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Soldier Hacked To Death In London; Storms Hit Tornado Ravaged Area; Obama Plans Sunday Visit To Moore; Jodi Arias Speaks Out, Again; FEMA: In "Good Shape" To Help Oklahoma; From Boston Bomb Suspect To Witness

Aired May 23, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, cleaver attack in London, the bloody killer confessing on camera. Meet the man who recorded it all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's very sad for me, to see someone die, you know, because he didn't do nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Would you tape a terrorist with blood on his hands?

Also, $2 billion in damage and some 13,000 homes destroyed. Will the feds pony up with storm aid or play politics?

Plus, all eyes on Texas this morning as the Boy Scouts vote on whether to lift its ban on gay kids.

And Weiner roast, Anthony Weiner back on the trail, his first campaign event delivering pizzas to reporters. It's going to be one long, strange race for mayor. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And good morning. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Carol Costello in Atlanta.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Brooke Baldwin in a stormy, wet, and rainy Moore, Oklahoma, this morning, where the cruel and staggering scope of Monday's tornado comes more fully into view. You know, just learning the stories, this morning, Carol, we're grateful we're standing in the backyard of one man, where he was telling me across the street, one woman rode out the storm in her bathtub.

And you see a lot of Xs. A lot of people have been asking, what are the Xs on the door. That means people have gone through, home by home, car by car, to see if there are any bodies, live or dead, as they're being very, very careful to see who has survived. Thankfully, many, many people here in Moore will share those stories with you throughout the course of the hour. COSTELLO: Absolutely. Those Xs were on the doors during Hurricane Katrina, too. It's eerie, but it does mean that everybody's out of that house and hopefully safe and sound. Brooke, we'll get back to you in just a moment.

But first, we have to talk about this brutal attack on the streets of London, where officials are searching for answers and beefing up security after a soldier was hacked to death by two men wielding mach machetes, one of those men telling a shocked onlooker why he did it.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will never stop fighting until you leave us alone! We must fight them as they fight us, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I apologize that women had to witness this today, but in our land, our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don't care about you. You think David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? Do you think the politicians are going to die? No, it's going to be the average guy like you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Just unbelievable. Paul Davies spoke with the man who shot that incredible video. The man talked about the moment he came face to face with a killer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL DAVIES, ITN (voice-over): The man with the bloodied hands is not talking to a professional cameraman. He has deliberately sought out a passerby who is filming with a phone camera. The man who filmed those dreadful scenes prefers not to be identified, but he told me about that unreal conversation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He came straight to me. He said, no, no, no, it's cool. I just want to talk to you.

DAVIES: The amateur cameraman says what struck him most was that the bloodied man, and a second man, seemed to be waiting by the body for the police to arrive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why don't you run? Because the time the police was taking to time, that was 30 minutes. And in 30 minutes, the guy he could have run, taken the train, go away.

DAVIES: Instead, the two men talked to women, allegedly apologizing. And according to this witness, charged towards the first police officers to arrive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the police come, they run to the police. They run straight to the police and they start to change --

DAVIES (on camera): They didn't try to run at all away?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no, they didn't try. DAVIES (voice-over): With the two men injured and restrained on the ground, the police move the amateur cameraman away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Move back, please! Move back!

DAVIES: He asks them why they'd taken so long to respond.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not safe for you to remain here. Please move back.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, the guy is dead now! You take 30 minutes to come. That British soldier is dead!

DAVIES: The witness says he'd been on his way for a job interview when the world seemed to go mad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's very sad for me. I see someone die, you know, because he didn't do nothing to die today, you know? And for me, it was very sad and a strange day for me, very sad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Just unbelievable. Our thanks to ITN's Paul Davies for that report. And this development from our colleague, Jonathan Wauld in London, he says, it's understood that these two suspects were known to Britain's domestic security service. They'd been the subject of previous investigation, but they were not under surveillance. And the dead man was, indeed, a soldier.

Let's go back to Brooke Baldwin in Moore, Oklahoma. Brooke, is it still raining?

BALDWIN: Not at the moment here. I'm sure as I say that, the lightning and thunder will resume. But for a moment as I peek to see if there's blue skies, just a little glimmer of blue and clear skies from the severe storms that we have really been knocked by for the last couple of hours.

But the storms here in Moore have raised two concerns. One, high winds that can turn the mountains of debris and projectiles -- think of the metal, the bricks, some of the wood still with the nails from building the house. So that could be projectiles coming at you.

Secondly, lightning. We've seen a lot of lightning this morning, putting at risk the army of crews. Think of the families going through some of the rubble, that the Red Cross crews, et cetera. So that's dangerous as well. Believe me, we here are keeping a close eye on the weather.

We're also, Carol, looking at the new numbers this morning. Because the numbers, they do tell part of the story of Monday's monstrous tornado and they are absolutely jaw-dropping. When you talk to Oklahoma City mayor, this is what he says. In just a matter of minutes, more than 12,000 area homes were damaged or destroyed.

Keep in mind, those numbers could change. At least 33,000 people here are affected. Those are the hard numbers. Then there are just the immeasurable, the human toll here in Moore and other towns, in and around Oklahoma City. A heartbroken town braces for the funerals of 24 neighbors, 10 of them children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR MICK CORNETT, OKLAHOMA CITY: This is going to be a tough weekend for us, as we bury those children who died in the elementary school, and the rest of our citizens, who fought from the storm and just couldn't evade the terror.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's go to CNN's George Howell. He joins me with the latest. George, good morning.

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, good morning. And you know, here are a few more numbers for you. We know that 2,200 people have applied for FEMA assistance. We know that 353 people were injured in that. That's a number that has been updated. More people injured, so far, that we know of.

We know that six people, there were six people who were missing. They are all accounted for. And Brooke, the last number, you know, here for the last two or three hours, it has been raining. And as you mentioned, you know, the rain subsiding now, but what that means for people, you know, going through this debris, you're going through it is nasty, it's muddy.

You've got nails sticking up, it's a difficult situation for these families who are trying to go through and start their lives over, but we are hearing from officials. We're hearing from officials about the idea of more storm shelters, more underground storm shelters at schools and at homes.

We are hearing from President Obama -- and you hear that! But aside from that, and we'll hear more of that in the next day or so, I think more storms in the forecast, but President Obama saying that the administration will resort, will send all of its resources here, you know, divert resources here to help people as they start the process of picking up and starting over. Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Of course, as we gather tonight to present this award, our thoughts and prayers remain with the wonderful people of Oklahoma. They have suffered mightily this week and while the road ahead will be along, their country will be with them every single step of the way.

That's who we are and that's how we treat our family and friends and our neighbors, wherever they are in the country. So we're going to help them recover. We're going to help them rebuild, for as long as it takes and eventually, life will go on and new memories will be made and new laughter will come, new songs will be sung.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: So, you know, a lot of people here, even after this devastating storm, people say that this is home. This is where they will stay. This is where they will rebuild. You know, Brooke, I'm sure you heard that thunder a minute ago as well. You're not too far from me here. You know, this is home for people. They're used to these tornadoes. They're used to that big thunder.

BALDWIN: They're used to it, our entire CNN crew, all sort of collectively did this, it was the loudest clap of thunder we have hear all morning. George Howell, thank you. Thank you so much. This is a hardened crowd, that the Oakies, as they call themselves, Carol Costello, as you know, you've been out here to Oklahoma.

And I just want to point out -- I know, I know, I hear you laughing at our wooziness, if you will. But let me just -- if I can, make a quick point. We talk so much about projectile. This is something that just sort of came our way and you have the nails here and the board.

And this is precisely what can get tossed and this is precisely what people need to be careful of. Time is of the essence. They want to come through the mud and the muck to find those photographs, right. So they have to be very careful looking for this to avoid the nails and not slip.

COSTELLO: I know you don't want to step on a nail because then you have to go get a tetanus shot. That's dangerous too. So you be careful out there too, Brooke. Thank you so much. We'll get back to you in just a bit. Thank you.

It is the trial that will not end! The jury in the Jodi Arias trial is deadlocked, as in, they cannot agree as to whether arias should live or die. The judge has now ordered them to try again to work it out and urged them to ask any questions they need to.

Ashleigh Banfield is outside the courthouse in Phoenix. I just can't believe this latest development. It's crazy.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're laughing. You know, I got to say, I've covered a lot of cases in my day. I have never covered anything like this, Carol. Let me just give you where we're at today, 7-11 is the order of the morning. They have been deliberating 7 hours and 11 minutes so far into this death phase.

The most serious of cases that you can actually prosecute in the United States of America and yet, this most serious case has become one of the most circus-like and it's not because of just all of the media coverage, it's a little because of what the defendant herself, the now-convicted felon, has been doing.

She's gone on a veritable media tour, Carol, giving interviews to locals and affiliates and TV shows. Not once, but twice during the actual deliberation phases of this case. I don't know how else to explain this, other than it is very odd for a sheriff to facilitate it, even though this sheriff says he's done nothing wrong and that it's her first amendment right. I'm going to tell you right now, as a journalist, it's not your first amendment right to have a television camera in your jail cell or in your jail meeting room. You can speak on the phone. You can write letters in your first amendment, you know, exercise. But to have cameras go in to interview this woman and her thoughts on her process, before this process is finalized, is very, very disquieting, when you talk about the jurisprudence aspect of all of this.

Here is what she said in one of the myriad interviews that she conducted. This one was with Ryan Owens of ABC News, who challenged her on this whole notion of how she has held court, essentially, with the press over all of this. We believe let me just show you how that played out in the interview. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You really are never going to tell the truth about what went down in that bathroom.

JODI ARIAS, CONVICTED OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER: I don't know what you mean by that because I've told the truth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

ARIAS: I didn't know that you were a hater when you came to interview me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: So if someone challenges Jodi Arias, he's a hater. This is really what we've been finding all along. We have been learning about Jodi's propensity to consume media while she's been very bored in a jail, awaiting trial. She knows everyone who's been covering this case and she does not like a lot of the coverage, more than likely because there's been a lot of focus on Jodi being a habitual liar. That is not an assessment, Carol Costello. That is court record. That is police interview record.

COSTELLO: She admits it!

BANFIELD: That is Fox in Arizona record --

COSTELLO: She admits it!

BANFIELD: It's incredible, isn't it?

COSTELLO: Well, let me throw you this way. The jury is deadlocked, they can't decide, though Jodi Arias seems so cold-hearted. As part of the requirement that allowed those journalists to interview Jodi Arias, she asked for makeup. They had to provide her makeup, so she would look good on camera. And during the course of the interview you just played, another part of it, she said she was really bummed out that the jury didn't seem to understand her and that she didn't really like the jury. BANFIELD: She's very bummed out. I think she is very bummed out that many of us don't understand her.

COSTELLO: Why is the jury deadlocked over this because she seems co cold-hearted?

BANFIELD: It's a great issue, I'm so glad you brought it up, Carol. Because, yes, America is transfixed by the case of Jodi Arias and they're watching it on TV, 99 percent, 99.9 percent of the people who are following this case are watching it through a very small lens.

When you're in a courtroom, it's very different. And when you are the juror, playing god -- by the way, the seal over the judge is Latin for "God Enriches." When you are that jury and you're playing god with someone's life, it's not like a TV show anymore. You're facing this woman. She just stood about 5 feet away from them with skin and bones.

And as cold as she sounds, she's still a human being in front of them and it is an odd and awkward decision to make. Even though, and I will give this, they are death-qualified, Carol. During the Vordire, months and months and months ago before they got to know who Jodi Arias is, they had to answer these attorneys that, yes, they are capable of rendering a death verdict if they need to or if they are asked to.

It's a whole other kettle of fish when you face that woman or man or young person or old person in the courtroom, whose essentially asking for mercy in whatever fashion they're doing it, and the pictures of her yesterday, by the way, sort of laughing and smiling with the bailiff raised a lot of ire from people who were watching.

The jury is not always privy to some of these things. But when they are, it doesn't escape them. But, look, she's a person. She's a person. She's a person. She's a person. She's a person, period.

COSTELLO: I do understand that aspect of it and I'm glad I'm not in their position. Ashleigh Banfield, reporting live from Phoenix, thanks so much.

Federal taxpayers will be paying the tornado recovery cost in Moore, Oklahoma, for years and years. We're going to talk with an expert who says there may be a better way to spend that money. We'll be right back.

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COSTELLO: The head of FEMA says his agency is in, quote, good shape to help Moore, Oklahoma, recover from the tornado. Craig Fugate tells CNN, FEMA has enough money to cover the rebuilding there, but warns if another major disaster strikes, FEMA's resources could be stretched really, really thin.

So let's bring in CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem and Brooke Baldwin, who is in Moore, Oklahoma. Welcome back to you both.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Brooke, I want to start with you. Are people worried about getting financial help to rebuild or are they so emotionally distraught right now, they haven't had time to think about it?

BALDWIN: I think they haven't had time to think about it. I think it's a perfectly valid question, but what was that, Monday, and we're now on Thursday, and I think they're still trying to find their yearbooks in their homes under the muck and the rubble. People I've talked to and homes I've walked through with them, they all have insurance. Sadly, they've sort of been through this before and learned the lesson the hard way, but, so far, no one's really worrying about that, yet -- Carol.

COSTELLO: But of course they will. And Juliette, you wrote an interesting op-ed about this very topic. The only reason that FEMA is not stressed about handing out financial resources is because FEMA already has money in the budget because of Hurricane Sandy.

KAYYEM: That's exactly right. So, they have about $11 billion to deal with this, what happened in Oklahoma, and of course, we're entering hurricane season. So as Craig Fugate rightfully said, we're little bit worried as to what the pool looks like. We only have that money because sandy got its own, about $60 billion, in a separate piece of legislation.

Look, we're depleting these funds, since 2011, about $200 billion has been spent on disaster relief. So there's a definite discussion. It's not partisan, but with people in the disaster relief world.

About whether we can't begin to think about the distribution of these funds and a little bit more sophisticated way, including trying to give money to people who deserve it, but letting them build in a stronger way. We tend to, the way the law works is we give -- the U.S. government gives money out, but people have to build exactly the same. We saw that actually in Oklahoma.

COSTELLO: Let me ask Brooke about that because a lot of people don't have these tornado shelters, you know, built into their homes in some way. Do they need extra resources to do that because I would imagine that would be quite costly?

BALDWIN: Well, it seems like the crux of the issue is precisely that. It is the cost. I was out walking around in a neighborhood and talked to three different families, none of whom had these shelters, these freighty holes, as sort of colloquially they're called here on the outskirts of Oklahoma City.

They have said, absolutely, when they plan to rebuild here in Moore, they plan to have the shelters. They seem to -- I presume that by building the shelters. That they would the financial funding, but that is the issue, carol, it is the cost. They're not cheap and especially not even in homes.

But it's thousands and thousands of dollars for the schools here. When a lot of the homes were wrecked from the '99 tornado, there are these community or neighborhood shelters. But they're not everywhere. They're not.

COSTELLO: And Juliette, can the government require private homeowners to build these shelters or do they just have that power over public institutions?

KAYYEM: They definitely could. Presently, under the law, it's very difficult to do because the way the disaster relief works is, it's essentially, this was my damage, give me this money or the insurance covers it to rebuild exactly how I was. But one of the discussions that we ought to have given the kind of damage we're seeing by all of this, all these natural disasters is, can we reserve some of that money to help people?

Like Brooke was saying, build the shelters if and can we force through regulations or laws public institutions like schools that are holding hundreds of kids to have better plans for tornadoes, which even though, you know, this was bad, obviously, but it's not like it's unexpected. We know tornadoes are going to go through places like Oklahoma.

So, that's the kind of discussion that we ought to have rather than the more political discussion about whether we should even be funding these things, disaster relief or not. We should just spend our money more wisely about building a stronger America because we can anticipate these disasters anywhere.

COSTELLO: And you're talking about government spending, wisely?

KAYYEM: That may be true. Maybe a disaster specialist, but I'm an optimist too.

COSTELLO: I'm glad. I'm glad for that. Juliette Kayyem and Brooke Baldwin, we'll get back to you soon. Thank you both.

In the chaos after the Boston bombings, a Saudi national was identified as a possible suspect, only they got it all wrong. This young man was not guilty of a single thing. Now this mysterious Saudi national is speaking out.

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COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining us. A friend of the Boston bombing suspect is dead after implicating one of the brothers in a brutal triple homicide. This man you're looking at was killed after a violent confrontation with FBI agents in Orlando.

But not before he told the FBI that he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were responsible for the deaths of three men in 2011. This man who was being questioned by the FBI has not been connected to the Boston bombings, though, and we may never know because, of course, he's dead.

Well, we do know the Tsarnaev brothers are suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings, there was initial suspicion about a Saudi national. Supposedly, he had burn marks on his hand, and according to one report, he smelled of gun powder. But after intense scrutiny by the FBI, his name was cleared. And now Abdul Rahman Ali Al Habri is speaking out about what really happened. Amina Chaudary is the editor-in-chief of the "Islamic Monthly." You interviewed this young man. She joins us now by phone. Welcome.

AMINA CHAUDARY, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, "THE ISLAMIC MONTHLY" (via telephone): Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being with us. Take us through what happened to this young man, this Saudi national. He's at the scene of the Boston marathon and what happens?

CHAUDARY: Right, so he had come into the Boston marathon, he was visiting -- studying from Saudi Arabia, decided, I want to see what this is all about, showed up, within 10 minutes, he was in the periphery of the second blast and was thrown to the street.

The way the media has described this is that somebody saw him, thought he had burn marks on his hands, that he was acting suspiciously, and as a result of that, they tackled him and that's how the whole questioning and everything followed within the next 24 hours took place.

But after we interviewed him, we learned that this was not necessarily true. He explained the story that once he landed on the street, covered in blood from himself and other people around him, he got up and he started walking as everyone else is trying to get out of the area.

He went to a police officer. I need help, where do I go? The police officer directed him to where all the other ambulances were and he then started walking there, a runner or a bystander saw him and offered to help him. And he understands this as, you know, an act of good Samaritan, you know, they are trying to help him out.