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New Day

Three Wounded, Gunman Dead on FSU Campus; Buffalo Bracing for Another Round of Snow; Interview with NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo; Obama to Announce Executive Action on Immigration; Interview with Reps. Sean Duffy and Henry Cuellar

Aired November 20, 2014 - 07:00   ET

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

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Well, when one student said he was shot, another thought he was kidding, he wasn't. Students hitting the books for exams, instead running for cover from a gunman.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Breaking overnight --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you serious? Oh my God, are you OK?

CANDIOTTI: Moments of fear inside this Florida State University library. One FSU student capturing it on cell phone video.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the Tallahassee Police Department, and the FSU Police Department. There has been a shooting in the library. Stay where you are.

CANDIOTTI: It was just before 12:30 this morning when an unidentified gunman opened fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As you know, somebody has a gun. We have somebody that's been shot, call 911.

CANDIOTTI: One man seen lying on the floor, apparently shot in the leg as a librarian makes a frantic 911 call.

FSU senior Sarah Evans shoots the heart-pounding video and described a chaotic scene.

SARAH EVANS, WITNESS: I saw one of the employees kind of looking frantic, going crazy, and that's when I thought something was pretty wrong.

CANDIOTTI: The campus on lockdown as police swarm the building. Students warned to, quote, "Seek shelter immediately. Stay away from doors and windows," in a text message from the university emergency alert system.

Photos flood Twitter as the ordeal unfolds, showing police with assault rifles inside the library, eventually leading the students to safety. At least three people injured and transported to the hospital, one in critical condition. The shooter? Shot and killed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They gave them -- gave the suspect commands. And the suspect did not comply with the commands and actually shot at one of the officers. They returned fire, and the subject was killed.

CANDIOTTI: After a nearly three-hour ordeal, university officials assuring the FSU community the situation is under control.

Classes have been canceled at FSU for the day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to continue the investigation. It will take not only hours, but days to put all the pieces together. Obviously, everyone wants to know why and that those -- that's the hard question that we're going to continue to investigate. And try to find those answers for everybody.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CANDIOTTI: About 300 students were in the library at the time. Police calling the shooter a lone gunman. Who is he? Why he did it, where the gun came from, how he got inside the library. Plenty of questions today, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Susan, thank you very much.

Now earlier we spoke with FSU senior Sarah Evans. She was in the library when the shooting began. She actually started taking video before that you just saw in Susan's piece. We asked her how she first got word about what was happening. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

C. CUOMO: So you're in the library. How do you get word that this is happening?

EVANS: I was actually right by the exit. I was just about to leave the library. And I just hear what I thought was a gunshot. But not as loud as I would expect.

You know, still just waiting around until I saw one of the employees kind of looking frantic, going crazy, and that's when I thought something was pretty wrong.

C. CUOMO: You're supposed to be told things as soon as possible. What was the notification? What did you hear from the school? What did they tell you to do?

EVANS: Well, as far as the event, you know, I wish I would have been told a bit sooner to move away from the entrance. But as soon as the 911 call was made, we were signaled to go to the back of the library, head up the stairs, you know, just get completely out of the way. And then we were notified that FSUPD and Tallahassee PD were on their way to secure the location.

C. CUOMO: Is it true that while you were shoot -- taking the footage of what happened, you did come across somebody who was hurt? EVANS; Yes, I mean, I will never forget the look on his face. It was

-- actually, he yelled, you know, in the video, "I've been shot. There's a gun." And that's when everybody in the library freaked out.

And I didn't believe it. I think I was laughing in the video, because I was like, "What?" You know. You're just not really prepared for something like that.

So he just looked so shocked, and I just didn't know what to do. I just was like, "Oh my gosh, are you OK?" And you know, we just wanted to get him help. But yes, he was wounded, laying on the ground. So that's when we really freaked out.

C. CUOMO: Were you able to get him help? Do you know anything about what happened with him?

EVANS: Yes, they immediately rushed help. As far as I know all the victims are recovering, which is great to hear, because you know, my heart goes out to them and all of their families. That's all that I really care about at this point.

You know, I'm happy to be home safe. But all I can think about is them right now.

C. CUOMO: How's your head? How's your heart this morning?

EVANS: I mean, I'm still a little bit shaky, and I don't think it's this interview. Yes, it was definitely a crazy experience. My friends are OK. We are all just, you know, a little bit shaken up about the whole thing. Because, you know, you're just not really prepared for a situation like this, no matter how many times you could go through it in your head.

But you know, I've seen a lot of compassion and support from our student body already. And so I'm just pretty confident that we can all kind of come together and get through this as just the university together.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

C. CUOMO: It's great to hear. You know, she held it together in a very hard situation, as did many of the kids there. Imagine seeing one of your classmates wind up being shot in a situation like that -- Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Chris. Another top story to tell you about. Dangerous weather pummeling areas of upstate New York. Buffalo is forecast to get three more feet of snow today. That's on top of the historic snowfall this week that has already crippled parts of the city, literally.

There have been seven weather-related deaths reported. Rescue crews are scrambling to save people who are trapped on the roads and in their homes.

Meteorologist Jennifer Gray is live for us in Buffalo. What's happening at this hour, Jennifer?

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Alisyn, it is serious, you know, and luckily the snow has stopped where we are now. And it's basically south of Hamburg, but you can see these front-load trucks are just pushing all of the snow out of the way. So the big story today is going to be clean-up, because this is far from over.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY (voice-over): Buffalo's deadly monster storm isn't done yet. The lake-effect storm hammered southern parts of the city Tuesday, dumping nearly six feet. The region now bracing for round two, expected to bring another two to three feet of snow by Friday. An entire year's worth of snow in just days.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: This snowfall may break all sorts of records.

GRAY: The city in a state of emergency. And residents struggling to dig out from under walls of snow.

KAROLL MANKIEWICZ, BUFFALO RESIDENT: It's too much. It's just really a lot of snow here. We're closed in here. It's not just an open area where we can just fling the snow anywhere.

GRAY: Trapped inside his West Seneca home, James Grimaldi (ph) used an aerial drone to escape his snow-covered garage, capturing this video of the avalanche of snow left behind.

Driving bans still in effect as major roadways throughout the area remain at a standstill. After stranded drivers were forced to abandon their snow-buried cars and trucks. Officials say it could be days before the highways are cleared and are warning residents to be careful.

BYRON BROWN, MAYOR OF BUFFALO: Stay home. If you do have to go out, please exercise caution.

GRAY: In the hardest-hit areas, where snow is too deep for plows, crews have had to bring in front-end loaders and dump trucks to haul the snow out.

The National Guard out in full force to help clear the streets. While EMS and firefighters are depending on volunteers with snowmobiles or venturing out on foot to rescue those stranded and in need.

The storm now claiming seven lives, some from cardiac arrests shoveling, others simply trapped in the cold.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY: And the big concern today, of course, with that additional two to three feet possible south of here, carbon monoxide is going to be a big concern as well as the extra weight on people's roofs. Folks are scared that they could collapse. And just to put this in perspective, Alisyn, a lot of people have about 22,000 tons of snow on their driveway that they're trying to get out there and shovel. And it is cold.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. It's incredible. Jennifer, thanks for that whole background. Get inside, stay warm. We'll check back with you.

Let's discuss all of this, the clean-up efforts and the latest details with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Good morning, governor.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: Good morning, Alisyn. Nice to be with you.

CAMEROTA: Where do we find you this morning?

A. CUOMO: In beautiful Buffalo, amidst the snow, as you just heard about.

CAMEROTA: So it really seems as though, you know, this is an over- used word, but this was epic. This was a storm of epic proportions, and even for Buffalo, no stranger to snow, it seemed to have caught people off-guard. Were you prepared for this storm?

A. CUOMO: We were as prepared as you can be. But epic is the right word, Alisyn. You know, we're seeing more and more of these extreme weather events. And I think anyone who doesn't notice that is just blind to the reality.

In this state of New York, we've had typhoons, hurricanes, floods, which we've never had before. Buffalo is no stranger to snow, and they can handle snow. But they -- this is probably going to break all records for snowfall in Buffalo, which is saying something.

And seven feet of snow is virtually unmanageable. The plows that we have can't even move seven feet of snow. So as you said in your report, you need a different type of equipment. You need front-end loaders. Everything has to be picked up and dumped. So it's -- it's really a catastrophic situation in many ways.

CAMEROTA: We understand that you're sending more equipment to the Buffalo area. And 160 more snowplows, which may or may not be effective, because there's too much snow for the snowplows. Fifteen front-loaders, eight roadside snow-blowers. Do you have enough emergency equipment and teams to tackle this?

A. CUOMO: We're -- we're bringing equipment in from all across the state. Buffalo is obviously up at the western tip. We're bringing equipment in from as far away as Long Island. We have -- the National Guard is called in, so we have hundreds of National Guard personnel.

But you know, Alisyn, some situations just by their very nature, by the circumstances, are difficult to manage. And that's what we have here. You have vehicles stranded all over the roads and then abandoned. To clear that road you now have to tow every vehicle and then plow. There are no keys in the vehicle, so that's difficult; and it just compounds.

You then have secondary problems. We're now going to have roof collapses. We're looking at another two to three feet of snow today. And then a warming trend on the weekend, which could lead to massive flooding when all this snow starts to melt.

So this comes in phases. We went through the first phase. We're sort of in the second phase now, expecting the snow again today. And then we'll have the melt over the weekend. So it's a challenging situation.

CAMEROTA: It sure is, Governor and you talk about those abandoned cars on the freeway. Should you have preventively closed the freeway when you heard this much snow was coming?

A. CUOMO: Well, they did close the roads. And even that, there's no perfect way to do that. The throughway is the main east-west conduit. If you close the road too soon, you literally strand people at work, and they can't get home; they can't get to their children; they can't get to their families. They actually closed the road earlier than they expected.

But whichever way you go with that, you create a problem on the other end. And what happens is, some people have to get home. They still take to the roads, even though they're advised not to. We had everyone out of the passenger cars. We had some commercial traffic where you had truck drivers who chose to stay with their vehicles. But otherwise, everyone is safe, and I think the police did a phenomenal job making sure that no one got hurt or died out there on those roads.

CAMEROTA: Governor, seven people, as you know, did die as a result of the storm. Three of them had heart attacks or cardiac arrests because they were trying to shovel the snow. This is too much for people to shovel. Yet they don't want to be trapped inside their homes. What are you recommending people do today?

A. CUOMO: Well, the health concerns are obviously very real. And that's -- every citizen has to know their own health condition before they go out and try to move seven feet of snow, which is an almost impossible task, by the way.

Some of the cardiac arrest cases, people were doing it with a shovel. Even people with snow-blowers had situations of cardiac arrest, because it's also very cold.

I've been telling people take a deep breath. This is not going to be one or two days. Even if you get your driveway cleared right away, there's no place to go. We have a driving ban in effect. So stay home and take it easy, and let professionals help with the snow removal if you have any question about your health and capacity.

CAMEROTA: Governor, the National Weather Service is predicting two to three more feet of snow where you are standing. We know that you have your work cut out for you this morning. Thanks for joining us, and put a hat on. We appreciate you being here. A. CUOMO: I'm going to put a hat on. And just as a matter of full

disclosure, I am the smarter, nicer, funnier version of your co-host, you know, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: I do know that, Governor.

A. CUOMO: And don't let -- Alisyn, don't let him say anything mean about me when I got off the air.

CAMEROTA: That I can't help. That is generally the pattern I've noticed between you two.

Thanks so much, Governor.

A. CUOMO: When I'm gone, when I'm gone, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I understand.

Governor, always great to see you. Thanks so much.

C. CUOMO: It would have been nice to see a shovel in his hands. That's all I'm going to say. If you're up there, you might as well help, you know? It would have been nice to see a shovel in his hands.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: You think so.

C. CUOMO: That's all I'm saying.

PEREIRA: All right. Let's take a look at some headlines for you, and sadly we begin with some breaking news just in to CNN. I have to pass along to you that Mike Nichols, famed TV and film director, has died. Nichols had a nearly six-decade-long career, creating classics including "The Graduate," "The Working" -- the movie "Working Girl," "The Bird Cage," and of course the miniseries "Angels in America." He, in fact, was one of few to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.

Nichols was also the husband of ABC News' Diane Sawyer. He's survived by three children, four grandchildren. Mike Nichols was 83 years old.

Some more breaking news for you now. Two naval ships have collided in the Gulf of Aden. The USNS Amelia Earhart and the USNS Walter S. Diehl hit one another earlier this morning. We're told no crew members were injured. There was only minor damage to the ships. The Navy is now investigating what exactly went wrong there. We'll work that on for you and pass it along.

Officials, meanwhile, are trying to figure out what prompted an Iowa man to show up at the White House with an arsenal of weapons in his car. We're told R.J. Kapheim approached a uniformed officer, telling him someone in Iowa told him to drive to D.C. When authorities searched his vehicle, they immediately arrested him. They found a shotgun and ammunition in that vehicle.

Some good news, finally, on the Ebola front. The head of the CDC says the government's worst-case scenario for the spread of Ebola won't happen. You'll recall that back in September, health officials estimated that as many 1.4 million people could become infected without more help to fight it. But an international surge in medical aid has slowed the epidemic in Liberia, one of three West African countries hardest hit.

Those are your headlines, guys. And sad news about Mike Nichols, really sad. What a tremendous career, tremendous legacy.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Absolutely.

C. CUOMO: We'll talk about it more here on the show this morning. His reach was wide and vast in many different areas of the culture. And he is a huge, huge loss as a person, not just as a professional.

CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, will President Obama's executive order on immigration kill whatever hope is left for any bipartisanship in Washington? Are we just even naive to ask this question? We'll get perspective from both sides of the aisle, next.

C. CUOMO: Hope must be alive. Also, a bystander turned hero. You will not believe how far this man went to save a baby from drowning. We have amazing video for you straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

C. CUOMO: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

President Obama says Republicans in Congress have left him no choice, because they've refused to act on the nation's broken immigration system for years. So he is going to fix it for them, he says, and he's going to outline changes in a big speech tonight and we'll cover here on CNN, of course. And he says he's going to accomplish what he needs to do by executive action.

Now, those words ring with very, very ugly intentions to congressional Republicans. They say it is political declaration of war. Let's discuss with people from both sides of the aisle.

We have Sean Duffy, Republican from Wisconsin and a member of the House Budget Committee. That will be key. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Texas and a member of the House Appropriations Committee. That will also be key.

Let's look at the polls, gentlemen. Let's look at the polls, OK? First poll, this is where the American people are on this issue. Chance for legal status, 57 percent. Be deported, 39 percent.

Congressman Duffy, why isn't it as simple as that, putting the pressure on you all in Congress to do something about this so the president does not have to?

REP. SEAN DUFFY (R-WI), HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE: First of all, I think we should do something. And I think the Congress should act. I'm one who supports immigration reform but in a step-by-step approach.

But this issue has been on the table, and Congress hasn't acted. And as you know, we just had an historic House majority elected in a couple of weeks ago, and we got control of the Senate. So the American people, though I agree with your poll, want immigration reform done, they don't want it done by executive action.

And the president, he's creating arbitrary timelines. First of all, he said it over the summer. Then he moved it to September. Then he moved it to after the election. The president should wait, give the new Congress enough time to work its will, see if we can come up with a bill. But if he goes this way, we're going to set this new Congress off on the wrong foot. I think it will tear the country apart at the seams. And as the president has come and told the American people that he's going to be a uniter, all his actions are tearing the country apart.

C. CUOMO: Congressman Cuellar, I'm going to get to you in a second, because they're poll numbers that you need to think about and your side of the aisle, they're on break. But let me just stay with you for a second, Representative Duffy. That reeks of brinksmanship to me.

What do you mean, give us some time? You've had years to do this. You could blame the president for that. He hasn't gotten anything done, either. Well, you've had more than enough time. The Senate passed a bill. Boehner won't even hold an up-down vote on this. You're dragging your feet, and it's going to cost families a lot of pain. Are you worried about that?

DUFFY: Again, I support immigration reform. But...

C. CUOMO: You haven't done it.

DUFFY: That's right, but guess what? That's the prerogative of the House of Representatives. I agree that we haven't worked. But you think that an executive hasn't been angry at the Congress? That goes back to our very founding.

C. CUOMO: True.

DUFFY: We have three co-equal branches of government. The House is one -- the House and the Senate are one of those co-equal branches. So if the president doesn't agree with us, that doesn't mean that he now has the authority to, quote, "act on his own."

C. CUOMO: Well, he may have -- he may have the legal authority. He may have the legal authority. I think it's become a little bit of a specious argument. But politically, it could be a wrong move.

DUFFY: But Professor Obama disagrees. He says he doesn't have the authority. He said he would have to be a king or an emperor to take this move. So even the president in prior statements agrees he doesn't have the authority to take this action.

C. CUOMO: Many legal experts say it's not about the law. But it could very well be bad politics.

Let's put up the other poll about how people feel about the president taking executive action, please. There it is, question is very simple: 38 approve, 48 disapprove, 14 not sure, no opinion. We can chalk that up to the disaffection you guys are all feeling in D.C.

So we come to you, Representative Cuellar. Why is he doing this when people don't want him to do this, with the people he needs to work with on the Republican side of the aisle saying, "If you do this, all bets are off," when he's had plenty of time to do something and hasn't gotten anything done.

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D), TEXAS: Well, you're right about both polls. People do support immigration reform, but they'd rather have the president work with the U.S. Congress. Representative Duffy and I can work together, we can do it together. We can do a bipartisan bill just like President Ronald Reagan and the Democrats did in 1986.

The issue is, you know, we've been waiting since the time I've been in Congress. Our Republican friends said, "Hey, let's build a fence." We built a wall down there at the border. I didn't like it, but it was done. They said double the number of Border Patrol. We doubled the number of Border Patrol.

They said deport more people. President Obama deported more people in four years than President Bush did in eight years. So we've done that. And I think we need to do immigration reform. I prefer a bipartisan approach. But if the president acts, let's see what he puts there. And I can certainly support a lot of the things that he's put in there.

C. CUOMO: But if he does, you see, you're saying you support the president doing it. Even though, if he does this, it may blow up any chance of you getting a bipartisan bill. Are you getting hoisted on your own petard, to summon an old phrase, where that this is going to be used as a device to, you know, do something to the other side, but it's going to wind up hurting you even more?

CUELLAR: You know, the executive order, again, I prefer legislative action. Bipartisan. But the executive order on immigration has been used since, I believe, 1956. Dwight Eisenhower used it. The last two out of the three Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, Bush 1 used the executive order on immigration. George Bush 2, the son, which I worked very closely when he was governor, supported immigration reform.

So the executive action can be passed. The next president he or she can always change it if they want to do that. Or Congress, just like they did with Ronald Reagan, can always come back after an executive order and pass a bipartisan approach on immigration. I want to see a bipartisan approach.

C. CUOMO: And Congressman Duffy, you say the same thing. You want the same thing. And let's be clear: I'm not blaming you for the problem. I know what your record is. I know you've been pushing for change, but it's not getting done. You have to ask -- answer for your brothers and sisters. They're saying if this happens, maybe there's a shutdown. That's in the wind now. Maybe we'll impeach him. Why so extreme all the time in response to things that you admit are politics?

DUFFY: First of all, it's not extreme for the president to act outside the authority that's given to him as the executive and not come to the people's house. But then come to the people's house and say we want you to fund our executive action.

I got to tell you why. If he asks for money, for the executive action, we in the House aren't going to give it to him. And if he chooses to shut the government down because of that, that's his prerogative.

He wouldn't choose to shut the government down, that would be your choice.

Duffy: We're not going to fund the executive action. But I think what's important is what happens to the Hispanic community? They're going to be coaxed out of the shadows with this executive action. But this isn't a long-term solution for them. It could be overturned by another president. This could actually be overturned by the courts.

And so then they've exposed themselves when they come out of the shadows to potential future deportation, because they've exposed the fact that they're not here without documentation. The best way to do it for the Hispanic community is to do it right, to do it in a bipartisan fashion, through the House, though the Senate with the president that actually changes the law for the long run, which helps people, gives them certainty as they move forward as potentially new legal status citizens.

C. CUOMO: You would get the big amen from everybody if there were no history on this issue. You guys have failed to do that. These families hang in the balance, and you know a lot of them are paying the price.

DUFFY: But the president said this was a priority when he was elected. He two years of a Democratic-controlled Senate and House, and he did nothing. He's had four years to do this executive action. He could have done it over the summer. This reeks of politics.

The president waited until after the election, because he knew the American people didn't agree with him on the executive action front. We have a new Congress. We have new members. We have new senators. Why would the president do this right now before the new Congress is sworn in? Give it time. Let it breathe. Let people talk about it. Let's engage in the conversation.

Henry and I, I think could come up. We'll probably agree on 90 percent of what immigration reform should look like. Give us that space to do it. But with this executive action, there's no space. He's going to blow the whole -- whole conversation up and not allow any room for bipartisanship.

C. CUOMO: Let's see if there's a date condition put on the executive order. I mean, that's up to the president's discretion, as well. It doesn't have it take effect right now. It could give you that time and space, but again, it's obviously an incendiary act. I think, fellows, we have to leave it there for now. The best sign I

see for any progress is that you're actually wearing the tie colors of the other party. So maybe that's the best thing we got going into it right now.

DUFFY: There you go.

C. CUOMO: But we'll all be watching tonight. And I appreciate the candor on the issue. Thank you very much, Congressmen.

CUELLA: Thank you so much.

C. CUOMO: Again, the big address is tonight. We really have to hear what the president is going to say and what the timing of it is before this debate will continue. So tonight at 8 Eastern right here, comprehensive coverage. Anderson Cooper will be here leading the way.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris. We're also following some breaking news this morning. He was the jack of all trades in the entertainment world. Mike Nichols has died. We will bring back Brian Stelter to talk about Nichols' legacy on film, and family and far beyond.

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