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NASA Decides on Space Walk to Repair Space Station; Rodman Headed Back to North Korea; Southern Illinois Coach Rips Own Players; Ira Curry Is Georgia Mega Millions Winner

Aired December 18, 2013 - 15:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN.

Two pieces of information let me pass along to you. First, just a quick reminder, we're watching and waiting for this Georgia lottery news conference that will happen any minute now, because we now know someone is about to become just a tad, just a tad more rich this holiday season, because we now know there's a winner of the Mega Millions drawing from last night out of Atlanta and out of San Jose, California. Stay tuned for that. We will take that live, of course.

Also, we can tell you as we throw these numbers up, wow, the Dow up 229 points. We're just about an hour-and-a-half past the big announcement from Ben Bernanke, the Fed chair, saying really as his final news conference at the end of the year before he passes the baton off to Janet Yellen pending Senate confirmation, the fact that they're now beginning to taper just a little bit, just a little bit after pumping so much stimulus into the economy.

And so that, you talk to a lot of economists, as we have, that's a great sign when it comes to the economy and your wallet, so great numbers here on Wall Street, half-an-hour before the closing bell.

And now let's talk Olympics, the Sochi Winter Games weeks away, and Russia cannot escape the bad press, protests, boycotts, all over this controversial law banning gay propaganda.

And now to a not-so-subtle message from President Obama. While the president will not be attending, he is indeed sending a delegation, and that delegation includes gay athletes.

Joining me now, Ryan O'Meara. Ryan has four U.S. Figure Skating Championship medals and represented the U.S. in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy.

So, Ryan also gay.

And, Ryan, a pleasure to talk to you. I remember watching you on TV a couple years ago. Let's just begin with your reaction to the news of this delegation. What message do you think this sends to Russia?

RYAN O'MEARA, FORMER U.S. OLYMPIC SKATER: I think it sends a pretty strong message that, you know, the U.S. is certainly not going to back down on their opinions on this issue.

And, you know, the Games are all about the athletes, you know, and what the athletes are there to do and the inspirational stories that come with it. And I really think the U.S. is really holding fast and making that number one priority vs. all of this drama circumventing all around.

BALDWIN: It has been a lot of drama. It's a good word. Melissa Etheridge would agree with you. Let me --

O'MEARA: I'm sure she would.

BALDWIN: She was sitting right here next to me. I want to say it was two weeks ago.

She's an activist, singer-songwriter and she was -- she's formed this group of people together, this coalition, trying to raise awareness going into Sochi.

Her message was this. Let me just play this sound bite for everyone. She says do not boycott the Olympic Games.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELISSA ETHERIDGE, SINGER, CO-FOUNDER OF "UPRISING OF LOVE": Because I'm known as a gay person, just by showing up and saying, I'm standing here fearless, because I believe that we as human beings can do this, we can get past this fear that somehow there's something dangerous in this.

BALDWIN: What would you say? Or would you let your presence speak for itself?

ETHERIDGE: Yes, I would show up. I would be there. I would say to the gay community, come, just stand with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: She was saying she would love to go to Sochi. She's not so sure if she can, if they would have her.

Do you agree with her message?

O'MEARA: I do. I think the worst thing we can do is to boycott the Olympics.

You know, the athletes work all year long and their whole lives. To have it thrown away for some silly, you know, law that Russia has started, I'm really glad that the U.S. is sticking behind their athletes on that.

BALDWIN: Ryan O'Meara, a pleasure. Thank you, sir.

O'MEARA: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: You got it. As we near the end of the year, we need your votes for the top stories of 2013. Here's what you need to do. Go to CNN.com/YIR, Year In Review, YIR.

There you will see 20 of the biggest news stories we have covered here during the past 12 months. We need you to choose 10 and the results will be announced online and on television, end of the year, December 30th, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. We need your help right there.

Coming up, my fellow space geeks, astronauts are planning emergency space walks to fix the International Space Station.

But remember what happened during that last space walk? Pretty scary stuff. Has a lot of people concerned as we look ahead to this. We'll talk about that.

Also, as I mentioned, any minute now, lottery officials in Georgia will be holding a news conference announcing that a winner has come forward. We will take it live.

Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Remember this? An astronaut on a space walk earlier this year nearly drowned when his suit began to fill up with water.

So, NASA suspended the practice, but right now, NASA is holding this news conference. We're listening in, and they're announcing this change of mind, ordering a series of space walks to fix this broken cooling line on the ISS, the International Space Station.

Jennifer Gray, can you walk just me through? I talked to an astronaut the other day about this, and he didn't seem all too concerned.

But you've have been listening to the news conference from NASA. What exactly do they have to do?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, they don't seem too concerned, but they've got to get it done.

This is basically the part of the space station they're going to work on. This pump contained ammonia on the outside and water on the inside, and what it does is regulates it temperature outside and inside of the International Space Station.

The reason this is so crucial is because the space station goes through extreme differences in temperature depending on where it is relative to the sun.

When it's between the earth and sun, it can get up to 200 degrees. When it's on the opposite side, away from the sun, it can get as cold as 200 degrees below zero. So they've got to get this in check.

They're going to be repairing this so they can better regulate the temperature, not only on the outside of the space station, but also on the inside.

BALDWIN: When exactly are they doing the space walks?

GRAY: The first space walk is on Saturday. They have scheduled two. They could need a third. They could have a space walk on Christmas day if need.

BALDWIN: Oh, wow. OK. Jennifer Gray, thank you very much.

And coming up here, former NBA superstar Dennis Rodman headed back to North Korea. This is trip number three for him.

And keeping in mind this is also one week after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un executed his uncle, so we're asking, is this trip safe? What does he risk?

Plus, two big stories for you. The first, any moment now, lottery officials in Georgia will announce a winner in the mega millions jackpot. Stand by for that.

Also on Wall Street, huge numbers, the Dow soaring after the Fed announced it will pull back just a bit on the stimulus.

Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Dennis Rodman, are you ready for this? He's headed back to the communist worker's paradise of North Korea.

He's to arrive tomorrow. At least, that's the plan, despite what we will call the recent unpleasantries in Pyongyang.

Quick refresher, that is diminutive leader Kim Jong-un, in case you'd forgotten. He doesn't much like America, and he does have a nuclear weapon.

Kim is 5'6", a foot or so shorter than the pierced and tatted-up Rodman which with whom Kim shares this frankly Bizarro friendship.

Why bizarre, you ask. Keep it mind, it's North Korea. Do it by the book or else. Clap on cue, march on cue, hail Kim on cue and these folks do mean business.

You could ask the man in white. That's Kim's uncle here. Actually, you can't actually ask him now. He's dead.

He was considered Kim's mentor until late last week when they led him away and shot him by firing squad. A traitor, so says North Korea.

Gordon Chang is joining me now from Toronto. And we like to go to Gordon Chang on all things North Korea.

So, Gordon, we're told that Rodman's mission, this is his third to North Korea, is to train some North Koreans for this hoops exhibition.

Would you advise him to go to this, you know, this place, you know, where this uncle was executed very recently?

GORDON CHANG, "NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN -- NORTH KOREA TAKES ON THE WORLD": Well, the State Department advises Americans not to go to North Korea, but for Dennis Rodman, it's going to be safe because he's really important to him.

You have to remember that Kim Jong-un needs to show that his regime, his government, is united, which it isn't.

The appearance of unity is one of the most important things for the Kim regime, and Kim purposely squandered that when he aired those sensational charges about his uncle.

With Dennis Rodman, we're going to see a lot of made-for-television events. Everybody is going to be smiling, everything will appear normal, and this will bolster the regime.

BALDWIN: Appearances, appearances, appearances.

We hear Rodman. He talks about peace, but he also says, look, he says, I'm not a diplomat.

As far as we know, he has not been pressing his buddy over there, Kim Jong-un, to free this American, Kenneth Bae, convicted of hostile acts against North Korea.

This is a video of him back in October, and we spoke with his sister this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRI CHUNG, KENNETH BAE'S SISTER: I would certainly hope and plead with Mr. Rodman to reconsider and say, you know, while you're there, you know, make the case, and you know, let this American citizen who has been detained for 13 months, longest of any other American in recent history, to come home to his wife and his three children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Gordon, if you were Dennis Rodman, again, this guy is no diplomat, but how hard would you press him on freedom of Kenneth Bae?

CHANG: Well, if I were Dennis Rodman, I would press really, really hard. You know, Rodman did send out that message saying, do me a solid, Kim Jong-un, let Kenneth Bae go.

But Dennis Rodman won't do that. As a matter of fact, he said he won't do that because he said it's not his business.

He said he's going over there purely for basketball diplomacy and he's not going to raise these human rights issues.

BALDWIN: What do you think? You talked about these made-for-TV moments. We have seen video of Dennis Rodman with Kim Jong-un in the past.

What do you think we should expect to see this time around?

CHANG: It's going to be very important for us to look at the photographs of these events because it's going to be like criminology. We're going to see who is standing next to who on the Kremlin wall.

We're going to see who is next to Kim Jong-un, and it's probably going to be military officers because they become powerful now that Jang Song-thaek has been executed.

And this isn't good for South Korea or the United States or the world when the North Korean military gains more and more power, because they're bellicose and they can easily do something really awful.

BALDWIN: When we see those pictures, Gordon Chang, we will chat once again. Thank you so much for joining me.

And now to this, so, size does matter. So says the basketball coach who's wild tirade is getting a lot of buzz.

Let me set this up for you. This is Barry Hinson. He's the coach at Southern Illinois. His team lost to Murray State last night, and during the post-game news conference, this guy ripped his players. Ripped them.

You need proof? Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARRY HINSON, HEAD COACH, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY: I got a bunch of mama's boys right now, and we just won't buck up and bow our necks. We've got to get through that. We've got to get through that.

I'm tired of coaching a guy and having him roll his eyes or put his head down or feel sorry for himself. I'm tired of that. This is big time. People lose their jobs. You know, they don't put their head down. They get another job.

Guys get sick. They find a way to get healthy. You report to work. You report to duty.

We got men and women serving our country. They don't get to take days off, you know?

We're going to college and getting it paid for.

Somebody just got a text here. All right, next question.

I think rebounding -- I think it's two-fold. I've been telling my wife this for years. Size doesn't matter. And I really think that when it comes to rebounding, I just think it's heart, heart and effort.

Marcus off game? Off game? Yeah, Marcus had an off game. Marcus was absolutely awful. That's about as PG-rated as I can say it. He was awful.

Our guards were awful. Our three starting guards had one assist and seven turnovers. They must think it's a tax credit. It's unbelievable how our starting guards played.

And let's talk about our big guys, two-for-11. How can you go 2 for 11? My wife can score more than two buckets on 11 shots because I know my wife will at least shot-fake one time.

But those guys aren't listening. They're un-coachable right now.

To me, when you've got a young team, it's a lot like house training a puppy dog. You know what? When the dog does something wrong, bad dog.

I'm not going to hit them, I'm not going to swat them, but bad dog. Get on the treadmill.

There was a sniper in the gym. Didn't you see that? We had guys falling down. We had a guy snipered at half-court. Two guys snipered at half-court, it was unbelievable.

I thought there were -- I would think Navy SEAL Team Six was out there. Our guys were coming across there, nobody around them, and just fell down on the ground. How does that happen?

I swear I thought one time that one of our players said Merry Christmas. I thought it was a gift. I thought they signed the package over. I think Sapp, because he just came back, transferred, first game, I think we wanted to give him a couple of Christmas gifts, couple of stocking -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Wow. Wow. Thanks, coach.

According to EPSN, the school's athletic director had a little chat with Hinson, but the coach only regrets calling out a player by name.

Any moment, lottery officials in Georgia, holding a news conference announcing a winner has come forward.

Live pictures as we await someone to step behind those microphones. We will take it live.

Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, we're going to take to you this Georgia lottery official here in just a moment, but this is out of Atlanta, Georgia.

We know one of the two winners bought a ticket there, and we now have a name. She is Ira Curry from Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Take a listen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, thank you.

What an exciting night here in Georgia, as John (ph) just told you, the second largest Mega Millions drawing in the history of the game and also in U.S. history.

We're really excited because not only did we have one of two Mega Millions winners, we also had two $1 million winners. We had 25 $2,000 and -- I'm sorry. Let me get those notes right. We had so many winners last night.

We had three $20,000 winners, 26 $5,000 winners, 18 $2,000 winners and over 900,000 other prize winners, so a great night here in Georgia.

Our prize winner did come in to lottery headquarters this afternoon to claim her prize. Her name is Ira Curry. She lives in Stone Mountain. She has elected to take the cash option and we'll be sharing with you what that means for her and her family.

It's over $173 million for that cash option, of which we will withhold 25 percent for federal income tax and six percent for Georgia income tax. That will leave that family with about $120 million cash.

Ira and her family have elected not to participate in the press conference this afternoon, and we're going to be very respectful of their privacy.

I will share with you that they were very, very excited about the win. They were, as they said, still in a state of shock.

This morning, Miss Curry heard about the jackpot drawing last evening. She heard on the radio station, the announcer talking about a seven -- number seven as the Mega Ball.

She realized that that was her pick and, so, she called her daughter. She woke up her daughter. Her daughter checked the winning numbers, and sure enough, they were the big Mega Millions winner for Georgia.

She said she didn't veer off the road, because that was my question, how did you not swerve off the road? She said that she was just in a state of disbelief, and I think after talking to her for a couple hours this afternoon she was certainly in a state of disbelief.

Both her and her husband and other family members were here at Georgia Lottery headquarters. They are so strongly supportive of the Georgia Lottery Corporation and the two public benefit programs that our proceeds fund, both Hope and Pre-K.

As she said to us, even if she lost, she won, because those proceeds benefit all of the kids here in Georgia, and so that was really -- I think, really heartwarming for us. that each if she had lost she really felt like she was a winner.

She did pick the numbers. They were a combination of family birthdays and her family's lucky number, number 7, and so that's how the -- she didn't do a quick pick. Those were actually numbers that she's been playing based on family birthdays.

She has not decided how she will spend those winnings. I think she's going to take some time and think about it and her and here -- and spend some time with her and her family members and then they'll make a decision later.

So, with that, it was a great night for the Georgia Lottery Corporation, for our players and for our retailers, and we want to thank both our players and our retailers and give you, the media, our sincerest appreciation for being here and helping us share that excitement, and we wish you the happiest of holidays.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you spell her name, please?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her first name is Ira, I-R-A. The last name is Curry, C-U-R-R-Y.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How old is she?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to be respectful of our player's privacy. She's asked us to respect that privacy. And we're going to share with you in the press release all that we can share with you at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are not sharing her husband's name as a part of the press release.

Because we adhere to open records, we're obligated to share the name of the winner and the game that she played, the city that she played and the retailer that sold her the winning lottery ticket.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you tell us more about the retailer and -- tell us more about the retailer and how much they get in all of this?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right. The winning -- not the winner, but certainly -- this is a lucky store, and hopefully that this store, which is Gateway Newstand at 3500 Lennox Road, although they do not get a cashing bonus or a selling bonus for the ticket, we think that just the value of being a lucky store will drive additional traffic into retail.

So, it is at 3500 Lennox Road, and I think there's a great deal of excitement at that retail location right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So they don't get any kind of commission or anything off the sales?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. What the Georgia Lottery retailers get is six percent of sales. That's statutorily set.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that sales at the state or for the sales at the store?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is for the sales at the store.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did she work in the building?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are giving you as much information as we can provide, according to open records, and we are being very respectful of our winner's privacy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible)?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was --

BALDWIN: Note to self, pick family birthdays, pick family lucky number. Sorry, I'm just writing some notes to myself, learning from Ira Curry out of the Atlanta area winning.

Let me just make sure I get this right. This is not chump change, folks. Ultimately, take the taxes out, she opted for the cash option, $120 million cash.

We don't get to see her face. Would you want people to see your face if you just won that kind of money? I'm looking at you. Yeah? No, I don't know if I would, just, you know, things -- we can all dream.

There will always be a next time, so there you have, one of the winners. We're still waiting for the winner to emerge from California, so stay tuned for that.

Before I let you go, let's take a quick check here of the Big Board because we broke the big news from Fed chair Ben Bernanke that he will begin tapering just a little bit.

And it is way, way up there as we approach the Closing Bell, markets clearly reacting to the news from the Fed. This is a great, great sign for the economy.

We've been -- they've been this pumping the stimulus and pumping the stimulus, and this is his final thing that he is doing as he's ending -- this was his final news conference.

And Janet Yellen -- there's the Closing Bell. Janet Yellen will be the next Fed chief, pending Senate confirmation.

Quickly, just a reminder, I'm back up at 11:30 Eastern, 8:30 Pacific, on "IN CASE YOU MISSED IT," so I will see you on CNN tonight.

Now, here's Jake Tapper. "THE LEAD" starts now.