Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Typhoon May Be Earth's Biggest Storm; Reverend Billy Graham Turns 95; Vets In Focus: Moving Into New Lives; Closing Arguments In MacNeill Murder Trial; CBS' "60 Minutes": Benghazi Source Misled

Aired November 08, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Once again, let's bring in our National Geographic senior science editor Dan Vergano.

Dan, it was interesting, you were telling me that 20 typhoons, not super typhoons, but 20 typhoons happen every year. Explain why.

DAN VERGANO, SENIOR SCIENCE EDITOR, "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC": Well, it's -- the Philippines is in the wrong spot, if you want to avoid typhoons. It's like tornado alley in the U.S. The Philippines is sitting on this edge of deep warm water. When these guys form, it's right in the wall that soaks up about 20 in a typical year of typhoons. Not super typhoons, as you said.

PHILLIPS: Can you make a climate connection?

VERGANO: Well, it's a hotly debated area in climate science. There is a lot of research suggesting that typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones, storms like this should get stronger because of the climate change making the water warmer. That's the engine for these guys. At the same time, they may become less frequent because the high level winds that knocked them down may become stronger as well so it will take 10 or 20 years of seeing these storms before we will know which force is actually stronger.

PHILLIPS: What are you paying attention to right this moment, the fact it's heading toward Vietnam?

VERGANO: You're looking at that. You are wondering how strong it will be in the South China Sea's colder water. It should knock it down a little bit to, you know, a category 1 or category 2. Those places have to be worried as well. We're also looking to see is there anything more happening? I mean, the typhoon season ended November 1st in the Western Pacific and here we are. So sometimes this season extend longer than we expect.

PHILLIPS: Dan Vergano, thanks so much.

VERGANO: You bet.

PHILLIPS: Well, his body may be aging, but his spiritual guidance can still draw people in from church pews to the oval office, to his own birthday party. The Reverend Billy Graham just celebrated 95 years in a big way, 900 people, including Sarah Palin, Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, and Donald Trump, attended the event in Asheville, North Carolina, where Graham lives. Well, the preacher advised generations of presidents, starting with Harry Truman. Graham didn't give a speech, but the people did hear him speak through a video played on a big screen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY GRAHAM: I began preaching many years ago. It was not within my thoughts I would be preaching to large audiences.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Now Graham began his work in 1944, and in 2005, he went on what was described as his last crusade in America. I was pretty lucky and honored to sit down with him that year. He was 86 years old, and our first topic, well, I wanted to know about his love life with the woman that he spent nearly 64 years with, Ruth. She died in 2007.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: You said you're having more romance now than ever before.

GRAHAM: That is correct.

PHILLIPS: How is that?

GRAHAM: Through our eyes. She's an invalid and I'm a partial invalid. We have a bathroom between us. She has one room and I have the other bedroom. When I go in several times a day, we look at each other and I'm telling her through my eyes, I love you. And she's doing the same, but I always say it and so will she. I never go to bed at night without telling her that I love her and that I hope she has a good night's rest. And she watches films, videos, most of the time.

PHILLIPS: Affair to remember.

GRAHAM: Affair to remember. We watched several times.

PHILLIPS: Why do you choose that movie?

GRAHAM: I like Carey Grant. He was a friend of mine. Last time I saw him, he hugged me and kissed me, we were both getting older at that time, but he's gone now.

PHILLIPS: All the different places that you've traveled, all the different people that you have met, is there still a face or a person or a moment in time that you think a lot about?

GRAHAM: That would be a very difficult question for me to answer. Yes, I think moments one would have, a decision that one makes, the decision to come here in '57. I didn't think I was capable of it or ready for it. And I never dreamed I was going to stay here so long. I ran out of sermons after a few days. I had to prepare a sermon every day.

PHILLIPS: What happens when Reverend Billy Graham runs out of sermons? What do you do?

GRAHAM: I preach the old ones over.

PHILLIPS: Do you have any regrets?

GRAHAM: Well, the only regret I have is that I didn't spend more time with my family. I traveled a lot and also I didn't spend enough time studying and praying. Those are the real things through life I think that are very important. And of course, I have regretted that in some areas that I didn't stay long enough, to really penetrate the area. I can't think of one at the moment, but it is great just being a Christian, to know that on all occasions, I can count on the Lord to help me. Some people ask me what is my number one prayer? I said, Lord help me.

PHILLIPS: When you're not praying, when you're not thinking about God, what is Reverend Billy Graham thinking about when you're relaxed?

GRAHAM: My family, each one of them. I think of them and pray for them and then we live about 3500 feet up, and I can look down on two or three towns. I pray for those people that don't know I'm praying for them, but I do. Not individually, but as a group, and I can look out and see about 20 miles from my front porch. And it's a wonderful place to rest and relax.

PHILLIPS: When it's time to meet your maker, I want to know if there's one thing, what do you want everyone to remember about you? What is the most important thing to you?

GRAHAM: That I was faithful to the message he gave me and faithful to the calling that he gave me, to go into the world and preach the gospel, and then I want -- that's how I would like to be remembered.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: He was so faithful, also to his wife, and I asked him, how did you avoid temptation? And he told me that he never went into a room with a woman by himself and this is where I chuckled. He wouldn't even go into a room with Hillary Clinton by himself. He always had somebody with him and that's one thing that always stuck with me. Billy Graham, happy birthday.

Well, still ahead, is he a murder or just, quote, "a total jerk?" We hear closing arguments in the case of Utah doctor accused of killing his beauty queen wife.

Plus, a stunning about face from "60 Minutes," one of the show's correspondents forced to issue an apology for erroneous Benghazi reporting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: In honor of Veterans' Day next week, CNN photo journalists turned their lenses on the brave men and women who have served our country. Marine Veteran Jesse Gartman had a big idea while working for a moving company in Brooklyn. Why not start his own company and offer fellow vets a stable job?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're a company full of veterans and veterans take pride in what they do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You wake up early in the morning, and try to get to it as early as possible depending on New York traffic. We got our mission listing, what we have to do for the day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going to Williamsburg.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We try to keep up with the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What time does that job start between 1:00 and 3:00, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kind of like a military operation order.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you show up with a bunch of veterans, they know what they're getting.

GUY LUERSEN, U.S. ARMY: That discipline, everyone takes it to work with them wherever they go.

JOE PICHARDO, U.S. ARMY: For a lot of veterans coming back to the city, it's so hard to get established and get your feet back on the ground. It took me four months to find a place to live. A lot of people, they're looking for a year of like work. So when you get out of the service, obviously, you're not getting a paycheck anymore.

So even though you might have $30,000 saved in a bank account, that doesn't matter. You have to have steady work. It takes a lot to sacrifice your time and energy to serve for your government, to protect the people of this land. And you know, when you're here in the city, jobs are scarce.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since you were in the service, there is no such thing as I'm going to stop and quit because you're tired.

LUERSEN: We don't have bad traits that other moving companies have. Everyone here always has their head on straight when they come to work.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll start grabbing the boxes.

RUDY FAUSTIN, U.S. MARINE CORPS: What more can you ask for? You work and now you're getting paid and you're hanging out with your friends, pretty much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good work, what we do.

DERRELL LEE, U.S. ARMY: I'm going to go with this company -- ride with it until the wheels fall off or until we explode and I don't have to be on the truck. PICHARDO: Almost 99 percent of our clients are happy with us. We have been lucky. We've been so lucky that we found a group of men that love what they do and they respect their clients and the clients just love us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIPS: Be sure to watch CNN's "Veterans in Focus" special. It airs Veterans Day, Monday, November 11th, 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

A Utah doctor accused of killing his beauty queen wife. At the center of the case, the doctor's mistress, her name is Gypsy. Closing arguments under way. You're going to hear the most explosive moments so far. We're on the case, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: In Provo, Utah, jurors in the murder trial of Dr. Martin Macneill will soon decide his fate. Closing arguments today are recapping the evidence presented during the four-week trial. Prosecutors told the jury that Macneill had the motive and the means and the opportunity to kill his wife, Michele on the morning of April 11th, 2007.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAD GRUNANDER, PROSECUTOR: Between 9:30 a.m. and about 11:00 a.m., no one really knows about Martin Macneill's whereabouts, and he had been at work that morning, certainly, and we know he was back at work by 11:00, because he places a phone call at 11:00 from his office. And had placed a phone call about 9:30, about 9:26 or so, I believe, from his office, but there's about an hour and a half period of time where no one really knows where Martin is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Well, in his closing argument, the defense pounced on one central fact in the case, three medical examiners all determined Michele Macneill died of natural causes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDALL SPENCER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: She had conducted her examination, as you'll see in her notes, with the knowledge that some family members, specifically Linda, thought that Martin had killed Michele. So it's not like the doctor had no clue about some of the family members' assertions. She evaluated the evidence clearly and made a conclusion. She certified the cause of death as being due to hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and as being natural, a real possibility of innocence. That's reasonable doubt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: HLN's Jan Velez-Mitchell joining me from New York. Jane, I don't know about you, but when it comes to closing arguments, shouldn't there be a little more fire, a little more excitement? They were so mellow doing PowerPoint presentations like they were in a sixth grade class.

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN HOST: They're no Juan Martinez that's for sure. I'm referring to the prosecutor in the Jodi Arias case, Kyra, but I have to say up until today, I thought the prosecution was doing an awful job, a sloppy job, letting the witnesses slip and slide past them, but I think the prosecutor's closing argument today was absolutely brilliant.

I think he connected the dots. I think that he really showed that this doctor, as a respected doctor in the community, was in a unique position to pull off a murder and make it look like an accident. And as you mentioned, they go through motive, means, and opportunity. The motive, he wanted to be with his mistress, Gypsy, who he was texting furiously during all of this, who he brought in two weeks later to the family home as the nanny.

He was proposing to her on his knee three months later. The means, he convinced his wife to get this plastic surgery. Then he gets the extra pain killers. Then he's plying her with the pain killers and then the opportunities. You heard the prosecutors say there's this hour and a half where he's unaccounted for, where he gets to go back to the home, take these pills. I'm going to get you a nice tub. Get into the tub, and then pulls her down. I thought they really did paint the picture.

PHILLIPS: Now both sides stipulated Michele Macneill didn't kill herself. Why?

MITCHELL: It's not a suicide. We heard three medical examiners for the state. They're not able to say this is a homicide. The possibilities range from cardiovascular disease to drug toxicity from the painkillers to drowning. But the problem is, the crux of the case, the reason it's so fascinating is how do you tell the difference between somebody taking too many pills, getting in the tub, nodding out and drowning?

And someone being given too many pills by one's doctor husband and told, get into the tub, and then being held down. How do you tell the difference between those two events? The defense said, look, three medical examiners were not able to say this was homicide. You jurors should not dare to jump to that conclusion yourself. You jurors should not make that leap, but maybe they will and maybe they'll do it in a couple hours.

PHILLIPS: There you go. We're waiting for that verdict. Jane Velez- Mitchell, thanks so much.

MITCHELL: Thanks, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: You bet.

Coming up next, one of the most powerful brands in journalism now apologizing for a big-time error, why "60 Minutes" is under serious fire. I'm going to speak live with a media critic about how this could have even happened.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: So, "60 Minutes" goofed and star reporter, Lara Logan, says she's sorry for it. That apology came today on CBS this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARA LOGAN, "60 MINUTES" CORRESPONDENT: Well, the most important thing to every person at "60 Minutes" is the truth, and today, the truth is that we made a mistake. And that's very disappointing for any journalist. It's very disappointing for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: So what are we talking about here? We're talking about a blockbuster report that aired October 27th. And it featured new claims that U.S. officials were warned in advance of lax security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. A source for the story described for Logan his valiant effort to fight off attackers who stormed that compound and killed four Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As I got closer, I was hit with the butt of a rifle in the face.

LOGAN: And?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I went down.

LOGAN: He dropped?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, like a stone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Now, turns out that guy wasn't even at the compound at all. At least, that's what he told his employer. A fact that "60 Minutes" had failed to uncover. According to CBS, he told the same thing to the FBI. He wasn't there and that piece of information prompted today's retraction.

With us now from Washington, Eric Deggans, television critic for national public radio. So Eric, I mean, this is "60 Minutes." I mean, this is the flagship news show for CBS. How bad is this?

ERIC DEGGANS, TV CRITIC, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: This is a rough one. Particularly because the story they reported on, the Benghazi attacks, is so controversial politically. Many conservative legislators have tried to use this as a way to accuse the Obama administration of being lax in many ways. And so it was important to know whether or not these allegations of early warnings about security problems were accurate, and so the sourcing in the story was very important.

PHILLIPS: Let's listen again to Lara Logan explaining why the story is being retracted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOGAN: After our report aired, questions were raised about whether his account was real. After an incident report surfaced that told a different story about what he had done that night and you know, he denied that report. He said that he told the FBI the same story that he had told us. What we now know is he told the FBI a different story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: All right, Eric, "60 Minutes" sinks its teeth really into a story, airs it, and four days later it's the "Washington Post" that debunks this whole thing. What happened to the vetting process? This is what "60 Minutes" is known for, is getting a story, vetting it, and breaking news.

DEGGANS: Well, this is a very complex actually story of how the story disintegrated. At first, the "Washington Post" reported that there was an incident report that apparently had this man's signature on it that said he was trapped in a beachside villa and never made it to where the attack happened. But he countered by telling the "Daily Beast" and telling CBS apparently that he had never seen that report.

He didn't know who signed it for him, and that that was not what happened. And then later, well, he also said -- he told the FBI what he also told "60 Minutes" and CBS, then the "New York Times" discovered in the middle of this week that that wasn't true, that the FBI also says that they were told by him that he did not get to the attack site.

So all of a sudden, this idea that someone cooked up an incident report and signed his name to it is suddenly in doubt. It's hard to know when he was telling a lie, was he lying to his superiors, was he lying in the report, was he lying to CBS? All of a sudden "60 Minutes" and CBS realized they could not trust what he was telling them.

PHILLIPS: Interesting to see how it plays out for the show and its reputation. Eric Deggans, appreciate it. Be sure to tune in, by the way, this Sunday, Eric is going to guest host "RELIABLE SOURCES" right here on CNN at 11:00 a.m. Eastern.

It is the top of the hour, and I'm Kyra Phillips in today for Brooke Baldwin. Right now, we're tracking a typhoon that may be earth's most powerful storm ever. Here's Super Typhoon Haiyan as it hammered the Philippines. The storm is stronger than a category 5 hurricane with wind gusts up to 235 miles per hour.

And at this point, it's impossible to know how many people have been killed.