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New Day

Tornadoes Hit Midwest; Hillary Clinton to Announce 2016 Presidential Bid; Dash Cam Footage of Traffic Stop Before Police Shooting in South Carolina Released. Erin Burnett Talks with New Defense Secretary. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired April 10, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- all over the president and first lady's bed.

[08:00:03] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Friday, April 10th, 8:00 in the east. And we do have breaking news this morning. The Midwest waking up to what you're about to see. Tornadoes just tore through homes and lives in three states. This is Rochelle, Illinois. You're looking at live pictures now. Thank you affiliate WLS. Daylight always a new layer of shock as residents get their first view of the extent of the damage. Here you can see what it did.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, my gosh. More than a dozen tornadoes touching down, Most in Illinois. The wind gusts were so strong that they did knock over that tractor trailer as you just saw. The powerful storms leveling homes. As Chris said, now that the sun is up, the cleanup and the rebuilding comes into view.

So let's begin our coverage with CNN's Ryan Young. He's live in Rochelle, Illinois. Tell us what you're seeing around you, Ryan.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, really powerful winds. You can still hear them pushing through. But you can look behind us and see the damage that's been left behind, that semi tossed by the powerful winds. And then you look at that restaurant that's over there you can really see what people had to go through overnight as the winds pushed through.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god. This is violent.

YOUNG: It was the tornado outbreak.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at, there goes cars. I saw headlights go flying.

YOUNG: That residents in the heartland feared.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's over! He's over!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call 911.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go! Go! Go!

YOUNG: Tornado watches stretching across the Midwest.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh, that's going right through.

YOUNG: Coming to fruition. Over a dozen tornadoes down across Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa according to the National Weather Service.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guys, we can't stop.

YOUNG: Illinois, the hardest hit. One tornado pummeling the northern city of Rochelle, leaving a path of destruction more than 25 miles long.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We quickly went down to the basement and could feel the tornado right over our house.

YOUNG: Rochelle's hospital in disaster mode throughout the night. Emergency crews quickly clearing debris, rescuing a dozen people trapped in the storm cellar of this local restaurant.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The back wall fell right on top of him when the tornado hit, and we were trapped. And we were about an hour, hour and a half in there at least.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm in shock. I've got no job and no car so it's -- it's scary. So -- but I'm glad I'm alive.

YOUNG: Just north in the cities of Fairdale and Kirkland, Illinois, the local fire department says a tornado pretty much wiped out the town.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right there.

YOUNG: And in Iowa the storms breaking out so quickly that this camera crew planning on covering a baseball game --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy -- dude.

YOUNG: Instead captured this footage of a possible tornado.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God, it's moving.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG: Chris, really an eerie sound when you look at this restaurant and you can hear the shingles on top of the building shaking in the wind here. We think we crisscrossed this area more than 100 miles. We drove all overnight trying to see where the damage was. You can understand how people we were bumping into were talking about the fact they were happy to survive, especially when they look at the size of the cloud that was moving through here. Chris?

CUOMO: Some of those areas aren't used to this. It's amazing how vibrant communities turn into ghost towns. Ryan, thank you very much. We'll check back to you. Big concern now is what's next. The system that caused all of this is heading east. We have meteorologist Jennifer Gray tracking the situation. Jennifer, what do you see?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's not over yet, Chris. We're still watching the storms move east. We still have severe thunderstorm watches in effect across portions of West Virginia. That extends all the way down into Kentucky, Tennessee. Until 10:00 eastern time none of these storms are severe though. It looks like it is starting to die down a little bit.

It is going to ramp up, though, once again as we go through the next couple of hours because we have very warm, moist air in place. Dry air on the other side of that front, that's going to push east and it is going to spark off some showers and storms as we go through the latter part of the day.

So there's your slight risk area and you can see the storms bubbling up at any moment through the afternoon. They could turn severe so you need to be weather savvy throughout the afternoon. We're looking at places like New Orleans, Montgomery, Augusta, Charlotte, and Raleigh. A lot of at Augusta for the Masters. It looks like it is going to hold off until the late afternoon, but we are going to expect large hail, damaging wind gusts, and isolated tornadoes. Michaela, knowing what to do in the event of severe weather of course can save your life. So stay up to date, know what to do, be ready in case severe weather strikes.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Being weather savvy, Jennifer, it sounds like that's what's worked here in the sense of these tornadoes that have hit the Midwest. Thanks so much for that.

I want to turn now to Ray Kramer. He was one of the people that was trapped in an Illinois restaurant that was destroyed by one of those tornadoes. He and the others managed to make it out live. And Ray joins us on the phone right now. Mr. Kramer, how are you this morning?

[08:05:11] RAY KRAMER, WITNESSED TORNADO, (via telephone): I am blessed, Michaela. I am blessed. My wife and I were down there together with 10 other people, and by the grace of God none of us got injured. We got a good dusting, but when the tornado hit the building it really got a lot of dust out of that storm cellar. And we accepted that because we weren't getting nothing else. But it was a trying two hours down in that basement.

PEREIRA: I'm sure. It probably was the longest 90 minutes of your life. I understand that you were out with your wife driving when the hail storm hit and she insisted that you pull over and that's what got you into Grubsteakers, the restaurant that was hit. KRAMER: That's true. That's true. I'm a bullhead. I was going

to try to beat the hail storm. And it got so big, the hail storms were hitting me so hard I decided, OK, I'll turn into a parking lot, we'll go inside and we'll be safe, not knowing I was going to be in the basement for two hours.

PEREIRA: Boy, I'll bet you're glad you listened to your wife, and I'm sure she'll hold that over you for a while, Mr. Kramer.

So let's talk about that. I understand you heard when the tornado hit the building.

KRAMER: Yes. Yes. It was about two minutes after we got down in the basement, down in the storm cellar. No more than two minutes and it hit the building. And the building shook. It sounded like a rushing train traveling overhead. And we got -- the dust just came out of the ceiling down there and everything, all over all of us. And it was -- it was boom, boom, and it was gone.

PEREIRA: Tell us about those moments. Was everybody -- I can imagine you'd be shaken. Most of you probably used to tornadoes but not necessarily being in the eye of one like this.

KRAMER: I have never -- well, my wife and I experienced one 25 years ago in Canton, Illinois. We were rushed into a walk-in cooler in a restaurant. The whole -- everybody in the restaurant was put into the cooler when the tornado hit in Canton, Illinois, many, many -- 25 years ago.

PEREIRA: My goodness.

KRAMER: And when we come out there was cars piled on top of cars.

PEREIRA: Well, the devastation looks horrifying here. Back to those moments in the cellar. I want you to tell us a little bit about what the conversation was like. I imagine all of you were trying to just keep yourselves calm.

KRAMER: Well, I'm a -- I'm a joyful man and I don't let things really shake me because I've got the lord Jesus Christ in my life and that's all my protection.

But anyway, my wife and I had to pray for a couple of people down there that started to panic real bad. And we feel that the lord had us there at that time for that purpose. And once it hit and quieted down, then we just went into conversations and everything. And everybody was talking and seemed pretty calm.

PEREIRA: So was it -- there was no light obviously. It was dark. Could you see anything? Could you tell that help was coming?

KRAMER: The first responders on the scene passed us down a heavy duty spotlight.

PEREIRA: OK. KRAMER: So we had light down there then. And that's when it all

settled down to where we just got to chatting and everything. I'm joking around because I'm a jokester. I don't let things worry me. If you think about something long enough, you're going to get sick.

PEREIRA: Well, that's true. Look, if there's any situation you would have been allowed to worry, Mr. Kramer, I think being trapped in a cellar in the restaurant you're in, that would be the one. We're looking at the restaurant now. I want to know what your reaction was like when you came outside, when first responders after pulling debris away from the restaurant finally got you guys outside. What was your reaction when you saw the building you were in?

KRAMER: OK. You've got a picture of that white trailer and laying on its side?

PEREIRA: Yes.

KRAMER: That was the first thing I saw, and that shook me. And when I got around the fire engine and saw the cab laying on its side, that really got to me. That kind of disturbed me a little bit. But I looked at it and I remember the picture. The driver was down there with us. He showed us a picture of his new rig that's on order. And I just said thank you, lord. And my wife was out there. She was one of the first ones getting out, and she was crying because she didn't know where I was. And I walked over and threw my arms around her and just embraced her like I hadn't embraced her in a long time that tight.

[08:10:04] PEREIRA: Cr. Kramer, I'm sure you haven't been through this much excitement in your 81 years although you did tell us you were in another one 25 years in your life. Hang on to that lady. She's a good one.

KRAMER: Yes, we're coming up to 48 years.

PEREIRA: And 48 years of marriage and two tornadoes in your history together. My goodness.

KRAMER: Yes.

PEREIRA: Your home is OK, correct?

KRAMER: We live in Ashton, Illinois.

PEREIRA: OK.

KRAMER: Where the first tornado touched down, and it touched down west of town and that's -- we're actually 17 miles from the Grubsteakers restaurant, five miles south and 12 miles west of the restaurant.

PEREIRA: But your house is OK?

KRAMER: We were on our way back home. PEREIRA: Well, I'm sure you were very happy to get home and see

it in one piece, and we're so glad that you're able to get out there safe and sound with the other people that were trapped in the cellar. Thanks so much for joining us and giving us your firsthand account, Mr. Kramer. You take care, OK.

KRAMER: Thank you for calling. Bye now.

PEREIRA: My goodness, what a tale to tell.

CAMEROTA: What a sweetheart. Key race alert now. News out this morning about when Hillary Clinton will launch her 2016 campaign. Let's get right to CNN's senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny. Jeff, what are you hearing?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. We've known she was going to run. Now we know when. We're told that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is going to release a video message on Sunday. She's going to outline the themes of her candidacy and then immediately begin traveling to some of those early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Her aids say she wants to begin having a conversation with these voters. And one Iowa Democrat I talked to this morning said finally. They are really eager for this race to be on. They're eager to have a conversation. So she is going to jump into this on Sunday.

And of course she has some competition in the race already. She's stepping a little bit on the announcement of Marco Rubio of course on the Republican side, who is planning to announce that he is jumping in on Monday. But the Clinton campaign says they're not concerned about Republicans. They want to focus on the Democratic voters at this point. So she'll be traveling to Iowa, New Hampshire, perhaps other early voting states next week, and to begin to frame her candidacy.

She's going to have a series of one-on-one meetings with voters, not do big rallies, not do soaring speeches. She really wants to introduce herself again to voters. But the big question is whether she be able to introduce herself again? She's been in the public spotlight for so long. That is her big challenge, of course, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Jeff. And they're also saying interestingly that they're hoping she has a robust primary. I'm wondering what they think will happen when she gets in the race. Thanks for the reporting. We know you'll get more. We'll check back with you.

Police dash cam video of the moments leading up to the South Carolina murder by a policeman now released. The footage from fired officer Michael Slager's patrol car shows the traffic stop before Slager opened fire. Meanwhile, Walter Scott, the victim, the family is promising legal action. They say they'll file a wrongful death and civil rights suit against the city of North Charleston, South Carolina, its police as well, and against Officer Slager.

PEREIRA: A new study out this morning says there are major gaps in airport security nationwide. The Associated Press investigation finds that there have been 268 perimeter breaches since 2004 at some of America's busiest airports, and that may be an understatement since Boston's Logan Airport refused to release security information. Authorities say it's neither financially or physically feasible to keep all intruders out.

CUOMO: All right. You remember all that ho-ha-ha about what color is the dress? Remember it broke the Internet and everybody knows what color it is, if you got eyes. And we now have the perfect follow-up.

PEREIRA: I spent a lot of time on this yesterday.

CUOMO: This picture is giving people pause. Is the cat going upstairs or downstairs? The debate goes viral. One YouTube user claims to have the answer, arguing the cat is going down because steps can't have an edge when you look at them from above. Untrue.

PEREIRA: I'm a down -- I spend a lot of time. I have this image on my phone when I was on a plane yesterday and I spent a lot of time.

CUOMO: And?

PEREIRA: Down.

CUOMO: I don't think it's a question. I think it's obvious --

CAMEROTA: You reject the question.

CUOMO: I think it's obviously down. I'm joking. If there were an edge on the top of the stair you would necessarily almost trip every time you put your foot on it. It's got to be the underside of the stair. The cat's going down the stairs.

CAMEROTA: I think it's flat.

PEREIRA: You think there's no stairs at all.

CUOMO: The infinite search for balance in the news continues.

CAMEROTA: Let us know what you think. We want to tell but this, because this morning CNN's Erin Burnett is in Seoul where she just sat down for an in depth interview with the new Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. They spoke extensively about the latest developments with Iran. And Erin joins us live from Seoul. Tell us more, Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT": Well, Alisyn, it was amazing. What he said was actually that there's still a possibility that North Korea and Iran are working together on their nuclear programs, an admission from the defense secretary.

[08:15:03] And I also asked him about the ayatollah's comments.

The supreme leader of Iran just came out in his first widely anticipated comments on Iranian state TV and he said, there will be no access to Iranian military sites as part of this nuclear deal. Obviously, the framework that was put out explicitly included such access. So, that would have been a very significant development.

I asked the defense secretary in this interview whether he would accept that, and here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHTON CARTER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Any successful agreement has to have adequate provision. It can't be based on trust. It has to have adequate provision.

BURNETT: And just to be clear, adequate would include?

CARTER: Inspections, yes.

BURNETT: Military site inspection?

CARTER: Well, it depends what you mean by military sites but, yes, absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: So, Alisyn, yes, the defense secretary saying absolutely, you have to have access to military sites, which, of course, makes obvious sense. You have the ayatollah saying no way.

So, the question is now is this posturing. But I can tell you there was no fear from the defense secretary in coming right back and slapping at the ayatollah today.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And, Erin, did the secretary give you any sense on if the U.S. would ever be willing to strike Iran militarily if need be?

BURNETT: So, obviously, there are hawks who say that they aren't being serious about that. They say there's a military option on the table but they don't really mean it. They actually, Alisyn, have a bomb that they've been testing for years that is capable of taking out Iran's deepest and most secret nuclear site. Last week, they said, oh, that bomb is further along than it was, but it wasn't ready.

So, the defense secretary today was categorical that it was ready. If it were used tomorrow, it could take out Fordow, which is that secret nuclear site. It's about 260 feet below the ground. He said they could do that tomorrow if they needed to. So, that was significant.

But I would say, the bottom line is this, any strikes against Iran's nuclear program, contrary to what some people think, would only set it back about a year, because he said they would rebuild. That's why he believes that a negotiated deal makes sense. If he thought that these strikes could set these programs back three years, or five years, he might support a strike over a deal. But the bottom line is, he doesn't think these strikes would set them back more than a year.

CAMEROTA: Oh, Erin, it sounds like you've got a lot of good information out of him. Thanks so much for sharing it on NEW DAY.

And you can catch Erin's full interview with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter tonight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern on "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" right here on CNN.

Well, there's a new reality for thousands this morning in the Midwest. Violent tornadoes destroying their livelihoods, their homes. So, we'll take you back to one of the hardest hit areas.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: And it's time to get back to what's driving the situation in South Carolina. When everyone sees the video, they're horrified, the shooting video. But would this not have happened if Walter Scott simply did the right thing?

Some will be outraged by that notion, but many are not. We're going to test it with a professor who says -- challenge a cop, you lose.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:21:55] CUOMO: All right. Let's get right into it.

There is a controversy at the center of every situation that happens like what just befell Walter Scott, which is -- if you don't obey a police officer, are you asking to be hurt? All right. Now that may seem preposterous to some but not everybody.

I want to bring somebody in right now. His name is Sunil Dutta. He's a former police sergeant in the city of Los Angeles. He's also a professor of security studies and criminal justice at Colorado Tech University. He wrote a controversial article that claims, any time you challenge a cop, you're asking for trouble.

Defend the position because the push back is you're supposed to be a pro. You're not supposed to act like an angry thug when someone defies you. What is your point, sir?

SUNIL DUTTA, FORMER POLICE SERGEANT, CITY OF LOS ANGELES: Well, actually, I want to completely clarify, there was no justification in the shooting. What the officer did cannot be defended. He engaged in a criminal bad shooting, so I'm not here to defend the officer.

CUOMO: Good. What are you here to defend?

DUTTA: I'm here to defend that cops need to be held accountable, especially in a situation like this especially when you have a subject who is stopped simply for a broken taillight. That's an infraction. To escalate that traffic stop in an unjustified shooting and kill the subject, that's travesty. That's -- that is tragedy for the family of the victim but that's a travesty because it gives a black name to all the professional police officers who put their life on the line every day.

CUOMO: Right.

DUTTA: Every possible moment and then it gives us bad reputation --

CUOMO: We agree.

DUTTA: -- as everybody else.

CUOMO: We agree. But you wrote in a "Washington Post" piece. "I'm a cop. If you don't want to get hurt, don't challenge me."

Was that you? Were those your words?

DUTTA: Those were my words.

CUOMO: What do they mean?

DUTTA: They had content -- what that means is, whenever any individual is detained or stopped by a police officer, they should comply with the lawful directions of the officer.

CUOMO: If they don't?

DUTTA: If they don't and if the officer is trying to make an arrest or trying to put handcuffs on them, if they fight with the officer, that have will escalate the situation and that is not going to help the subject.

My point was and it's exactly the same point as the ACLU, if you go to the ACLU website, if you talk to a judge, if you talk to a defense attorney, they're all going to tell you, even if a corrupt cop stops you, just let the stop pass. Do not challenge or fight the officer. Once you --

CUOMO: Forget about the corrupt cop because they by definition are doing the wrong thing, hence the word corrupt. If you are a good cop and you say, "I'm going to arrest you." And I say, "No, you're not." What are you supposed to do?

DUTTA: Well, the first I do is I'll verbalize and I'll talk to you on putting on --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: When I say no, now, what are you going to do?

[08:25:02] DUTTA: Well, I'll say, hey, it is going to be good for you and me. I don't want to use any force. I don't want to use any force. I don't want you to get hurt. I don't want to hurt myself.

CUOMO: And I'd say, don't sing it, bring it. Now, what are you going to do?

DUTTA: Well, I'll say, hey, you are going to go. There is no other option. I'm going to call the backup. You're going to be in (ph). Why do you want to get hurt? Don't get hurt.

CUOMO: Well, what we see, though, is that's a lot of talking, Sunil. What usually happens is, you're going to start an altercation with me and that's what this is all about.

What should an officer be trained to do once an altercation starts? Because it seems like they go to the gun too fast these days.

DUTTA: That is a misperception that is totally wrong, because if you look at the actual data, actual number, in every 100 arrests, the number of use of force is less than 1 percent. So, 99 times, a cop arrests someone the force occurs in less than 1 percent, and I'm talking about force as grabbing, taking down the people, shootings occur even less.

So, if you make a claim, anyone makes a claim, that cop goes straight for the gun, that's not correct.

CUOMO: And that's why you're saying if you just go along with what you're being told to do, you're always best served as long as the police officer is acting in good faith as well.

Sunil Dutta, thank you very much for making that point, and we direct people to the op-ed you wrote at "The Washington Post" for more information. Appreciate you on NEW DAY.

Mick?

DUTTA: Thank you, Chris.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Chris, back to our top story. Devastating storms overnight in the Midwest. More than a dozen tornadoes spanning three states. At least one person has been killed in Illinois.

We're going to take you live to the community where it happened, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)