Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Deadly Tornadoes Rip Through Midwest, Plains; New Plane Search Could Take Six to Eight Months; New York Congressman Surrenders To FBI; Councilman Drafts Resolution On Clippers Owner

Aired April 28, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Half mile wide, 40 miles long, 200 miles an hour. Whatever the statistics are. This is what the tornado really means. This is someone's house. There's a bible over there. Over here is all of their other stuff probably underneath their bathroom sink, underneath the kitchen sink here, a walk-through here. Someone was living in this home. Look.

Here are some baby pictures. I'm sure they'll want these back. We'll save them for them when they come. This little guy hope he wasn't in the tornado. There's the family. You know, this is the stuff that people lose. This is the stuff that people can't replace. This is the stuff that insurance can't give you back. Whether you're insured or not, this is a major loss.

This tornado went for miles. I took a drive around here the past couple hours. This went skipping across a lake, back into another town and then continued toward the area that we think was hit harder than this. From my estimations this is an F3 because over here the building is still standing. Outside of the walls are gone. The inside is still there.

This is why we always tell you get on the inside of the house, put as many walls between you and the outside as possible because the outside wall may go away. The inside walls typically other than F-5 tornado will still stand and you will be safe if you are on the inside of that home -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: There are more storms on the way in just a matter of hours, Chad. Can you tell us about that?

MYERS: Yes. Yesterday was what we call a high-risk day. There are very few of them every year. Yesterday was one of them. Today is a moderate risk although there's potential if the sun comes out that we could get to that higher threshold and certainly that high-risk day yesterday came true. All of this stuff was pushed through the fields and into the trees back out through here.

We're expecting similar damage, possibly F-3 tornado or so all the way now into parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and all of the way down to the Gulf Coast. Slightly 300 miles farther to the east as the energy from what was here yesterday has moved a little bit farther to the east -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Chad Myers reporting live from Arkansas this morning.

President Obama going after Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle in the newest round of sanctions over Ukraine. This morning seven Russians with close ties to Putin along with 17 companies had their U.S. assets frozen and are banned -- the people are banned from entering the United States.

Our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto is in Washington. Tell us more about these new sanctions.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning. I guess, you could say these are not big fish. They're medium sized fish, Carol, looking at the list here. You have a deputy prime minister of Russia on that list of individuals. You also have the president of Russia's biggest oil company. One of the largest oil companies in the world. They are on that list.

And then when you look at the companies again none of the big companies, Russia's natural gas company, it is not on the list. So you are going -- it's basically an expansion of the first round of sanctions that went after some individuals, a handful of them close to Putin, as well as some second tier companies, banks, and other companies used by those individuals.

And when you speak to administration officials -- in fact, I was on a call with White House officials just a few minutes ago, they describe this as kind of ratcheting up the pressure and still keeping in the words of one of those officials bullets in their chambers so they can use those if Russia continues not to change its behavior in and around Eastern Ukraine.

COSTELLO: Let me ask you this. The mayor of the second largest city in Ukraine shot in the back. The violence only seems to be escalating. At what point will those sanctions directly target Vladimir Putin?

SCIUTTO: This is a very good question. At this point the president, his advisers are saying it's not the time to target Putin. That time will come. In fact, they say they are barred right now from imposing sector sanctions. This is the way to get at Putin, at the Russian economy, where you would sanction entire sectors, the oil sector, they are reserving that painful weapon for if Russian troops go into Eastern Ukraine. They say that's something the U.S. agrees with its European partners that that would be the spark for something like that.

They haven't seen that yet. Now the trouble as you say still Russian intervention there continues. You have violence. You have some observers there that are still being held. You were journalists who were taken and beaten and that hasn't changed. Another big one is that Russia hasn't changed.

I asked you a few minutes ago, a senior administration official, I said are intentions of these sanctions purely to deter further action inside Ukraine or to roll back what has already taken place including the annex annexation and they say, we'll never recognize that. It's not clear the sanctions will roll back that action. It's not clear that it will deter Putin from moving into Eastern Ukraine. That remains to be seen. The administration's intention here is to keep raising the cost to make it less likely.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto reporting live from Washington.

They have searched by air, on the surface and under water, but so far nothing. A new phase is about to begin for that missing Malaysian airliner that vanished 52 days ago including using private contractors to do intense underwater search. Australia's prime minister says aerial searches have now been suspended.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY ABBOTT, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: It is highly unlikely at this stage that we will find any aircraft debris on the ocean surface. Therefore, we are moving from the current phase to a phase which is focused on searching the social floor over a much larger area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: CNN safety analyst, David Soucie and CNN aviation analyst, Lt. Col. Michael Kay join me now. Welcome, Gentlemen.

MICHAEL KAY, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Good morning.

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Hello.

COSTELLO: Good morning. So, David, officials say this new phase could take up to eight months to complete. Doesn't sound really that hopeful.

SOUCIE: Well, it really seems like it isn't. But the good news is there's a lot of area that's been covered. As disappointing as it is to look backwards, but Tony Abbott also mentioned that when he says he doesn't look back at failures, but looking forward at what's to come. I'm with that. I'm on that ship. I'm on that boat. I believe these are pings from the aircraft and I think they will find it in just this next expansion. I don't think they'll have to go the full range of going the 700 x 80 miles they talked before. So I'm still hopeful about it.

COSTELLO: Michael, it will be helpful if they bring in these new devices, these sonar devices that will be towed by ships. They'll have real-time information as they look under the sea. Will that help things?

KAY: Yes, I think it will, Carol. I think the Bluefin-21 has done an excellent job, but it reached limitations of its capability in terms of it can only go down to around 15,000 feet and where we are now requires equipment to go down to 20,000 feet. The new equipment will be able to go deeper. It can go longer. It has more endurance and as you already rightly alluded to, it can give you near real-time data feedback. The Bluefin-21 has to be deployed and sucks up information on its on board processors and you have to get it out of the water to then download all of the information and analyze it from there. It should be a fairly quicker process. One thing I would like to say, Carol, eight to nine months is more in line with realistic expectations. The whole investigation has been conducted quite unorthodoxly in terms of we went straight for the needle of black boxes and we hope to find debris from black boxes.

That's not the way investigations work. You find the debris which takes you to the black box Air France 447. We have to manage our expectations a bit and eight to nine months is what is in line with my realistic expectations are.

COSTELLO: David, authorities speaking of debris on top of the water, that's just no longer. They say the debris is so water-logged now that it would sink and possibly be buried under the silt on the bottom of the ocean.

SOUCIE: Well, you know, that's true for a lot of debris. I still think that there's a great possibility because the structure of this aircraft has a lot of composite structure in it in which it's a poxy bonded together, two skins with honeycomb structure in between. There may be debris out there. The fact that it may be water-logged and fallen to the problem, I agree with that.

There is debris out there. It could be so dispersed that even searches in the area they are, it could be on the beaches somewhere. It could be completely in a different area since we had two cyclones through this area since the time of the accident.

COSTELLO: David Soucie and Lt. Col. Michael Kay, thanks for your insight this morning.

KAY: Good to see you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a New York congressman is in hot water this morning. Representative Grim arrested over campaign contributions. We'll tell you about it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking our top stories at 13 minutes past the hour, at least 18 people are dead after a string of powerful tornadoes ripped through the central U.S. overnight. Sixteen were killed in Arkansas alone. Listen to what a meteorology student who witnessed the devastation firsthand had to say. He was one of the first on the scene after a tornado flattened a neighborhood in Arkansas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES BRYANT, WITNESSED ARKANSAS TORNADO: We knew there would be damage because we saw the tornado on the ground. We knew it crossed the freeway. We weren't really prepared for the scene that we were about to roll up to. This is some really bad damage. Cars flipped everywhere. People were screaming. It was a really tough scene. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Twenty four million people could be impacted by the threat of more severe weather later today.

In South Korea, three people have been arrested accused of destroying evidence connected to the investigation into the owner of that capsized ferry. The death toll now stands at 188 with more than 100 still missing. Also, new video this morning showing the captain of that ferry being rescued from the sinking vessel. He was in his underwear. He abandoned the ship before hundreds of his passengers, most of them students, could get off the boat.

The L.A. Clippers fighting to stay alive in the NBA playoffs have a huge distraction on their hands thanks to the team's owner, Donald Sterling. He's accused of making racist remarks about black people to his girlfriend. The rant which was caught on tape has caused outrage in the sports world and beyond.

A New York congressman is in hot water this morning. More than hot water. Republican Michael Grimm was taken into federal custody earlier today. Comes after a two-year FBI probe into alleged illegal campaign contributions. You might remember that earlier this year, Congressman Grim made headlines after he threatened a reporter who questioned him about those campaign contributions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL GRIMM: This is only about the president. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congressman Michael grim does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances. We wanted to get him on camera on that, but as you saw he refused to talk about that. Back to you.

GRIMM: Let me be clear to you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a valid question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRIMM: I'll break you in half like a boy. That's what he said and now he's in federal custody. Tell us more.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: That's right, Carol. This morning just before 7:00 a.m. He turned himself into the FBI in Manhattan. That's the same office where he worked for many years as an FBI agent. The FBI has been looking at him for a couple of years now as you mentioned for everything related to his campaign finance, to his previous business dealings including with one of his former fund- raisers. We'll learn a little bit more about the charges at a press conference at about 11:00 this morning in Brooklyn -- Carol.

COSTELLO: He is in federal custody now. He's not free to go. If he's found guilty of these things, what could happen? PEREZ: Well, you know, this would be only the seventh sitting member of Congress to be indicted and those charges are expected to be announced in the next half hour or so. We're told they relate to his involvement with a restaurant business in Manhattan. Whether or not he made some false statements to the FBI when they were starting to ask about this.

We'll see whether he obviously will be facing pressure to resign among members of Congress, but first he's going to have to face these charges. We should note that his lawyer says that he's innocent and that he's going to fight these charges and will continue to represent his district in Staten Island. Back to you, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Evan Perez reporting live from Washington this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, racist comments attributed to L.A. Clippers owner, Donald Sterling. We'll talk to a writer from Deadspin that got a hold of those audiotapes. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The once dormant Los Angeles Clippers have undergone quite the transformation acquiring key players and a playoff run, but the goodwill is being tarnished. Owner, Donald Sterling, allegedly made racist comments in heated conversations with his girlfriend and mistress. V. Stiviano. Audiotapes were released over the weekend first by TMZ Sports and then by deadspin.com. Here's an excerpt from Deadspin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON STERLING: Don't come to my games. Don't bring black people and don't come.

V. STIVIANO: Do you know that you have a whole team that's black that plays for you?

STERLING: I support them and give them food and clothes and cars and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have -- who makes the game? Do I make the game or do they make the game? Is there 30 owners that created the league?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: As you heard, President Obama came out and even commented on this because there are worse things that are in those tapes and in TMZ's tapes. I want to bring in Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks and CNN commentator and ESPN senior writer, LZ Granderson. Welcome to both of you.

Councilman, I want to start with you. You've drafted a resolution demanding a personal apology for the L.A. community and you've asked local newspapers to stop running ads like this as they promote both the Clippers community involvement, but also taut Donald Sterling's philanthropy. It's ironic. Councilman, is that enough? BERNARD PARKS, LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCILMAN: No, I think the real issue comes down to condemning statements. But the real issue is what Mr. Silver will do in sanctions and we also added to our motion was that they take a similar tact that Major League Baseball did and sanctioned him severely. That's the real key and the entire fan base and communities in and out of Los Angeles should be directing their comments to the Clippers to let them know just how offended they are.

COSTELLO: LZ, when you look at those newspaper advertisements, there's Donald Sterling's face. He's celebrating black history month. He's pictured beside an African-American player and yet he allegedly makes these horrible comments on tape.

LZ GRANDERSON, CNN COMMENTATOR: Well, you know, this really isn't nothing new when you look at the history of this country and history of racism. It wasn't that unusual to have, for instance -- I'm not saying that Donald Sterling is a slave owner. It wasn't unusual for slave owners to despise blacks while still sleeping with the women. They would despise blacks and still have a favorite black if you will.

This hypocritical behavior is something we have seen in this country for centuries. I personally don't think it's that unusual. There's a great scene in Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" where Spike Lee had Magic Johnson on saying where are the black people? Magic is special. That's what this is like.

COSTELLO: Councilman, the other ironic twist to this story is the Los Angeles chapter of NAACP was going to give this man a lifetime achievement award. Despite what happened now today, he's long been accused of racist behavior. He settled a suit with the Department of Justice when he wouldn't allow minorities to rent out his properties.

PARKS: I think Mr. Brian (ph) Gumbel hit it best when he said for people that are surprised, I'm surprised that you're surprised. He has a long history dealing with his real estate. Certainly was a well-publicized lawsuit. It's not a real surprised if you follow history.

COSTELLO: What's with local chapter of NAACP?

PARKS: Well, I think what you have there is people have somewhat put aside what his history is. This is the second time that they were going to honor him for humanitarian efforts and I think what you find, which is misleading, is every week there's a full-page ad in "L.A. Sentinel" that shows all of the things that he's contributing to which I think puts that on the forefront and people aren't looking at the larger issue of his behavior and his ongoing debates with minorities about his real estate.

COSTELLO: But LZ, how can you overlook those things if you're the NAACP?

GRANDERSON: You know, I'm just going to cut to the chase. Money. Money covers a multitude of sins. I have attended quite a few LGBT fund-raisers and I have seen organizations give huge awards to people who have made anti-gay statements and come back to say I'm sorry and get awarded for it. You find out later they have done PSAs or given money to said organizations. This isn't unique to NAACP.

Unfortunately this is part of the non-profit way of driving dollars into their organization. I think the NAACP should be called out on it because it is about money, but don't think the only organization with hypocritical work going on in the background.

COSTELLO: So Councilman, the NAACP, the local chapter in Los Angeles, they'll hold a press conference at 10:00 your time, right? What should they say? How should they be held accountable for this?

PARKS: I think several things. I think it's very true as it relates to the funding that people look at and they overlook the discrimination that people may be involved with. I think they need to make a clean cut and arm distance and in the future they need to do more evaluation of who they honor and not just go with who gave you the last contribution and is there's no one in my judgment than shocked as to past history in saying they were not aware of what has occurred in this city over time.

COSTELLO: Councilman Bernard Parks, LZ Granderson, thanks to both of you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, new video shows the captain of the doomed South Korean ferry being rescued as hundreds of others never made it off alive. How the Coast Guard is defending its decision. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)