: The governor declaring a state of emergency and activating the National Guard as officials predict river levels could exceed the Great Flood of 1993 that claimed nearly 50 lives and damaged or destroyed some 50,000 homes, the most devastating in modern U.S. history.

In the town of West Alton, near St. Louis, the mayor urging his 500 residents to evacuate after water levels over topped the levee.

MAYOR WILLIAM RICHTER, WEST ALTON, MISSOURI: This is your notice that this is serious, so you need to get your final preparations and go.

MACHADO: Parts of Union, Missouri, under water with homes, cars, restaurants completely submerged. And in Bourbon, one photographer even capturing video of this cabin floating away. Authorities urging drivers to stay off inundated roadways, fearing they'll get stuck and swept away.

NIXON: The vast majority of deaths we've had, and I can't stress this enough, is people driving into water, and especially driving into water at night.

MACHADO: It's the race against time as residents and volunteers sandbag their homes and prepare to evacuate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am worried. I just don't know what to do. And it's still supposed to come up higher. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My main concern right now is just getting our

vehicle out. So that we're not -- our truck is not trapped in here.

MACHADO: Officials now watching and hoping that the levees hold.

RICHTER: It's more just a wait and see. Once it's over, then we'll have to go from there because we really don't know what's going to happen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACHADO: Flood waters in this area are expected to crest at about 35 feet. That's two feet above the record that was set back in 1982 -- Poppy.

HARLOW: I know the mayor this morning saying we have 40 more hours of concern ahead of them before this starts to recede.

Alina, thank you very much.

I want to go upstream now in Valley Park. Our meteorologist Jennifer Gray is there.

Now you just heard Alina. Two feet higher than the '93 flood. What are we expecting where you are?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we should break the record by three feet here. We are expected to crest between the night tonight and 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

[09:05:06] We broke the record earlier this morning at about 40 feet. Flood stage is 16 and so we are already at 40, expected to go to 43 by tonight. So it's a little misleading because it's not raining at all, and you think of floods, you think of rain. But the waters are still rising all around here. And will continue to do so for the next couple of days.

Look behind me. These are major thoroughfares not only for St. Louis here but for the entire country. Interstate 44 is shut down, this section of it, and you can see the water just underneath it. That is Highway 141 underneath that bridge. And the water is almost to the bridge. Expected to rise another three feet. So you can imagine, we might be touching that bridge by tonight around midnight.

And this is going to be slow to recede, Poppy. That's to do with river flooding. It's slow to rise but it's slow to recede as well. So they are going to be cleaning up for days, weeks, even months to come. The St. Louis areas has received record rainfall this year. More than 60 inches of rain. Normally they get about 40 inches in a year. They've received 11 inches in the month of December alone. So with all of that rainwater, nowhere for it to go, it filters into the streams, the rivers, and then eventually meeting up with the Mississippi River.

So not only is the St. Louis area going to see a lot of flooding, we're going to see major flooding in places like Paducah, Memphis, Little Rock and then even points downstream from there.

HARLOW: Yes.

GRAY: So in the next week, we're going to have -- really going to be watching it closely but these areas that we're looking at now, these water rescues, you can't stress enough. Don't drive.

HARLOW: Right.

GRAY: That's the most simple thing you can do to protect your life, Poppy. Just don't drive.

HARLOW: No question about that. Jennifer Gray, thank you so much.

And what you're looking at right now -- let's bring those photos back up if we can. Those are live images out of Eureka, Missouri. You have a fire truck extended now trying to rescue a driver out of a nearly completely submerged pickup truck. Again this is happening live. We are watching it unfold with you.

Emergency crews doing everything they can, but the governor there, Jay Nixon, this morning saying most of the deaths they have seen have been people that have driven into these flood waters. They are moving so quickly. It's unclear where they might cross the road. Stay out of your vehicles there if you can once you are in a safe and secure place.

We'll keep you posted of course on all of the historic flooding happening there in Missouri.

If you open the "Wall Street Journal" this morning, this certainly caught your eye. A major report that the NSA reportedly took came at Israel and captured conversations involving lawmakers, focusing on Benjamin Netanyahu. The "Wall Street Journal" reporting stunning new details about how the Obama administration targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Iran nuclear talks.

It cites more than two dozen interviews of current and former intelligence officials. The paper says the NSA intercepted private conversation between Israeli officials and members of the U.S. Congress while Netanyahu was campaigning hard against that potential nuclear deal with Iran.

Let's go straight to our CNN senior political correspondent Manu Raju in Washington. And we are hearing now from both sides Israel not happy at all. What are they saying? What's the White House saying?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: And that's right, Poppy. Remember, this is part of long festering tensions between the Obama administration and Benjamin Netanyahu which really stems from that effort that drive by Mr. Netanyahu to kill the Iran nuclear agreement. Now at the time of his campaign to kill that nuclear agreement allegedly the United States was listening in on his phone calls.

That actually had already been known for months. What is new is that those -- those conversations with members of Congress allegedly were swept in as part of that effort. The White House thought he was leaking sensitive details to undermine that nuclear accord.

Now this is what the Israel government is saying in response to this report. Israel's minister of intelligence, says Israel does not spy on the United States and we expect that our great friend the U.S. will treat us in a similar fashion. If the information on the subject turns out to be true Israel must file a formal protest with the American government and demand it stop all activities of this kind.

Now the American government is not denying this report, is not confirming it either. Now asked to respond, the National Security Council spokesman, Ned Price, said we're not going to comment on any specific alleged intelligence activities as a general matter and as we have said previously we do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is specific and validated national security purpose.

When it comes to Israel President Obama has said repeatedly that the U.S. commitment to Israel's security is sacrosanct. So obviously a not entire denial, not even close to that, presuming that these activities have taken place.

[09:10:09] What will be interesting to see is how members of Congress react. Right now there has been a muted response particularly from the Republican leadership. I've reached out to both Paul Ryan's office, the House speaker, as well as Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, neither of which are commenting at the moment. We'll see the extent to which members of Congress were briefed into the extent of the spying. Maybe that's one reason why we have not heard a lot of outrage from Capitol Hill at this point -- Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. Absolutely, Manu. And it's really interesting because this report details how Netanyahu and his advisers, the "Wall Street Journal" alleges, leaked some of these details of the U.S.-Iranian negotiations, trying to convince some of those lawmakers who were on the fence about the Iran-U.S. nuclear deal ahead of that big address to Congress.

We'll keep following this, bring more details as we have it. Manu, thank you very much.

I want to take you back to Eureka, Missouri, right now. Take a look at these live pictures of a rescue under way in Eureka, Missouri. A pickup truck nearly submerged. The driver there preparing to tie a rope around his waist. A firefighter just walked the length of this ladder out to him. Gave him this rope. He will attempt to tie it on and one would assume walk back across that ladder to the fire truck.

This is historic flooding. The governor of Missouri. Jay Nixon, saying this morning on "NEW DAY" that the floodwater there are expected to be at least two feet higher than that historic '93 flood. He also pointed out in a plea for his residents, not to bribe on these roads, unnecessarily, saying most of the deaths have come as a result of driving into these flood waters. Remember these are moving quickly. When you leave your house you

might not know what you are driving into. When you look at the recent rough weather across the United States in the past week there have been 49 deaths associated. Obviously emergency officials doing everything they can right now to rescue this man who is now laying on the hood of his car trying to escape the floodwaters in Eureka, Missouri.

Much more of this breaking news after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:39] POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: There is compelling new video out this morning from the case of the so-called "affluenza" teen, who fled to Mexico with his mother weeks ago. We're going to bring you that video as soon as we can. What it shows and ABC has it. We're getting it ready for you.

But it is Ethan Couch and his mother at a butcher shop in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, just two hours before they were captured by Mexican authorities on Monday. We'll bring it to you as soon as we can.

These are the two people in question now apprehended. They are expected to return to the United States today. Obviously, Ethan Couch is the teen who fled the country violating his probation after driving drunk and killing four people.

The Texas district attorney in the case reveals Ethan may face a maximum of four months in prison. The sheriff spoke about it this morning on "NEW DAY."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF DEE ANDERSON, TARRANT COUNTY, TEXAS: Welcome to juvenile law in Texas, you know. It is designed obviously in most cases for juveniles to be rehabilitated and think of the well-being of the child and it doesn't really take into account a terrible crime like was committed here with the loss of life of four innocent people. Again I'll say it, we haven't seen the last of him in our legal system here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: All right. Ed Lavandera following it from Dallas.

Ed, you know, this is the same sheriff who came on a few weeks ago when Ethan disappeared and said, "We will hunt you down, we will find you." They did exactly that in Mexico.

What else is he saying?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, basically, he said if Ethan Couch and his mother had continued on the run that they were basically looking at lifetime of exile. That they would never have been able to return back here to the United States. So, now, they are in the process of waiting for Ethan Couch and his mother Tonya Couch to return back here. And the legal troubles for this family just continue to get worse and worse.

Now, Ethan Couch is still bound by the conviction there in that juvenile case. Prosecutors in Fort Worth, Texas, are trying to move his case from the juvenile system into the adult system and they said that would give them more control and more stricter punishment if he is to evaluate his provision. But there isn't a hearing scheduled on that until January 19 of next year.

So, for now, Ethan Couch is bound by the terms of the probationary status in his juvenile case. He's technically not committed any new crimes here. It's just a probation violation.

So, he can be held in jail up until his 19th birthday which is in mid- April. And then from there, you know, things can change dramatically, kind of depending on what the hearing brings about next month. So, we'll be monitoring that closely.

As for Ethan Couch's mother Tonya, she's faces legal troubles of her own. She's facing a felony charge and up to 10 years in prison and the sheriff told us that he wasn't surprised that the two were found together.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: During our investigation we received some -- talked to some people who said that there was a gathering which was likened to -- akin to a going away party before they fled the country. Again it just to me shows the arrogance of the family, that they don't believe the law applies. They thumb their noses at authorities again and hold a party if you will before they decide to leave the country and bid everyone farewell on -- like they were leaving on a cruise or something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: So, Poppy, as investigators try to continue to piece together exactly how and when they moved from Fort Worth into Mexico, authorities here in Texas waiting on their arrival back here, suspected at some point today -- Poppy.

HARLOW: And, Ed, before I let you go, what are the citizens there in Dallas and across Texas, what are they saying about this case?

LAVANDERA: There's just been an incredible amount of outrage and it stems back to the sentence that was given to Ethan Couch, driving with three times the legal limit of alcohol in his system, killing four people, leaving one of the passengers in his truck crippled for life and just basically getting ten years of probation and no jail time for that crime and that horrible and horrific accident.

[09:20:09] So, a lot of this still stems back to that original sentence. And obviously, the argument that his side and his attorneys put forth this idea of affluenza that he was too wealthy and privileged and was never taught right from wrong and that that led to all of this. That is an idea that has not sat well with people across the country and that's why this case has sparked so much outrage and intrigue.

HARLOW: No question about it. Ed Lavandera, live for us in Dallas, thank you, Ed.

I want to talk more about the legal implications and also the psychological component to this. We got Joey Jackson, criminal defense attorney, along with psychotherapist Robi Ludwig.

Thank you both for being here.

You heard Ed bring up this juvenile court versus being tried as an adult. He's turning 19 in April. When he re-faces the judge, what do you think? Will he be tried as an adult?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, there is a broader discussion, Poppy. Good morning to you and good morning, Dr. Robi.

DR. ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Good morning.

JACKSON: So, what happens is, is that, a broader discussion is this. We're talking about the sentence and how it was a miscarriage of justice. There are two tools the prosecutors have. One is when something happens that involves a juvenile and we get that the juvenile system is meant for rehabilitation. In some instances, if it's really egregious, you deal with it in adult court despite their age at the time.

And many laws throughout the country, including Texas, allow for the initial prosecution to begin as an adult. The second thing that needs to be talked about is, OK, you didn't do that and now they are in juvenile court and so now what to do? And I think what they're trying to do now, Poppy, is to move it to adult court, so that the punishment can be more severe.

What might that entail? You heard Ed talk about, the sheriff talked about also the fact he can only be held until his 19th birthday which will be four months. That's ridiculous, right? And so, now, though, in the event the motion of the prosecutor is successful, to move to the adult court. It's much more harsh to the extent he violates that probation, he could be punished really extraordinarily.

And some are saying ten years for each offense, meaning for every death, 10, 10, 10, 10. But there's a legal argument even there as to whether the sentencing would run consecutively or whether he would have to be held to concurrent time, that is 10 years for all four deaths and as much as it occurred from the same transaction and current --

HARLOW: Let's take a look. We just got this video that I was telling you about earlier. So, let's roll it. What you're looking is video from ABC News, Ethan Couch and his mother walking into a butcher shop in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, caught on surveillance video.

Obviously, you see him there in backwards baseball hat and his beard and mustache grown out. And this was two hours before the authorities in Mexico apprehended both the mother and Ethan Couch. As we look at this, Robi, to you, I want you also to listen to one of

the family members for this victim who was so severely injured in the crash reacting to the news that his maximum sentence could be 120 days only.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MCCONNELL, SON INJURED BY ETHAN COUCH: Well, I'm no judge. But he's had four chances without incarceration and his recidivism has just continued. So, the D.A. was originally asking for 20 years. And I've seen nothing that's happened so far that would make me change my mind that 20 years wasn't warranted sentence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Thinking about the psychological profile of someone like Ethan Couch, what punishment would resonate with him?

LUDWIG: You know it is really interesting, and kind of hard to know. But I do think prison in this case would be very good for somebody like this, because he has made his mother the law. And he has a pathological, codependent, enmeshed relationship with a woman who thinks her son can do no wrong.

Really, she has made herself the law. She believes she's the only person who knows how special her son is. In some ways, he is her soul mate. She -- you know, one wonders if she protecting him the way she wanted to be protected.

So, instead of saying, oh the law, look at what I did. For most people, this would be a rock bottom. He's saying, well, my mother feels that I should be innocent, so I'm going to go with what she says.

So that needs to be changed, that reality, that altered reality.

HARLOW: Take him out of her custody and put in the custody of the state, of the federal government.

LUDWIG: And that is what many sociopaths need. I'm not saying he is, but he certainly was raised to function like one.

HARLOW: So, Joey, you're a defense attorney, and if you were walking into the court, and you were defending Ethan Couch now, and his mother now, what would your argument be?

JACKSON: I think as far as Ethan Couch goes, there's not much to argue. Basically, he's protected by the law in as much as he'll get that four months. Now, if he does something down the road, of course, in adult court, it becomes much more strict punishment.

I think for the mother, it is interesting that her exposure is a lot more than his exposure in terms of what she can face, two to ten years. What I would do, quite frankly, is call someone like Dr. Robi in to talk about the psychological implications. [09:25:02] What mother is not going to fend for their child? What

mother is not going to provide the love and support? What mother would want to see this child --

LUDWIG: When you have a pathological mother who says it is OK to kill people because I know your real soul --

JACKSON: Different issue.

LUDWIG: -- then what chance does that child have to be functional in society? It makes it that much harder.

JACKSON: Yes.

HARLOW: (INAUDIBLE) as the parent is huge.

LUDWIG: Is huge because every child makes their parent right. If you have a parent who is disturbed, and this is not only about wealth, although that's a contributing factor. If you have a parent that merged with their son and says it is OK to kill someone, I know you didn't mean it or the law is victimizing you, then that child is going to go with I'm going with what my mother says about me.

JACKSON: Yes.

HARLOW: Robi, thank you. Joey, thank you very much.

We'll keep watching this. They are expected to arrive back in the United States and face the music today.

Still to come, two New Year's terror plots foiled in two days in Europe by American authorities. We are keeping very close eyes on this. What they are doing to keep us safe here at home when we bring in 2016.

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