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Terror Fears Spur Anti-Islam Protests; U.S.-Cuba Hammer out Embassy Details; Bill Belichick Addresses Deflate-Gate

Aired January 22, 2015 - 10:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

In Germany the leader of a prominent anti-Islam movement is stepping down after backlash over several controversial photos. Lutz Bachmann has been a key organizer of anti-Muslim rallies. Thousands have turned out for these rallies, but they may have been outnumbered by counter-protesters criticizing their message in part because of this picture you just witnessed.

Fred Pleitgen has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERICK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is an extremely controversial demonstration here in the town of Leipzig. These people are here because they want to demonstrate against what they call the Islamization of Europe. They also want stricter laws against asylum seekers who want to come to this country and generally want fewer foreigners here in Germany.

They're also very anti-media which is one of the reasons why very few of folks that are part of this demonstration were willing to speak to us.

Excuse me. Do you speak English?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PLEITGEN: Can you tell me why you came here. We're from CNN television in America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no.

PLEITGEN: This movement has been gaining a lot of steam here in Germany. They're also very pro Russia and very anti-American. One of the main speakers here was calling on all Americans to get out of Germany.

However, the anti-Islamization movement is also running into a lot of problems. In fact one of its leading figures, Lutz Bachmann had to resign because he posted pictures on his Facebook account of himself posing similar to Adolph Hitler. There was another one that showed him in what appear to be a Ku Klux Klan costume. After that, he resigned.

Now, one of the things that we also have to say is that you have this movement here which does contain right wing elements, but you also have a very big countermovement. And that was evident here as well.

There were 19 demos counter to this one, many of them calling for more tolerance, calling for Germany to allow foreigners here into this country.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Leipzig, Germany.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a new era in U.S.-Cuban relations could begin today. We'll take you live to Havana as top diplomats hammer out details as each prepares to open an embassy.

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COSTELLO: Today marks the start of a new chapter in Cuban-American diplomatic relations. The two countries are holding talks right now, hammering out details as each prepares to open an embassy on the other's soil. And it's being done in the shadow of this, a Russian spy ship docked on a Havana pier.

CNN's Karl Penhaul, live in Havana to tell us more. Good morning, Karl.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

Well, right now as we speak, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State has started those historic meetings with her Cuban counterpart -- Roberta Jacobson arrived in town yesterday. We know that overnight she had a working dinner with some of the Cubans as well to try and to smooth the path for what is going on right now.

Although it is a very historic visit, the highest level of U.S. delegation to visit Cuba in 35 years I think that this morning's session is pretty much about the nuts and bolts, the nuts and bolts about how to open a U.S. embassy here in Havana and to allow the Cubans to do the same thing in D.C. The kind of things that they're going to be talking about, how many staff can they have down here at the embassy. Right now they have 51. That includes the marines that are down there. They want a few more to allow them to do business as usual.

What they also want to do is for the Cubans to lift a restriction that has been in place on U.S. diplomats here to allow them to travel around the whole of the island, not just the capital Havana. Both sides are in a little bit of a rush. They want to try to get this thing done, They want to try and get those embassies open before April because then there's a key summit of the American Summit in Panama.

It remains to be seen whether they can do that on the timeline. But certainly they're going to be moving towards that kind of stuff in the course of the morning. There may be hiccups, the Cubans may stand in the way and say hey to normalize relations we need to let the embargo. But that is likely to be political posturing because even the Cubans are pragmatic. They know that it's U.S. Congress, not U.S. administration, the one who could only lift that embargo -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Any movement from that Russian ship behind you?

PENHAUL: You ask about that Russian ship. I mean the timing of that is key, isn't it because that pulled into port the day before the U.S. delegation arrived. Of course, Cuba and Russia -- Cuba and the Soviet Union, a long-standing allies but that happens to be a spy ship. It's bristling with all kinds of eavesdropping equipment. It could just be President Vladimir Putin trying to tweak world public opinion saying, hey, Cuba is my sphere of influence so just watch what you're talking about, America, when you come down here. He's hidden it in plain sight. So really trying to send a message rather than doing any serious eavesdropping I would guess.

We haven't seen much movement from that boat. We have seen the sailors at one point disembarking. My guess is they're still running around -- somewhere around Havana, possibly taking advantage of that 80 cent of bottled ram that they call here train sparks. It's industrial strength rum. And if they have their hands on that, I imagine it's havoc in Havana -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Actually it sounds pretty good to me. Karl Penhaul, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Checking other top stories for you at 40 minutes past. In Newtown, Connecticut council members have voted to tear down to tear down the home of the Sandy Hook school shooter. Adam Lanza shot his mother at the house and then killed 20 children and six teachers and staffers, Sand Hook, elementary school in 2012.

Neighbors had also urged officials to raise the house saying it's a reminder of the evil that resided there.

In New York FBI agents have a arrested a long time speaker of the state assembly. Sheldon Silver faces corruption charges on accusations that a law firm secretly paid him money. In a few hours federal prosecutors are due to lay out their case against the Manhattan Democrat.

House Republicans have decided to drop a controversial measure that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks. Lawmakers were scheduled to vote today but couldn't round up enough support. Instead they'll vote on a measure banning taxpayer money for abortion. The vote coincides with the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade which is being commemorated with rallies around the country.

A top health official in California is issuing new guidelines on that measles outbreak at Disneyland. The infectious disease expert says anyone who has not been vaccinated should probably avoid the theme park for now. Since December there have been 59 cases of measles across the state -- 42 of them linked to the Disney properties.

All right. Let's take a look at how Wall Street is doing right now. The Dow, Nasdaq and the S&P all opened higher only to start falling. Now they're back up again. Who knows what the day will bring. Maybe Alison Kosik does.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: There's always a see saw to expect. You know, the big talk today though is of these layoffs that we've seen happen with a lot of companies all of a sudden. Many people think that it's really just coming in waves where it's actually not because oftentimes because it's earning season you see these companies, when they report their earnings, they go ahead. And if there are going to be layoffs, they're going to announce them.

So we have a bunch of companies today announcing those lay-offs. And these numbers are big. I want to show you just how big. EBay laying off 2,400 workers, that's about 7 percent of its workforce. AmEx getting rid of more than 4,000 jobs -- that's 6 percent of its staff. Baker Hughes -- that's an oil services provider letting go of 7,000 positions at 11 percent of their staff. And then U.S. Seals laying off 13,000 positions in four difficult states.

So what's going on here? There are a couple things going on. First of all you've got these companies like eBay and AmEx laying off these workers because of company specific reasons. You look at eBay -- it's spinning off its payments arms, PayPal and it says it's simplifying the structure. The same kind of thing for Amex, saying that it's kind of streamlined.

But then you have the oil industry -- a totally different animal. You have the repercussions of a dramatic drop in oil prices over the past six, seven months. You're seeing this all kind of start to filter out. Oil companies, the big oil companies like Chevron and Exxon, the ones I know you love. I say that jokingly, you know what -- they're not profiting as much. So that means they're not spending as much money, not drilling as much, they're not exploring as much.

They're not using the services of these companies like Baker Hughes which actually service bigger oil companies. You're seeing companies these bigger oil companies. You're seeing companies like Baker Hughes have these the lay-offs. U.S. Steel laying off people because there's less demand for equipment like pipes that the oil industry uses. But all is not lost. There's a silver lining here.

COSTELLO: I'm ready I'm ready for it.

KOSIK: Here it is. Well, you know, it never feels good to be laid off. I've been there. It just doesn't feel good. If you're going to be laid off anyway, I guess now is the best time if there's ever a best time because your prospects for getting work are better than they were let's say two years ago if you were laid off.

Because you look at how the job picture is right now. Last year was the best year of job growth here in this country since 1999 -- almost 3 million jobs created. So the sky isn't falling. If you want to see sort the downside to the jobs picture, it's wages. If you want to have something to worry about, our wages really are stagnating. Our paychecks really haven't --

COSTELLO: Those oil jobs -- let's face, they're good paying jobs.

KOSIK: These are good paying jobs and these are people their livelihood. Losing their job is something to Sir, be worried about -- Once again the sky isn't falling for the overall jobs picture.

COSTELLO: Ok. I feel a little better now. But then I'm not someone being laid off. Alison Kosik, thanks so much. I appreciate.

Still to come Bill Belichick says he was shocked to learn about deflate gate. But is ignorance an excuse? We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: This afternoon, we will hear from New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady about deflate gate. His news conference comes as head coach Bill Belichick makes his very first comment saying he was shocked to learn about the investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL BELICHICK, HEAD COACH, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: My entire coaching career I have never talked to any player, staff member about football air pressure. That is not a subject I have ever brought up. To me the footballs are approved by the league and game officials pregame and we play with what's out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Belichick also says he had no knowledge of the situation until Monday.

So let's talk about that. Joining me now, Nat Newell (ph), the assistant sports editor for the "Indianapolis Star"; Luke Schulthels -- did I pronounce that right Luke?

LUKE SCHULTHELS, COLTS SUPER FAN: It's actually It's Schulthels but you're close -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Ok. I tried. You are a Colts super fan and editor of the blog, "Horseshoe Heroes", thank you for being here.

And on the phone is Michael Holly, co-host for WEEI sports radio in Boston. He's also the author of two books on Bill Belichick.

Good morning to all of you.

MICHAEL HOLLY, WEEI SPORTS RADIO: Good morning. My name is the easiest to pronounce. You got the Holly right.

COSTELLO: I know -- thank goodness.

HOLLY: That's the easy one.

COSTELLO: So Michael I do want to start with you since you're an expert on Bill Belichick. What did you think of his press conference? HOLLY: Well, I thought it was an interesting press conference because

there's a puzzle here. We've been thinking about these 11 underinflated footballs, 11 out of 12. The puzzle was, one of the big pieces and I think a lot of people in Indianapolis, and Luke and Nat can speak to this more clearly, people in Indianapolis and around the country are wondering was Bill Belichick in some hoodie, some shadowy figure around at Gillette Stadium, either underinflating the footballs himself or telling other people to do that.

He cleared up that part today. He said he had no knowledge of it. It really comes down to if you believe Bill Belichick or not. I think the other piece of the puzzle will be solved today around 4:00 Eastern when Tom Brady gives his press conference. As these guys know, Luke and Nat both know that the quarterbacks around the league are very picky about the air pressure of footballs. So maybe that will clear this thing up a bit more.

COSTELLO: Luke, I'll ask you, do you believe Bill Belichick?

SCHULTHELS: I think I -- I'm not sure actually. I think he might know or might not know. I know it was a little fishy that he's kind of deflecting the blame to come Tom Brady now. Maybe he's covering his bases or maybe he actually didn't know. I don't know. We'll see.

COSTELLO: I don't think he's really selling out Tom Brady, do you, Nat? Because kind of what he said is like I'll let Tom Brady talk about that and then we found out that Tom Brady is going to talk later this afternoon anyway. So that had to be coordinated -- right.

NAT NEWELL: I would think -- It will be interesting to see what Tom Brady said. We talked to Jack Trudeau, who's a long time NFL quarterback, spent eight years with the Colts. He said it was very possible -- the coach, he took care of the footballs when he was quarterbacking. The coach didn't have a lot to do with that process. He said it's very possible a coach wouldn't know, if something was going on with the inflation of the balls that the coach wouldn't know. It's entirely possible Bill Belichick wasn't involved in this.

COSTELLO: Do you think Tom Brady might have been?

NEWELL: Again, I don't have any knowledge of how the Patriots handle the preparation of the balls. All I can tell you is that Jack Trudeau said that said when he was a quarterback it was between the quarterback and the equipment manager. There's any other number of reasons that could have caused this. I mean the weather could have caused some problems with the balls.

In the teleconference Bill Belichick noted that if they're inflating them to the minimum amount, any amount below that would cause a violation. Of course, they were two pounds (inaudible). I have a hard time believing the weather caused that. It will be interesting to see what Tom Brady says at 4:00.

COSTELLO: Lou, I'm a Detroit Lions fan and even I'm kind of I'm upset about how this all went down. As a Colts fan, I can't imagine the emotion that is coursing through your body. SCHULTHELS: Yes, absolutely. I mean it's really troubling. I think

the Colts probably would have lost that game regardless. Still at the same time you'd like to think that everyone is playing on a level field and that all of the NFL's 32 franchises are abiding by the same rules in that regard.

It's also troubling to know how long this has been going on because we've heard reports that this could have been occurring as far back as week 11 when the Colts played the Patriots in the regular season. I mean who knows how many games or how many years this type of thing has been going on. It's pretty unclear right now.

COSTELLO: Let's pose that question to Michael. You know, the New England Patriots have a reputation, Michael.

HOLLY: Right. I just wanted to clarify the ball pressure situation and who done it, for lack of a better phrase. When I heard about this story, I just put it into four categories without a lot of information. There are four villains, so to speak, of who could be responsible. It's the officials. Possibly they didn't do their jobs.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Come on, Michael.

HOLLY: I'm giving you the breakdown. Just kind of process of elimination -- they've been exonerated by the league. So the officials did their jobs. They're supposed to check in the beginning. They're off the list. Then you go to Bill Belichick because of the reputation, people nationally think Bill Belichick is that guy. Based on what he said, you can cross him off the list or keep him as a suspect. I'll cross him off the list.

Now you have two other people. You've got the equipment manager and you've got Tom Brady. They probably should be in a category together. That's really how it happens. As Nat said earlier -- a 51-degree night at kickoff. Even though you say the balls were inflated in 71- degree temperatures, perfect control temperatures. Going from 71 to 51 is not enough to take that much pressure out of the ball, 15 percent below what it's supposed to be.

I really believe that it's probably something with the equipment manager or Brady. Let me just add this quickly, Carol. Bill Belichick would be a fool, he would be an absolute fool to stand there and lie today with all the scrutiny on him. Because of the history and because of the tense relationship between Goodell and Belichick, Goodell is ready to tear his head off if there's any inconsistency in what he has to say. So he has to tell the truth, otherwise he will be suspended or get a significant fine like he got in 2007.

COSTELLO: We'll see what Tom Brady has to say later this afternoon. CNN will carry that press conference live. Thanks to you, Michael, Luke and Nat.

HOLLY: Carol, good luck with the Lions.

COSTELLO: Thank you. We're going to go to the Super Bowl next year -- I'm sure.

One thing is for sure the controversy has made deflate gate the word of the week -- maybe of the year. Our Jeanne Moos reports from Twitter last night to your breakfast cereal, everyone is getting a jab in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The lack of air in footballs sure hasn't resulted in a lack of air time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Deflate-gate.

COSTELLO: Deflate-gate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Deflated balls.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, TV HOST: Soft balls.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Deflate-gate.

MOOS: Deflate-gate is spawning everything from cookies to cartoons. In this case mimicking Salvador Dali's famous soft timepieces.

The NFL's reported finding that 11 of 12 Patriot footballs were underinflated, just inflated the controversy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eleven out of 12, they should say, you're not the winners. The other guys get to go to the Super Bowl.

MOOS: Some pass judgment in tweets, "Cheaties, breakfast of chumps" and "This is what the Patriots are playing for, a deflated Super Bowl trophy."

Deflate-gate was a gift to late night comics.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've been using deflated balls for quite a while now. Take a look.

MOOS: Even the vice president was asked his opinion.

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Having been a receiver, I like a softer ball. That's all I can tell you.

MOOS: Grown men and women succumb to attacks of the giggles.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Patriots responds about their balls.

MOOS: Of course, a couple of companies ran with the ball. Krispy Kreme noted, "Ours are fully filled."

(on camera): Now, notice what I'm not holding, I mention this because I feel like I'm one of the only ones not holding one today.

(voice-over): Or even two.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a less inflated one than that ball.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That ball, a little bit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This you can see --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have very small hands.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God. It makes a difference.

MOOS: Not since Mr. Whipple.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Whipple, please don't squeeze the Charmin.

MOOS: -- has a squishy object being objected to so much fondling. If only the Patriots listened to the Little Rascals, quarterback Tom Brady wouldn't be trying to laugh off softball questions.

RADIO HOST: Would you care to weigh in on that in.

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: I think I've heard it all at this point.

MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Carol Costello. CNN NEWSROOM with John Berman up next.

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