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New Day

Bracing for Release of CIA Torture Report; Obama Takes Over "Colbert Report"; Small Plane Crashes Into House, Killing Six; Stabbing Suspect Shot in Brooklyn Synagogue; Mother Demands Conviction in Cleveland Shooting

Aired December 09, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: High alert, American embassies and military installations around the world preparing for violence as a long awaited report of a CIA's harsh interrogation techniques is released in just hours. There's a real debate about whether this information should get out. We'll get inside it.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Dramatic cell phone video of a stabbing inside one of New York's most prominent synagogues. Police shoot and kill a man wielding a knife after a student was stabbed in the head. We have the breaking details.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Royal invasion, the duke and duchess of Cambridge get the royal treatment in New York. Meeting America's royalty, Jay-Z and Beyonce, and watching King James courtside. We'll tell you where the royal couple is headed today.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY, with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY, it's Tuesday, December 9, just about 6 a.m. on the button in the east, Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here.

Five hours from now, the world could become a much more dangerous place for Americans. That's because that is when a long-awaited report will be released, detailing the CIA's torture techniques, used by the spy agency under the Bush administration after 9/11.

CAMEROTA: The report is expected to inflame extremists. U.S. military bases and diplomatic facilities around the world are on high alert this morning. Here at home Republicans are furious, blasting the White House decision to release the report now.

So let's bring in Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. Barbara, tell us about this timing?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Alisyn.

Many will say it is Congress that is releasing the report. It has been coming for months. And the question now is what will happen when the world reads it?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): This morning, thousands of U.S. military personnel on heightened alert, anticipating the release of a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee on top-secret interrogation tactics and torture of CIA detainees.

REP. MIKE ROGERS (R-MI), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and death.

STARR: The Marines are positioned in key areas, ready to respond to potential violent reactions directed at U.S. embassies and military bases around the globe.

Believed to be included in the report, details of waterboarding and other interrogation tactics in the years after 9/11. The CIA believes the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding, provided key information that prevented other terror attacks and led to the capture of Osama bin Laden.

But the report questions the effectiveness of those procedures.

Critics of the $50 million report question the timing of its release.

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: When would be a good time to release this report? And it's difficult to imagine one, particularly because of the painful details that will be included.

But again, the president believes that it is important for us to be as transparent as we possibly can be about what exactly transpired so we can just be clear to the American public and to people around the world that something like this should -- should not happen again.

STARR: Former vice president Dick Cheney dismissed the Senate report, saying the CIA's interrogation methods were, quote, "absolutely totally justified."

Cheney, who hasn't read the report, strongly defended CIA leaders, arguing the program itself was worth it, adding, "As far as I'm concerned, they ought to be decorated. Not criticized."

That sentiment was echoed by former President Bush.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These are patriots, and whatever the report says, if it diminishes their contributions to our country, it is way off-base.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Now release of the report is expected at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. After that, the CIA is expected to put its assessment on its website. And many current and former CIA officials say what happened in the Bush administration is they worked at the CIA, carrying out the legal orders they were given -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Barbara. We will watch for that release. Meanwhile, how dangerous is this report? Let's ask our next guests.

Tom Fuentes is a CNN law enforcement analyst and a former FBI assistant director, and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here.

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Daveed, given that the world seems so inflamed right now, ISIS is on the march, why release this report now?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I think, as Josh Earnest said in an earlier clip, there's no real good time to release the report. ISIS is a problem; actually, fortunately, it's a somewhat diminishing problem right now. They've lost a lot of territory recently.

But Syria and Iraq are going to be a mess for some time to come. So is Libya. Jihadist violence is increasing. And so if we gauge the report's released based upon things going bad in other parts of the world, it will never be released.

CAMEROTA: So Tom, what will we read at 11 a.m. today? What will be the most incendiary part?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I think several things. I think we're going to read what we've already known for almost ten years, and you know, it's been pretty much public and documented what had occurred and why it occurred and who authorized it and whether they should have authorized it. And then, when the program terminated under the Bush administration, President Bush himself stopped this program.

CAMEROTA: Hold on, Tom. I just want to ask you about that. Because President Obama gets credit for stopping the enhanced interrogation techniques. President Bush closed the secret CIA prisons, but wasn't it President Obama who said, "No more of what people call torture"?

FUENTES: Now President Bush broke with Vice President Cheney before the end of his presidency over issues like this. And he had pretty much stopped it.

President Obama, I should say candidate Obama promised to go after, you know, justice. Whoever had done this would -- you know, would be held accountable. And ordered an investigation after he became president, which then was closed and said, well, we didn't find any problem. So no one was ever prosecuted under U.S. law, and some possibly could have.

So yes, Obama can take credit but -- or discontinuing it and saying we are not going to do this ever again. But you know, what's really changed as far as, you know, whether anybody was going to be prosecuted for doing it?

CAMEROTA: Daveed, some on the select committee do not want this report released. They believe that it will reopen old wounds that we've already debated here in this country about those tactics, and as Tom just said, they've been ceased.

And furthermore, they believe that it will basically throw our allies under the bus. Here is what Senator Burr said yesterday about this. He said, "What will be new tomorrow is the references to our partners, people that helped, places that were willing to hold prisoners."

What do you think about throwing our allies under the bus?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I think there's merit to that. One of the concerns that our allies have is that the United States is not good at keeping secrets about their cooperation. Not only do you have reports like this, which come out, but also leaks within the administration that provide key information about who's cooperating with us, who's helping us in various ways.

I think that -- look, we haven't seen the report yet. So it will be interesting to see which names are named in that regard. But that's the kind of thing that really, I think the administration and others should try to redact, in order to protect those who assisted the United States in its counterterrorism operations.

CAMEROTA: Tom, the bottom line here, I think that many Americans want to know is did these tactics work? Did they actually stop any terror attacks from happening? Did they actually get Osama bin Laden? And you know, these -- there are conflicting reports on this. Will this report answer those questions?

FUENTES: Well, there are conflicting reports, Alisyn. And I think that it may or may not answer it. It depends who wrote what section of the report and what -- you know, whether they had an agenda. And I think that's where some of the criticism will come, that the report itself is politically, you know, manufactured and, therefore, will have its own spin, which is going to be critical of the CIA, critical of the Bush administration, in particular, for authorizing policies like this.

So -- so I think that's going to remain to be seen how -- you know, how credible this turns out to be.

I agree with Daveed that this is going to play a key role with our allies, who wonder if the U.S. can be cooperative with countries and be discreet about it, or whether we're going to eventually, either through leaks like Snowden or programs like this, or reports like this, going to -- going to throw them under the bus, as you say.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

FUENTES: And that's true.

And I think the other issue with this is that, you know, we preach rule of law. We go all over the world. Our secretary of state, our president, they go to countries like China, or they go to countries like Russia and point a finger at them, saying, "Your human rights violations are atrocious. You need to stop doing all of these bad things you're doing." And the rest of the world looks at us like, "How big of a hypocrite

can you possibly be, America, when you do as bad or worse as anybody does, and then you come to our country and criticize us?"

CAMEROTA: Yes. Tom Fuentes, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, that's -- you've spelled out the upside and downside of the release of this report at 11 a.m. thanks so much for being here.

FUENTES: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Let's go to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn. Next story is a very different type of political intrigue. President Obama taking over late-night TV during an appearance on the "Colbert Report." He booted Stephen Colbert from his own show, took jabs at himself, as well as the faux Republican comedian.

He also made time to push his signature healthcare law, among other issues on his agenda. Let's bring in senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta live with us for more.

You know, I'm not usually into the hype, Jim. But this is pretty good. This is pretty good.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A lot of good stuff last night, absolutely, Chris. And you put it well: the president is going beyond the mainstream media this week on some pretty big issues that are facing this White House.

First, we should point out the president did sit down with Black Entertainment Television to talk about those protests that are spreading across the country after what happened in Ferguson and in the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

The president said in that interview with BET that he relates to young African-Americans who complain of police harassment, and he also said he supports these demonstrations that are happening around the country, as long as they remain peaceful. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our country's conscience sometimes has to be triggered by some inconvenience. Because I think a lot of people who saw the Eric Garner video are troubled. Even if they haven't had that same experience themselves. Even if they're not African-American or Latino. I think there are a lot of good, well-meaning people, I think there are probably a lot of police officer who might have looked at that and said, "That is a tragedy what happened, and we've got to figure out how to bring an end to these kinds of tragedies."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now over on Comedy Central, the president was seeking some comic relief. He was making light of those bruising mid-term elections which resulted in the Democrats losing both control of Congress up on Capitol Hill.

The president tried to take some credit for the improving economy, an area the White House would like to see the president get a lot more credit for. But then Stephen Colbert jumped in, in an interview on Comedy Central. Here's what played out after that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, COMEDY CENTRAL'S "THE COLBERT REPORT": I'll give it to you: you've employed a lot of people, mostly as secretary of defense.

OBAMA: Well -- that's boosted our numbers a little bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, on the issue of immigration, the president does sit down with two Spanish-language TV networks later on today to talk about those recent executive actions he's taken on immigration. And that will happen at an event that's taking place in Nashville, Tennessee, later on today.

But the president in all of these interviews, Chris, did not talk about this torture report that you were discussing with Barbara Starr earlier on this morning. So we'll be looking for a comment from the president later today when that report is released.

CUOMO: A little -- little moment of levity, John, but he's got some -- he's got some really big issues to deal with, though...

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

CUOMO: ... between the torture report and what's going on with these grand jury decisions. So we look forward to what he has to say. Jim Acosta, thank you very much. All right -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Chris, we're learning more this morning about that deadly crash of a small plane in Maryland. Federal safety investigators have recovered the flight data recorder from the twin-engine jet that crashed into a house, killing a mother and her two young sons. Three people on board the plane also died.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is following developments for us, live in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Good morning, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

I was here yesterday and had a chance to talk to the neighbors and some friends and some very close community in this cul-de-sac. Three homes were involved. The plane came here and hit this first home in the bedroom. No one was in this house.

The second house, it came, and the plane crashed in the driveway. You can still see main pieces of the fuselage. And this is the third home here, where the wing broke off, full of

fuel, burst into flames, trapping a young mother and her two children.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): This morning, officials looking for clues as to why a small plane crashed in suburban Maryland, killing six people. Listen to the moment the control tower realized the people on board the plane, called a Phenom, were in danger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, guys, I think that Phenom just came up short.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh (EXPLETIVE DELETED). We got a Phenom crash at the end of the runway. Call emergency services.

MALVEAUX: Marie Gemmell, a vibrant young mother on maternity leave, at home on the second floor with her 3-year-old and an infant, just seven weeks old. Officials say she was trying to save her young children. All were found together in the bathroom, all killed when the six-seater business jet crashed on approach to a nearby airport.

ROBERT SUMWALT, NTSB BOARD MEMBER: I would like to offer my sincere condolences to all of those who have been affected by this tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those.

MALVEAUX: All three passengers on the jet, including Dr. Michael Rosenberg, CEO of a North Carolina clinical development company, also killed.

Rosenberg, a certified pilot, actually walked away from another crash in 2010 at this very same airport. The NTSB has not said if the 66- year-old was at the controls of this plane.

Their plane left from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, headed for the Montgomery County Air Park in Gaithersburg, Maryland. But the plane broke apart as it hit a house near the airport, debris tumbling into two more homes and ending with a fiery explosion.

SUMWALT: It appears that one of the wings was catapulted over into the third house, where the majority of the fire damage occurred.

MALVEAUX: The National Transportation Safety Board recovered the plane's recorders, and they appear to be in good shape.

SUMWALT: It has been rushed to our headquarters in Washington, D.C., where folks in our labs, investigators in our labs will begin downloading the data.

MALVEAUX: One theory, a bird strike. Multiple warnings heard on air traffic control tapes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we've got an unusual amount of birds out here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: And the husband, the father, Ken, he was not in the home. Neither was their 5-year-old daughter. She was at school. These were both spared.

The last thing that Marie said on her Facebook page, that she posted hours before the crash, she was looking forward to spending the day with her two young boys at home watching TV and had no idea what was coming, of course.

NTSB officials are going to be out here again, the next couple of days, gathering more evidence to see what was behind this crash -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right. Suzanne, thank you very much. We'll try and learn more about how that family makes it going forward now. Appreciate the reporting.

A lot of news this morning. That means we've got to get to right to Mick.

PEREIRA: All right. Good morning, everybody.

I want to start with some breaking news. There has been a stabbing inside one of New York's most prominent synagogues. Happened just after midnight. Police were called to the world head cores -- headquarters, rather, of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect in Brooklyn after a man with a knife stabbed an Israeli student in the head. The entire incident was caught on videotape.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA (voice-over): Breaking overnight, a violent standoff with New York police at a prominent synagogue in Brooklyn caught on tape.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Step away.

PEREIRA: It was just before 2 a.m. when the suspect, an adult male, stabbed a man who was praying inside in the neck, according to WABC.

CHAIM GROSSBAUM, EYEWITNESS: I see a student with a bloody face here, saying, "Help me, help me." He doesn't know what to do. He's in shock. I bring him over. I help him go outside.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands up! Put you (EXPLETIVE DELETED) hands up!

PEREIRA: Initially, obeying police commands, the suspect places the knife on a desk, the officer holstering his gun to secure the scene. The incident appears to be over. But then in a sudden move -- the suspect reaches back and grabs the weapon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, hey, hey!

PEREIRA: Police on edge as the suspect starts walking towards the officer, knife in hand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

PEREIRA: According to police, the suspect then lunges toward an officer, and that's when police fatally shot the suspect in the torso.

The violence unfolding inside this Jewish synagogue, Abad (ph) Lubovitch headquarters, offering daily prayer service and study hall for religion.

It's not known why the man entered the Jewish congregation or what prompted his attack. The stabbing victim is currently being treated.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: We'll update you as we get more information on that story this morning.

Also breaking overnight, protesters shutting down part of I-80 in Berkeley, California. Look at this. Demonstrations rage on over the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. About 1,000 people blocking traffic on the freeway, many of them climbing fences after being turned back by police in riot gear.

Some demonstrators even blocked an Amtrak train. Protests were also staged outside Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where LeBron James was among the players sporting an "I can't breathe" T-shirt for warm-up.

New Ferguson grand jury documents released by St. Louis police overnight. They are getting a whole lot of buzz because of a critical omission. A two-hour FBI and police interview with this man, Michael Brown's friend Dorian Johnson, is missing. And St. Louis County prosecutors say they can't explain why it's missing. Johnson was with Michael Brown when the unarmed teenager was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson. The new documents that were made public offered little new information.

The man who helped draft Obamacare is gearing up this morning to face a hostile House panel. Jonathan Gruber, who served as a Republican punching bag, essentially, for weeks, will testify about his role in selling the 2010 healthcare law. He is likely to be grilled on his most notorious statement, that the bill's backers relied on the, quote, "stupidity" of the American voter.

That's going to be a tough one to live down.

CAMEROTA: Sounds like must-see TV. We'll be watching that.

CUOMO: All right. There is terrible weather. A Nor'easter is getting ready to slam the northeast, and we need to blame someone for the snow and rain that's about to come here.

CAMEROTA: I know just the man.

CUOMO: And we have the perfect person, meteorologist Chad Myers. Chad, why you hate me like this, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I'll take it on my shoulders right. No problem, buddy; they're wide. And a lot of rain from New York, the good news is I guess this isn't a snowstorm. The low is just close enough to New York and Philadelphia and to Boston make a rainstorm. The snow is inland. It's in the Alleghanys, the Poconos, the Catskills. That's where the snow is.

The rain is along the coast. The problem with this rain is there will be wind to 45 miles per hour. You get a soggy ground, winds at 40; and trees are going to fall over. Power lines are going to come down. This may be a dark night for many people along the coast, because even up toward Boston, with an inch of rain, three inches of rain in some spots, you could get winds of over 50 miles per hour.

Here's what the wind speeds look like just later on today. This is just 46 in Boston. There may be gusts way over that. New York City, the same, a wind-driven rain and flooding possible on all the high ways, especially like the Long Island expressway where it's raining hard right now.

Guys, back to you.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chad. You really don't like us. Thank you so much for that update.

MYERS: Sorry.

CAMEROTA: Well, police shot and killed her 12-year-old son. Now a Cleveland mom is speaking out about the officer involved, and she's making stunning accusations about what police did to her daughter on that tragic day.

CUOMO: And the British big shots are here. They made a pilgrimage to see real royalty, the king, King James. Will and Kate were courtside, mingling with Jay-Z and Beyonce. Only in Brooklyn will you get that mix. We're going to tell you where the royals are headed next when the tour rolls on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back. The mother of a 12-year-old killed by Cleveland police is demanding a conviction for the officer who pulled the trigger, and she's making some disturbing claims about the conduct of police after her son was shot. CNN's Martin Savidge is live with more.

Good morning, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

The mother of Tamir Rice had some very strong things to say against the Cleveland Police Department. She says that after her son had been shot, when her 14-year-old daughter tried to rush to his aid, that police actually tackled the daughter. She also says that authorities threatened her.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAMARA RICE, MOTHER OF TAMIR RICE: To answer your question, I'm actually looking for a conviction.

SAVIDGE (voice-over): The mother of the 12-year-old shot and killed by Cleveland police says, as her son, Tamir, lay dying, she tried desperately to get to him, only to be stopped by police.

RICE: As I was trying to get through to my son, the police told me to calm down or they will put me in the back of the police car. And so of course, I calmed down.

SAVIDGE: Rice says police already handcuffed and detained her 14- year-old daughter, who also had tried to reach her wounded brother. Police declined to comment on the family's allegations.

How police acted after last month's shooting, the family says, only compounded their pain and suffering over the loss of their son, who was shot, carrying a toy gun in a public park just yards from his home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy keeps pulling it in and out. It's probably fake, but you know what, it's scaring the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of people.

SAVIDGE: The fake part appears to have been left out of police communications to responding officers. The gun was plastic. Rice was black. The officer who shot him is white. And in light of grand jury decisions not to indict officers in Missouri and New York, the family's new attorney, Ben Crump, says there are concerns here.

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR THE FAMILY OF TAMIR RICE: The family is very distrustful of whether local authorities will indict a police officer, even though it is very clear, very transparent that several things were done inappropriately.

SAVIDGE: The tragedy is all captured on security cam video at the park. It shows the 12-year-old boy himself on a snowy day, playing with and pointing the gun. Then a police car speeds up within feet of Rice, and within two seconds, two officers jump out, and the closest to Rice opens fire, hitting him at least once. He died the following day.

Many are shocked at how quickly it all happens. Critics say it's another case of police acting too aggressively, too fast, resulting in a tragedy all too familiar.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Cleveland police say the two officers involved in that shooting are on paid administrative leave while there is an investigation. That investigation and its results are expected to be turned over to a grand jury -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Martin Savidge, thanks so much for that update.

On a much lighter note, Will and Kate pay a visit to America's king. The royals in Brooklyn to watch LeBron James dismantle the Nets and to mingle with America's royal couple, Jay-Z and Beyonce. There's more on their agenda today. We have it all in a live report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)