Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Wave Of Storms Sweeps Across U.S.; Nuclear Talks in Geneva; LAX Scare; Remembering JFK; Bayard Rustin Honored

Aired November 23, 2013 - 16:00   ET

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

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

It is 4:00 in the east. That means it is 1:00 in the west area and I'm Martin Savidge in the CNN NEWSROOM. It's great to be with you. We've got a lot to cover, so let's go.

A deadly wave of storms crossing from the west to east right now. Texas preparing for what may be an incredible ice storm.

And also right now our Matthew Chance standing by in Geneva. There may be a deal between the U.S. and Iran in the next few hours. Something that was all but unfathomable just a few short months ago.

Also an amazing moment in time. All taking place on a very special plane inside one president lay dead. Only a few feet away, another sworn in. That story is just ahead.

But, first, timing could not be worse. Just in time for one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, a powerful weather storm is now moving its way across the country. Rain, snow and powerful winds are creating problems in several states. Icy roads in Oklahoma and Texas are causing major travel issues.

And one of Willie Nelson's tour buses was involved in a wreck a couple hours east of Dallas in Sulphur Springs, Texas, Willie wasn't on board the bus, but three tour members were hurt. And look at the snow in Mt. Charleston, Nevada, this is less than 50 miles west from Las Vegas. Winter storm warnings are active all over the region. Temperatures are expected to dip even more in the next couple of days, and Flagstaff, Arizona, can expect heavy snow this weekend with up to five inches possible and that's just a day. And good luck to all of you.

And then guess what, all that bad weather is coming east? Meteorologist Karen Maginnis shows us what we can expect.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Martin, very dangerous driving conditions along interstate 10 in (INAUDIBLE) County, Texas, also extending up to Ruidoso, New Mexico because of ice and we're looking at snowy conditions. So they're saying, watch out especially in west Texas and then we start to see the Dallas metroplex area being affected over the next 12 hours or so as well. So, potential travel as well as air delays expected there.

Right along the border between New Mexico and Arizona, snowy, especially across these higher elevations, including the San Juan, Sangre de Christo Mountains and into the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. Area of low pressure still spinning out that moisture across Arizona, New Mexico, high wind watch out in Utah. And here we go, for Dallas you'll be right on the edge of that icy precipitation with rainfall expected along the Gulf Coast.

And Monday and Tuesday, kind of critical time period as to what the track of that storm is going to be. Might it be a Nor'easter in places for New York City and Boston expecting snowfall and gusty winds? Well, right now it looks like interior sections of the northeast will be affected with snow and wind. Looks like a rain event along the coast but that could change. That is the dynamics of the system that we're expecting.

New York 32 for Sunday. That's the high. These temperatures are 10 to more than 20 degrees below where they should be for this time of year. We'll keep you updated. Martin, back to you.

SAVIDGE: OK. Karen Maginnis, thank you for that.

Two separate incidents at Los Angeles International Airport put lots of people on edge and that was over the past few hours.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone, on the grass! Everybody get down!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: That, by the way, was not a drill. Armed police officers swarmed one terminal full of travelers. That was late last night. They were responding to a report with a man with a gun. It appears now that was a prank phone call. No man. No gun. Then about the same time, a woman crashed her car at another terminal causing a brief panic and some confusion. It's understandable that nerves may have been pretty raw at L.A.X. a man with a rifle killed TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez three weeks ago and an autopsy report that was released yesterday said that Hernandez was shot 12 times.

All right, here's something you don't see every day. Actually, I don't think you've ever seen it. Check out this video of divers taking the Sochi Olympic torch 50 feet deep into the world's deepest freshwater lake in Siberia, on its track to Sochi, the torch has made unpredicted stops, actually that's unprecedented stops at the International Space Station, the North Pole and now Lake Baikal. By the way, the temperature the surface a balmy 50 degrees. That is Siberia.

Overseas now, we're hearing optimistic sounds out of Geneva, Switzerland, observers say that a deal may be very close between Iran and western countries who want to stop a nuclear program there. One of those optimistic people, John Kerry, the secretary of state. He landed in Geneva this morning, joining the other top diplomats hoping that the talks will finally produce a plan that all sides can agree on.

CNN's Matthew Chance is in Geneva right now and, Matthew, I think we watched this same thing, deja vu, just a couple of weeks ago. Everybody raced off to Geneva, including the secretary of state, nothing happened then. So what is different today?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a good question, Martin, and the short answer to it is that the various diplomats engaged in this from U.S. secretary of State John Kerry down say they are much closer than they were a few weeks ago. They're much closer than they've been at any point during these negotiations which have been taking place over the course of a decade.

As we speak John Kerry is in the same room as the Iranian foreign minister, Javid Sharif, along with Catherine Ashton who is leading the negotiations here. Hammering out the details and trying to close the gaps which are said to be just very narrow gaps but gaps nonetheless in their various positions. The idea, of course, is to try to find a formula that's going to satisfy all sides. On the one side a guarantee that Iran is not going to develop nuclear weapons in the future. It says, of course, it's not going to do that anyway. And on the other side, you know, some kind of reward for that, if you will. Iranians are looking for relief on the crippling sanctions that have been imposed on its economy over the past several years by the United States and by others in the international community as well.

Again, the narrow gaps, still gaps. They haven't got a deal yet. But there's some anticipation that this is at the very least a critical stage of those negotiations.

SAVIDGE: Matthew, what are you hearing as far as what may be the primary sticking point?

CHANCE: I think there's a couple of things that are sticking points. One of them is the Iranian insistence on a formal recognition that they have the right to enrich uranium. That's something the western powers and the U.S. have very much resisted but it's something the Iranians say is a red line for them. On the other side there's this issue of the heavy water reactor that Iran is building in a place called Iraq (ph). The spent fuel could be used to reprocessed into nuclear weapons-grade material as well.

The French in particular and also other members of the security council want much greater clarification on Iraq and they want all work on that reactor to stop if this agreement is going to take hold. Again, they've been trying to work out formulas for both of those issues. They're very close, but it seems they're not there yet.

SAVIDGE: All right, Matthew, we'll continue to stay in touch with you and follow this. Thank you.

Moving on, this side, inside a Baltimore jail allegations now of drug peddling and sex and dozens of corrections officers are involved. That will be our next story.

And then also one of our most notorious mass murders may be getting married? That's just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SAVIDGE: The Obamacare Web site has been the butt of many jokes and it's been widely ripped by critics. Now, the government is taking new steps to try to boost enrollment. The administration will use results of a program that's a pilot program really in Florida, Ohio, and Texas, to try to get the bugs out of the direct enrollment option selection. They'll work with the insurance companies to determine if there are issues before even considering making it available across the country.

The numbers as you might imagine for Obamacare have not been up to par, Tom Foreman tells us which enrollment numbers could make or break the program.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: One of the things we've known all along about Obamacare is you have to have enough young people sign up to make it work, young, healthy people, who will pay more into the system than they will take out.

And right now in the few states where we have data on that, the numbers aren't looking particularly good. California, 23 percent of the people signing up now and a big surge of sign-ups there are in that category of young and healthy. Washington state, same thing. Kentucky one of the best rated states right now in terms of having their state program work, only 19 percent young and healthy signing up. Connecticut also 19 percent and Maryland, 27 percent.

It's just a sampling right now but it matters because this number is so important. You have to have about seven million, at least this is the projection by the Congressional Budget Office by next March for this thing to be working properly, right now only three percent of that number has been achieved. That's not necessarily a big worry because they expected it to be slow at first and then pick up momentum later on but this question of who is signing up is a bigger, more important matter.

The target is out of the 100 percent, 38 percent have to be young and healthy. 38 percent. And right now had the early data has it at 21.6 percent fitting into that category. As this number grows, this number has to grow and get closer to that target because if they don't hit that target, then the math starts getting into trouble according to the Congressional Budget Office and that could put the whole program into a bit of a tailspin.

SAVIDGE: Certainly could. Thank you, Tom, very much.

Just this week the Obama administration, by the way, gave people an extra eight days to sign up if they wanted to be covered on January 1st. The deadline is now December 23rd.

Their job is to maintain peace and order inside of jails, but now more than two dozen corrections officers in Baltimore are implicated in a shocking case of sex, lies and drugs. Prosecutors say that corrections officers and members of a notorious prison gang were in cahoots together peddling drugs and phones and even having sex together inside of the city's jail. One indictment alleges a suspected gang member, one, got four jail guards pregnant. In all 27 corrections officers have been charged in the scheme.

Well, could marriage be in the cards for the notorious killer Charles Manson? A Missouri woman tells "Rolling Stone" magazine that she is Manson's girlfriend and that the two will soon be getting married. Manson, however, says it's a bunch of garbage. Whatever the case, CNN's Ted Rowlands got some insight into this wannabe Mrs. Manson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It sounds crazy but it is true, a 25- year-old woman wants to marry Charles Manson, 79-year-old Charles Manson. Her name is Star, Star is the name that he gave her. I first met star four years ago when she was 21, living out in Corcoran, California, that's where the prison where Charles Manson is being housed. The first question I had for her, of course, why Charles Manson?

STAR: Charlie is all about atwah, which is air, tree, water, animals and he's been talking about it over 40 years, and none of the TV shows have ever picked that up. I don't know why.

ROWLANDS (voice-over): Star says she was attracted to Charles Manson because of his views on the environment. She says that after that, she started to get to know his past and was fine with it once she met him, saying that he is an honest man and she loves him very much.

(on camera): If indeed they do get married, the state of California will facilitate a marriage in prison. All the costs have to be borne by the person marrying a prisoner in this case because Charles Manson is in a maximum security facility, there will be no conjugal visits between he and his bride if they indeed do get married.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: An extraordinary moment in history, and it took place within the confines of a very special plane. Inside one president lay dead, only a few feet away another sworn in. I'll have that story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: Air Force One has seen its share of history, but no day more extraordinary than November 22nd, 1963. On that day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the plane hosted the inauguration of our 36th president, Lyndon Johnson, moments later the same plane was in the air.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): The peaceful transition of power for the mightiest nation on earth took place not in the White House or even in Washington. But on a plane.

Window shades drawn for fear of snipers, the air-conditioning off to save fuel. The scratchy audio captured on a dictation machine. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Preserve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Preserve.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Protect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Protect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defend.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Defend.

SAVIDGE: Built the year before, President Kennedy's Air Force One was the first presidential jet. Jackie Kennedy hired the designer who came up with its distinctive paint scheme still used today.

That day in Dallas, as the first couple set off into the adoring crowd, the crew monitored their progress on the plane's radios.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You realize that I'll be monitoring this frequency.

SAVIDGE: It wasn't long before they knew something was terribly wrong.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a situation, I read you.

SAVIDGE: The president had been shot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have report quoting Mr. Kilduff in Dallas that the president is dead.

SAVIDGE: In an instant, Air Force one transformed into a command center, and as far as anyone knew was the only safe place for a possibly still targeted vice president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have any passengers on board?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger, 40 plus.

SAVIDGE: But to the frustration of many, Lyndon Johnson, code name Volunteer, refused to take off until he took the oath of office.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still waiting for a judge to appear for swearing in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is for volunteer, is that right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. We are having - getting one here and have it done before we take off.

SAVIDGE: Meanwhile, determined the president's body should not travel in the baggage compartment, the crew struggled to make space in the plane. Historian Jeff Underwood recalls what had to be done.

JEFF UNDERWOOD, HISTORIAN: They pulled these four seats out. Then they took a saw and they cut off the bulkhead right across here and the line is still there. SAVIDGE: The president's casket was rushed up the plane's stairs while up forward people pressed into the sweltering space to bear witness.

UNDERWOOD: And then the photographer was crammed up on the little couch that's right here in the corner and pushed themselves up into the corner.

SAVIDGE: Jackie Kennedy insisted on being present. The photographer careful to frame the shot so not to show the blood of her husband on her clothes. Finally, it was time to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell me in regards to one and two, the top people?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roger. The president is on board. The body is on board and Mrs. Kennedy is on board.

SAVIDGE: With that, Air Force One took off, signaling its departure in long-standing Secret Service code that on this terrible day seemed so fitting.

Angel is airborne.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: By the way, Kennedy's Air Force One which was a Boeing 707 stayed in service until 1998, serving other administrations and today it is at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, and if you'd like to see it, it is open to the public.

One of those honored this week with the Medal of Freedom was a man whose name you may have never heard, but his work helped shape the United States as we all know it today. That's next.

And coming up in a few minutes, a house call, right in your very own living room with Dr. Sanjay Gupta and this time around he's talking turkey, doctor.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Martin, first of all, happy holidays to you. You know, I want to share a stat with you. The average American's going to eat about 3,000 calories this one meal of Thanksgiving. So, we invited well-known chef, my friend, Hugh Achison, to teach us about food and what we can do to bring down those numbers. "SG MD" at the bottom of the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SAVIDGE: This past week President Obama honored 16 people with the presidential Medal of Freedom. One of those honorees was the late Bayard Rustin. His name might not mean a lot to many Americans, but there's no doubt that they've heard of his achievements, say, like organizing the 1963 march on Washington. His relentless fight for civil rights for both blacks and whites and for gay Americans should inspire all of us. Don Lemon looks back at his many achievements.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) RACHELLE HOROWITZ, FORMER RUSTIN ASSISTANT: Bayard was at heart a militant and revolutionary in the fight for civil rights.

DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bayard Rustin served as a trusted advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Montgomery bus boycott. But he's better known for organizing the iconic 1963 march on Washington.

REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: The one man in America who could do it did it and that's why it happened. It had an architect. His name was Bayard Rustin.

LEMON: But at a time when intolerance ran high, Rustin stood out for more than just his work on civil rights.

HOROWITZ: It was just one of these facts of life. Bayard is gay, he doesn't hide it. I said to somebody once that he never knew there was a closet to go into.

COURTLAND COX, MARCH ON WASHINGTON STAFF: Bayard he'd been attacked both for his homosexuality and also his political views.

HOROWITZ: Strom Thurman did it on the floor of the United States senate.

LEMON: Thurman referenced Rustin's 1953 arrest on a public sex charge.

BAYARD RUSTIN, ACTIVIST: The senator is interested in attacking me because he is interested in destroying the movement. He will not get away with this.

LEMON: The march was a huge success and exceeded expectations, but it wasn't the first time Rustin's sexuality came under attack, sometimes from his own people including the democratic congressman from Harlem.

NORMAN HILL, MARCH ON WASHINGTON STAFF: There was the possibility of rumor being circulated by Adam Clayton Powell that Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr. were having an affair. King pressed Bayard to take a back seat and back off from the organizing in 1960 in the March on Conventions Movement.

LEMON: After the 1960s, Rustin continued to be a pro-labor and anti- apartheid activist, yet to colleagues he never seemed to get his due recognition.

HOROWITZ: Clearly somebody as charismatic and as brilliants as Bayard Rustin but was not able or establish or to become a leader in the same sense of all the civil rights leaders of that time, he was being held back by the fact that he was a homosexual.

LEMON: Now, 26 years after his death, Rustin will be awarded the nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom.

NORTON: Nobody did it better than Bayard Rustin, so I became something of a disciple of Bayard Rustin. HOROWITZ: When you were with Bayard, you really believed you were in the presence of history and that you were going to change the way America worked.

LEMON: Don Lemon, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: By the way, Rustin died in 1987 but he would have loved how Wednesday's ceremony of the White House made history. His partner, Walter Nagel, accepted Rustin's Medal of Freedom from the president. It was the first time a gay partner openly accepted an award at the White House on behalf of their loved one. Astronaut Sally Ride's partner Tam O'Shaugnessy also had the same honor.

CNN NEWSROOM continues at the top of the hour. Of course, we're keeping very close watch on this deadly weather that is making its way across the country right now. Texas preparing for what could be a very serious ice storm. We'll have the very latest on that. Of course, at the top of the hour.

Right now, stay tuned for CNN's "SANJAY GUPTA, M.D."

Air Force One has seen its share of history, but no day more extraordinary than November 22nd, 1963. On that day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the plane hosted the inauguration of our 36th president, Lyndon Johnson, moments later the same plane was in the air.>