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Union Rep: Engineer "Nodded Off" Before Crash, Feds Boot Union From Investigation; Future Space Tourists Train For Space Flight; Georgia Police Arrest Electric Car Owner Who Allegedly Stole Five Cents Of Power; Rare Access Inside Fukushima Nuclear Disaster; Obama Defends Health Care Law

Aired December 04, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin. What was that train operator doing in the moments leading up to the deadly derailment in the Bronx Sunday? A union representative tells CNN that William Rockefeller Jr. had, quote, "nodded off," but federal investigators are quick to say the rail workers union talked out of turn.

Yesterday, we reported on this show from these four -- two law enforcement sources that Rockefeller told investigators he was quote/unquote "in a daze," and he had no idea what happened. Rockefeller also saying the brakes failed him.

Well, the NTSB has revealed that the train was in fact speeding, seven cars jumping the tracks, killing four people. Nic Robertson is back on the story for us today. Nic, let's just begin with these claims from this union rep and the fallout, really, today from his comments.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what the NTSB is saying, that he's broken the confidentiality agreement that the union entered into to be part of the investigation here. There are other groups and organizations assisting the NTSB. The NTSB has said that by virtue of him, the union representative, disclosing details of what the train engineer has said and sort of placing an interpretation upon that, that's broken the confidentiality, and therefore, they're being now excluded from assisting as the investigation goes forward -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: What about the news today of this passenger lawsuit, that the first injured passenger filing suit here?

ROBERTSON: Yes, notice a claim by Dr. Denise Williams. She'll be filing that lawsuit in 30 days, according to her lawyer. She was severely injured in the train wreck, broken spine in several places, pinned down in the train by thousands of pounds of pressure from the overturned train, from the wood and debris that was accumulated there.

Her ribs and her upper rib cage fractured, fractured shoulder as well. She was in a lot of pain there, and this claim will go against the MTA for negligence. Negligence because she says the claim will say that the railroad authorities should have instituted this positive track control, this computer system that would have mitigated against human error if human error is ruled here.

That if there was a mistake by the train engineer, then this system would have prevented the accident happening. And also, this claim going to go against the MTA, saying they have done little to upgrade their train tracks since a couple of incidents in the past few years. So this is the first one that we're hearing here -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: First of what could be several. We will wait to find out. Nic Robertson for us at the scene of that derailment in the Bronx. Nic, thank you.

Coming up, arrested, for of all things, stealing electricity, you heard me right. This man was thrown in jail for stealing 5 cents worth of electricity to charge his electric car. What? Can he really be arrested for that? We're on the case.

But first, do you dream of traveling through space but cannot afford a ticket? Well, this could be your next best thing. A space training center is taking would-be astronauts on the ride of their lives in this "Technovations."

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BALDWIN (voice-over): Tourists could blast off into space as early as next year on Virgin Galactic's Spaceship 2. Until then, future astronauts can train for the rigors of space on earth.

BRIENNA HENWOOD, THE NASTAR CENTER: It's the real deal. We're training them just as we would a military pilot, a fighter pilot, or an astronaut.

BALDWIN: More than 300 people have taken the two-day space training course at the NASTAR Center in Pennsylvania. The program centers around a state of the art simulator, a human centrifuge that replicates what space travel feels like.

ANNOUNCER: Sequence starts in three, two, one.

HENWOOD: You're going to see your G meter, your altimeter, your rear camera view, visuals outside the space craft as you feel the forces of your launching up, as simulated weightlessness and re-entry back down to earth.

BALDWIN: The faster it spins, the more you feel the forces of gravity.

HENWOOD: For extreme G forces or prolonged sustained Gs, there's a very good risk of you being able to pass out. For those reasons, I want to make sure that you're trained properly.

BALDWIN: You don't need a ticket to space to take this course, but it will cost you $3,000.

HENWOOD: The future of space holds a lot of promise. Hopefully, hundreds, thousands of people going to be traveling for various missions across the galaxy. (END VIDEOTAPE)

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BALDWIN: Now to a petty crime that will make you wonder who is being petty. Is it the police or this accused perp? Here's the story, from Georgia, this is an Atlanta suburb. Officers there charged this father with theft after he charged his electric car at an outlet at his son's school last month.

He's Kabeh Kamooneh, and he told our affiliate WXIA that his car, this Nissan Leaf, had been plugged in for about 20 minutes, which is worth about 5 cents in power. An electricity expert confirmed to CNN that price is indeed accurate. Now, he spent 15 hours in jail before being released over this.

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SGT. ERNESTO FORD, CHAMBLEE POLICE: He broke the law. He stole something that wasn't his, yes.

DOUG RICHARDS, WXIA REPORTER: Even if it was a small amount of electricity, it's justified.

FORD: A theft is a theft, yes.

RICHARDS: You would do it again?

FORD: Absolutely.

RICHARDS: Did you ask for permission to plug into the school?

KAVEH KAMOONEH, DEFENDANT: When I first got there, there was nobody there. It was a Saturday morning. No.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Kamooneh said there are many cases in which police do not charge when there's no consent, like someone taking a drink from a water fountain, for example. CNN has made calls to Chamblee police. We're still waiting a comment from them.

It has been more than two and a half years now since Japan's Fukishima Daiichi nuclear reactor was badly damaged by that tsunami and cleanup is expected to take as long as 40 years, that's 4-0. CNN's Ana Coren was granted rare access inside this plant. This is the closest a journalist has ever been allowed to see the recovery work.

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ANA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are here inside reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant. It was in here where there was that massive high explosion that severely damaged the building. But this was the least damaged of the four reactors because it was under maintenance and wasn't actually operating. Now two and a half years later, Tepco says it reached a milestone. That massive crane behind me is moving 1500 fuel rods in that cooling pool to a storage pool next door. It's a slow and delicate process that will take about a year, but once finished it will mean that this reactor can be decommissioned. Attention going to then turn to reactors 1, 2, and 3 that suffered far worst damage. The situation there is serious and the levels of radiation are dangerously high.

Workers have begun removing debris, but the clean up inside the reactors is a long way off. Officials here said the entire plant won't be decommissioned for at least 40 years. As for the future of nuclear power in Japan, no one really knows. More than 50 reactors have been shut down with the public very concerned about their health and safety. But Japanese prime minister is pushing to re-open them, believing that Japan can have a safe nuclear future. Ana Coren, CNN, Fukushima, Japan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Ana Coren, thank you, with that exclusive access there.

Closing the wealth gap between the richest and the poorest Americans, President Obama focused on that near minutes ago. You'll hear his message on economic inequality. That's next.

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BALDWIN: A source tells CNN's Jim Acosta, our senior White House correspondent, that the number of Americans enrolling for Obamacare this week alone is higher than the number for all of the months of October when the health care web site went online with all kinds of problems.

The source credits the website's improved performance for the enrolment this week of 29,000 new customers. That's 2,000 more than all of October. November numbers are due out soon. As you know, people are signing up through state exchanges as well.

With a signature program finally grinding forward, the president signalled today he is going back on the offensive. The aforementioned Jim Acosta, our senior White House correspondent, has that story for us now today. Jim, what did he say?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brooke. I think you can describe today as, if yesterday was the Obamacare rebranding effort getting launched, today might have been an Obama branding -- rebranding effort getting launched because the president went back to his base, was trying to rib up his base with two events here in Washington.

One at the event Center for American progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, talking about the economy, issues s like income disparity, called for a hike in minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits, but in the last several minutes he wrapped up an event at the White House with younger Americans, a youth summit here at the White House that really goes to the issues that the White House believes younger Americans care about.

First and foremost on the president's mind, was the Affordable Care Act, they desperately want younger Americans to sign up. You mentioned the enrolment numbers. 29,000 in the first couple days of this month, exceeding all of what was picked up in October, and about a third, by the way, of what the administration says will be reported for November.

And the president very interestingly at one point, Brooke, talked about the term Obamacare. People in Washington have been saying, you know, the president hasn't been using the word Obamacare as much lately. What's the deal with that? The president used it during this address to younger folks here at the White House. Here's what the president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I know people call this law Obamacare and that's OK, because I do care. And I do. I care about you. I care about families. I care about Americans. But no matter how much I care, the truth is that for your friends and your family, the most important source of information is not going to be me. It's going to be you. They are going to trust you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: So a little bit of the president picking himself up, dusting himself off from that disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov. No briefing here at the White House today, but on a conference call with reporters, officials with the administration, they were talking about how they also believe that enrolment is picking up, Brooke.

That is really the best news that this White House can be hoping for right now, for all of this work, and remember, a lot of people were receiving those cancelation letters. For all of this to work by January 1st, they need those enrolment numbers to accelerate quickly. They're starting to get a glimpse of that.

In a week or so from now, we'll get a better sense as to the official numbers for November. No doubt about it, you can hear some of the president basically saying today, yes, this is basically job one at the White House right now.

BALDWIN: Finally getting some of those tangible numbers. I know you and so many of your colleagues have been asking for. Jim Acosta, we'll wait for more, thank you, from the White House.

News just in to us here at CNN, in the world of television, we're reporting on a shake-up today at cable channel, MSNBC. Our senior media correspondent, Brian Stelter is live with me with more, and Brian Stelter, we're talking about Martin Bashir. What is his fate?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: He has resigned from MSNBC. This is several weeks after he had made comments about Sarah Palin that many people thought were outright disgusting, that were indefensible. In fact, I can't repeat them on the air. Even though he was clever in the way he said it, he was talking about inappropriate behavior about Sarah Palin.

He went away on vacation for a while. He said he took the Thanksgiving holiday off, came back, met with the president of MSNBC and decided he had to tender his resignation. I'm sure he was under some pressure to do so, however, because his comments had become such a distraction, not just for him, but for all of MSNBC.

BALDWIN: Quickly, a reminder, we were talking just this week about Alec Baldwin first, and now Martin Bashir.

STELTER: That's right. Once Alec Baldwin quit for very different reasons from his show on MSNBC last week, people wondered is Martin Bashir going to leave as well. Well, he is. MSNBC has put out a statement though, wishing him all the best. It was a very kind statement suggesting he wasn't forced out, although it was very uncomfortable there for several weeks because of his remarks.

BALDWIN: Brian Stelter, thank you very much. A quick reminder, make sure to tune in and watch Brian debuting as host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES" this weekend, this Sunday at 11 a.m. Eastern here on CNN.

Coming up in mere minutes at the top of the hour here on CNN, this truck filled with a dangerous radioactive substance is stolen in Mexico. And now the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency are concerned about quote/unquote, "dirty bombs." We'll get a live report on that potential threat coming up.

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BALDWIN: We talked about this not too long ago. Oxford Dictionary had its say on what its 2013 word of the year was. They chose "selfie." So now Merriam-Webster selected its word of the year. It is science, science? Yes, about that. The folks at Merriam-Webster said science had the biggest increase in number of lookups in the online dictionary, a 176 percent increase, to be precise. The dictionary editors say a wide variety of discussions centered on science this year.

And speaking of science, my fellow space nerds, NASA has some big plans for plants on the moon. The space organization is teaming up with Google to send flower seedlings to space. In an attempt to see if vegetation can survive on the moon. All in an effort to answer the ultimate question, can humans live and work on the moon? Scientists say if they can successfully grow a garden that might mean that humans could one day have a habitat on the moon.

Here we go, hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin live here in New York. We begin with the 911 calls. They have been released from the Newtown school shootings. They took the lives of 20 children and six adults just about one year ago. Deborah Feyerick has just listened to the tapes. If you can, describe to me what you heard.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, one of the reasons the tapes were released, to see exactly how police responded when the 911 calls came in. You hear a dispatcher very calm. He quickly notified a supervisor, a sergeant there. He orders an all- hands response so that police go immediately to the school. He notifies the Connecticut State Police, has a colleague do that, and then he determines that the school is in lockdown.

So immediately, they understood the seriousness of this situation and it appears that they were responding as quickly as they could within this flood of 911 calls that were coming in. It wasn't just from inside the school, Brooke, but it was also from people who were being texted by those inside, saying that there was a gunman in the hallways.

You hear how this all plays out. A female teacher called in. She had been shot in the foot. You could hear a little bit of the fear in her voice. She can't get to the door. There are two other adults with children sheltering in place, the dispatcher says, can you lock the door? She says, I can't, I can't. You hear some of the fear and some of what was going on within the school within the 10 minutes the gunman was inside.

BALDWIN: What about specifically this call, Deborah, from the janitor who has since been hailed a hero? Describe that call for me.

FEYERICK: It's fascinating to listen to because this custodian, Rick Thorn, really became the eyes and ears for the dispatcher. He was able to say when the gunshots were going off. He was able to say when there was silence within the school as well. He was in a different part of the school, not at the front entrance where the gunman broke in. But he was in a different part of the school.

And, at one point, he is actually confronted by responding officers, and you hear him with urgency in his voice saying, "Custodian, custodian," and he acts as -- he's relaying messages between the dispatcher and the Newtown police.

And the Newtown police say, have the dispatcher call Connecticut State Police, at which point the custodian says, yes, the dispatcher is telling me that they have already been called. So, you can see how this was playing out in real time, that this custodian really able to help the police.

At one point, they were going to let him go to help the responder officers and then the dispatcher kept him on the phone just so he could have a sense of what was going on, so a lot of urgency as these officers made their way through the building, and as people in the school were calling to make sure that everybody knew that they desperately needed help, Brooke.

BALDWIN: The calm, the professionalism from all those 911 operators invaluable in a situation as horrendous as that. Deborah Feyerick, thank you very much.