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Are Olympics Worth Risk of Terror Attack?; Huckabee Says Dems Don't Trust Women to Control Libido; Super Bowl to Possibly Change Day; More Reaction to Sherman's Rant; Bill Cosby May Return to TV

Aired January 23, 2014 - 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: Let me read a piece of the column from "The L.A. Times" here. This is a part that jumped out at me.

"And all this for what exactly?" This, being the Olympics. "So, the good people of Earth can watch hours of ice dancing, downhill skiing and the snowboard half-pipe competition?

"Sorry, it's just isn't worth another Munich 1972 or Atlanta 1996 or $51 billion either."

The man who wrote that, Paul Whitefield, editorial writer for "The L.A. Times" joins me now.

Paul, nice to see you.

PAUL WHITEFIELD, EDITORIAL WRITER, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Good to see you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Reading your piece, let me just begin by playing devil's advocate. When you say not worth it, but it's the Olympics.

WHITFIELD: Yes, and you're absolutely right and I know that's an argument that a lot of people are making.

But when I wrote the piece, I basically sat down and said to myself one thing. I said, if -- the world won't end if the Olympics aren't held.

But if the Olympics are held, the world could end for spectators or athletes there, and is that really the price we want to pay for an athletic competition?

BALDWIN: If the world said OK, Paul, no Olympics? Doesn't that mean the terrorists won?

WHITEFIELD: You can make that argument, but here's my argument. The terrorists have already won, every time you go to the airport and go through screening, every time you go to a ballpark and have to open your bags.

We live now in a world in which we are constantly aware of terrorist threats, so to say that the Olympics should just go on because -- no, the terrorists have already won. I mean, we have an NSA that's searching out millions and millions of emails and stuff every day. We've kind of -- that's -- I think that horse has left the barn.

BALDWIN: You bring up football and I think it was interesting because it wasn't just football. You brought up two sporting events in your piece. You brought up the Super Bowl and also soccer's World Cup.

But you say you don't think we should bow to the terrorists and call them off, too. So then, using your arguments, then what makes, say, the Super Bowl different?

WHITEFIELD: I think the size of it. It's a single event and a single country, much like soccer matches and so on. It's more easier -- it's much easier to control that situation.

But the Olympics, ever since '72, the Olympics have become the premiere target of the world for people looking to make a statement.

We saw it in Munich. We saw it in '68 with our American sprinters. We saw it in '96 in Atlanta.

I think the Olympics are simply too big a target to be worth the cost and the threat.

BALDWIN: Paul Whitefield, "L.A. Times," thank you so much.

I'm curious what you think. Should the Olympics go away? Send me a tweet, @BrookeBCNN.

New York City, the mayor there versus New York state's governor, these two are going toe-to-toe over a topic that impacts every parent in that state. We'll tell you what's behind this controversy.

Plus. speaking of the Super Bowl, are you ready in 10 days? Here's a tip. Don't wait until the last minute to get your food and beverages, because the game may be sooner than you think.

How does Super Bowl Friday sound to you? We will explain, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Mike Huckabee made some comments about Democrats, women, and libido.

The former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate said Democrats do not trust women to control their libido. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS: Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That's not a war on them. It's a war for them.

And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of a government, then so be it.

Let us take that discussion all across America, because women are far more than the Democrats will played them to be, and women across America need to stand up and say enough of that nonsense.

And I think it's time we -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Huckabee's remarks there actually came up in today's White House briefing when a reporter asked a question to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. Here that was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not that long ago at the RNC winter meeting here in Washington, Mike Huckabee said that the Democrats' message to women is that they are -- I'm reading from the report here -- they are "helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or reproductive system without the help of government."

Is that the president's message?

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I haven't seen the report, but whoever said it, it sounds offensive to me and to women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Huckabee's remarks came today during his speech at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting in Washington.

Some Republicans have been grappling over exactly how to reach out to more women.

And two of the most powerful New York politicians are duking it out over pre-kindergarten money.

So, in one corner, Governor Mario Cuomo, running for re-election in the fall; in the other, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio who promised this expanded pre-k program in his winning campaign.

De Blasio wants to fund pre-k by raising taxes on the wealthy. Cuomo has pledged to reduce -- Andrew Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo, forgive, Andrew Cuomo, governor.

I want to bring in the host of "THE LEAD," Jake Tapper in Washington. And, Jake, what is this really about?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, "THE LEAD": It's about a lot of things. First of all, you have the fact that governor Cuomo is up for reelection and trying to cast himself as somebody who wants to lower taxes, providing tax relief. On the other hand, you have the new mayor, de Blasio, who was elected on a platform of wanting to raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers, saying he wants to use that money to fund pre-k.

So there is actually a very legitimate philosophical difference between the two.

Then you also have the difference between a city politician scrapping with the governor, the state politician, complaining that the state never funds everything that they say they will.

And then, also, you have two very different visions of the Democratic Party.

And throw into the mix the possibility that Governor Cuomo is exploring the possible run for the White House, and it gets very combustible.

BALDWIN: Let me totally turn the page, because we just got some news. Looking ahead to the State of the Union, of course, there's the Republican response to the State of the Union.

So, we just learned it is Congresswoman Cathy McMorris. Tell me more about her, Jake, and does the pick surprise you?

TAPPER: Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is the only woman in the House leadership in the Republican Party.

It does not surprise me at all. She is a good speaker and she is a non-white-male face for the Republican Party, and I think that is --

BALDWIN: Speaking of women.

TAPPER: Yeah, that is something that they need to be doing, especially when they talk about reaching out to women.

She is a conservative. She is a strong conservative, so it's not a question about politics, but she is a different messenger.

And we have talked a lot, you and I, Brooke, about the Republican Party feeling the need to reach out beyond older white men and reach more women voters.

And here you have an example of them apparently realizing that they have a number of women in their party in Congress, although the Democrats have many more, and trying to put a different face on the response.

Because the mid-terms are going to be very, very important and the women's vote and will be key, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Jake Tapper, thank you. We'll see you in 20 minutes on "THE LEAD"

TAPPER: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Super Bowl Sunday, 10 days away, but this year it could be Super Bowl Friday. It could be Super Bowl Monday.

The NFL says it may change the date of the game. What does that mean for all the fans? Players in the city? The musical act? Your Super Bowl party? We will talk about that.

Plus, you know him from "Picture Pages, Picture Pages," Jello Pudding Pop commercials, and, of course, ""The Cosby Show"." Bill Cosby, folks, he's coming back to TV.

Does America want a feel-good family comedy again? That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Want to scare a football fan? Tell them to look at "The Farmer's Almanac." The Northeast forecast calls for an intense storm with rain, snow, and wind.

The NFL can only wait and pray that MetLife Stadium in New Jersey will not look like this on the second of February when the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks play the biggest game of the year.

Days away, Jennifer Gray looking into your crystal ball here, how snowy white will it be?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We are basically going in blind folded. No way we know the forecast this far out. Models are very inconsistent and inaccurate 10 days out.

I will give you a couple of scenarios with the forecast models we look at. They could change, but this model shows there will be a system moving through and pushing offshore. So maybe it will be ahead of the game.

The other model is a super eastern model suggesting that something could be in the vicinity weather before or after the game. It's still yet to be determined, so we're still looking into things, Brooke.

Right now, though, it is just so, so far out.

BALDWIN: OK, we tried. We will keep asking you about it, each and every day, Jennifer Gray, so prepare yourself for that.

And the NFL leaves nothing to chance, except for the weather. So how about Super Bowl Monday sound? Super Bowl Friday?

Let's ask our guests here. Arnie Spanier is a sports-radio talk show host in Buffalo, and Stephen A. Smith is a TV and radio host for ESPN and "First Take" on ESPN 2.

Gentlemen, welcome to both of you.

ARNIE SPANIER, SPORTS RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

STEPHEN A. SMITH, TV AND RADIO HOST, ESPN: How are you?

BALDWIN: I'm doing well.

Let's begin, because we will pivot, I want to get to the story that's really been percolating out of Seattle.

But, first, the Super Bowl, and, Arnie, to you, you say, if they change this thing to let's say Super Bowl Friday, it is going to be a big old mess.

SPANIER: How can it not be a debacle? The travel and the rental car and the food. What about the fans from Seattle and Denver that have to go you will the way out there? How are they going to change their flights?

This costs hundreds and thousands of dollars. It is a mess out there.

Plus, what are you going to do about the start time? You have to move it back and you can't have it at 6:25, 3:25 on the West Coast. They are not home from work yet.

Didn't you know it was going to be like this when you put it in New York? It should be like the postman. The postman delivers the mail, rain, sleet, snow, everything. Play the game.

BALDWIN: On the whole "what-were-they-thinking" thing, what do you think the NFL was thinking? This is the second of February. Bad weather is not a surprise.

SMITH: In my opinion, they were not thinking too much.

The NFL thinks otherwise and they deserve a lot of credit. They do a masterful job of marketing the sport throughout the year.

They replaced America's national pastime as our present and our preference at the bottom line. They know what they are doing. This is much ado about nothing.

This Super Bowl is going to be played on a Sunday. First of all, Friday traffic in New York City without a Super Bowl, it's a night maybe.

Could you imagine how it's going to be if that were to happen? People are not home. People are coming home from work.

And advertisers and the boatload of money because of the commercials and everything, they want people at home sitting on their fannies watching the Super Bowl and that would not happen on a Friday.

This is much ado about nothing, a storyline that is popular to talk about for the moment.

There is no way on Earth that the Super Bowl is going to be played on a Friday. Cancel that. It's not going to happen.

BALDWIN: Let's talk about a storyline that has been viewed since the game this weekend. Let me just -- in case you have been under a rock and did not see this rant, let me play this for you, and on the back side, this is what I want to talk about when these two players are miked.

Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD SHERMAN, CORNERBACK, SEATTLE SEAHAWKS: When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that's the result you are going to get. Don't you ever talk about me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Stephen A. Smith, you get the first. There was Sherman. He was saying good game or hell of a game to Crabtree who then everything ensued afterwards.

What do you think he was trying to do by saying hell of a game. Did he mean it?

SMITH: Of course he didn't mean it. He wanted to show him up because he felt locked him down and Seattle ended up win the game.

When Crabtree wouldn't shake his hand, that was a further insulting thing and he reacted.

I thought he reacted classless in terms of calling out Michael Crabtree personally because that goes beyond and you don't need to do that.

At the same time, I do think it's considerably overblown. It's in the heat of competition. To me, it's not a reason or a cause for people to denigrate the way people tried to in that particular moment in time.

It's smack talk and it happens and you don't need to do it that way. He did it and at the same time there is a lot more good than bad that goes with it. I think everybody is learning to remember something like that.

BALDWIN: Arnie, I am watching you. I'm watching you listening to Stephen, shaking your head. Why?

SPANIER: Yeah, they say it's in the heat of the moment.

Can you imagine what we'd be saying now if Peyton Manning scored a touchdown and he went like this and started kissing his bicep, or Tom Brady went like this and did all that?

We'd be going ballistic. We'd been talking about that until the cows came home.

Richard Sherman, look, he shouldn't have said it, and he's just making it worse, too, with all the other comments he said.

Just shut up, go away, and play the game and worry about the Super Bowl. Don't worry about making all these appearances. He's doing commercials now.

I think it's a disgrace, man. Just move on and get ready for the game.

BALDWIN: Stephen A. Smith, what do you think of the race issue being brought up?

Let me -- respond to Arnie, but also the race issue being brought up because of social media imploding after that whole thing.

SMITH: First of all, let's understand something here.

Number one, when you talk about issues of race, it's not like there's a majority of folks, particularly white folks out there who bring race into the equation.

It's always the few ignorant fools screeching the loudest that are heard more than anybody else.

That's certainly not emblematic, and it's not a replica of what our society is in this day and time.

But still and all, if you're Richard Sherman, we don't know the tweets he's got and what kind of emails, the kind of communication he's gotten where people have questioned him not just because of what they perceive to be his classless behavior, but they take it a step further, treating him, as a lot of black athletes that I've covered that's said over the years, treating them that they would be nothing if it weren't for the field of play they were on.

Richard Sherman came from the streets of Compton. He went to Stanford University. He had a 3.9 GPA. He's in the NFL. He's an all-pro.

So, Arnie's right when you talk about maybe it was a classless move. It's something he should have done. There's nothing wrong with what Arnie is saying on that level.

But there are other people who are far more insidious than Arnie would ever think to be that come across and they use it as an excuse to try and denigrate Richard Sherman on a very personal level and that's the kind of stuff he's alluding to, because a lot of folks in the world of professional sports, whether it be athletes or executives and whomever.

It could be African-American commentators such as myself. Listen, we get stuff all the time. I'm telling you. I'm called an affirmative action hire, that I would be nothing if it wasn't for my mouth just talking smack or whatever.

I graduated with honors, but people don't bring that kind of stuff up. This is the kind of stuff that we're subjected to a lot.

But I will remind everybody. It's by a select few individuals. The majority of people in America, white, black, otherwise, they're not like that. They're not like that at all.

BALDWIN: Stephen A. Smith, I'm ending on what you just said. Thank you so much.

And, Arnie Spanier, thank you both very, very much.

SMITH: OK.

SPANIER: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Super Bowl, 10 days away.

Coming up next, TV has changed a lot, of course, since the 1980s. So is America really ready for the return of this guy? Bill Cosby, making his way back to your TV.

We'll talk about his return, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: In the TV world, what's old is new again. But does America really want to see the return of a feel-good comedian like Bill Cosby.

I love that show. The 76-year-old, returning to TV next year for a new sitcom on NBC.

He is not Hollywood's only attempt at trying to dip into a nostalgic audience. You have Michael J. Fox, who, of course, starred in "Family Ties." He has a new sitcom that's not really doing well, actually, in the ratings.

Then, just this week, we got a peek at the Super Bowl commercial featuring the boys from the '90s sitcom, "Full House," Danny, Joey, Uncle Jesse, all grown up, 20 years later.

But the shows about American families on TV right now that are hits don't exactly feature the warm and fuzzy Cosby vibe. Instead, they look more like this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SI ROBERTSON: I'm hungry. I'm tired. My back's killing me. My hemorrhoids are flared up.

What are you going to do with all these pumps?

Act like they ain't never seen a man on a scooter before. Yeah, go around me, you idiot.

HONEY BOO BOO: (Inaudible).

The boss of the family is Mama.

KHLOE KARDASHIAN: The fact that Kim was actually laying on a table and actually getting an X-ray of her ass is like -- this is iconic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: OK, Brian Stelter -- BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": I wanted you to keep playing that. I wanted to find out what happened to her backside.

BALDWIN: Stelter, come on!

STELTER: I'm sure I have it on DVR at home.

BALDWIN: I'm sure you do, as you have many shows on DVR.

I'm like, is that an evolution or a de-evolution?

But the idea of ""The Cosby Show"" is nice. I love Bill Cosby, "Picture Pages," of course, but do the younger audiences today care?

STELTER: Well, the thing about "The Cosby Show" is that it's online and it's on channels like TV Land if you want to go back and watch it now.

That's why I'm a little skeptical that a reboot, featuring Bill Cosby, coming into a new show on NBC will fare as well as it did back in the 1970s.

People tend to forget that Bill Cosby came back to CBS in the '90s for a show called "Cosby," and it did well, but it didn't do as well as the original.

BALDWIN: What about, though, for African-American families? Because "The Cosby Show," that was a big, big deal and when you look at --

STELTER: It was.

BALDWIN: And when you look at the space today, you know, you have the Tyler Perry shows, but other than that, there really aren't other sitcoms on major networks featuring black families.

So how does Cosby go?

STELTER: You're right. And network television does still have some strides to make in that regard. And NBC may do that, by bringing this show back.

It's in development now, but because it has a name as big as Bill Cosby attached, it's almost surely going to go forward, in the same way that the Michael J. Fox show went forward at NBC.

But, as you mentioned, the Fox show hasn't done very well this season. People gravitate more towards shows like "Modern Family" on ABC, and I have to wonder if "Modern Family" is a better illustration of modern- day life than a show like "The Cosby Show."

BALDWIN: And then, given the issues that "Modern Family" has tackled, I'm a big fan of the show, I would wonder if this next iteration of Cosby would then reflect those issues as well in 2014.

What do you think? STELTER: Oh, I think it probably will. NBC says he'll be the patriarch of a multigenerational family, much as -- a character like he's played before.

But like you mentioned, everything in TV, old is new again. There's no such thing as a truly new idea in television, so I'm glad he's coming back.

I'm glad he's coming back and trying to do it again, because I think he will find an audience, even though it probably won't be as big as it was back in the day.

BALDWIN: He's coming back as a grandpa. We all love Cliff Huxtable, but do you think he'll be funnier as a grandfather or as a dad.

STELTER: That's going to be the challenge for anybody, frankly, in his age group coming back to television, whether he's still, quote/unquote, "got it" or not.

But from what I've seen in his speeches, from his public events, he does. And I remember Comedy Central recently did a whole special with him that did very well.

So, I would not be surprised if he has that same energy on NBC.

BALDWIN: OK. Brian Stelter, thank you. We'll let you get back to your "Keeping up With the Kardashians" on the DVR.

Thank you.

STELTER: Thanks. BALDWIN: The hit song that made Captain & Tennille did not ring true for the husband and wife music sensation. The couple, real names Daryl Dragon and Cathryn Toni Tennille are divorcing after 39 years of marriage.

Their song, "Love Will Keep Us Together" was a smash hit in the '70s. The Prescott, Arizona, city courthouse told Web site RumorFix that Tennille filed for divorce a week ago.

Captain told TMZ doesn't know why she did it.

And there you have it. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Once again, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll be back, of course, tomorrow, same time, same place.

Hey, if you ever want to check out the interview we do on the show, just go to The Brooke Blog, CNN.com/Brooke.

And now to Washington, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts now.