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California Battling Blazes; What Makes a Firenado?; Donald Sterling to Fight NBA with Antitrust Law; Pro-Business Leader Claims Victory in India; Walters Says Goodbye to "The View" Today; Beyonce, Jay Z, Solange Break Silence

Aired May 16, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: NEWSROOM starts now.

(MUSIC)

COSTELLO: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. In California every inch of the state is in a period of drought and danger. In San Diego County, winds whipped up dozens of wild fires and chased thousands of people from their homes. At least one person has died. The "L.A. Times" quotes one terrified homeowner saying the approaching wall of flames looks like Armageddon and countless residents simply can't believe their eyes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow, there it is right there, there it is right there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVES DELETED).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVES DELETED). Oh my god, dude. It was right there. Close this door and come back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Really frightening, right? CNN's Dan Simon is north of San Diego in Escondido. Dan, I do understand they have made two arrests, right?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Carol, they have made two arrests. Two teenagers, they're accused of trying to start some brush fires. Because we have seen so many fires at once there has been immediate speculation that perhaps we are looking at arson here. They are going to investigate to see whether those teenagers are involved in starting some of the bigger fires. But, Carol, we are obviously now seeing the first daylight here. It was a long night of firefighting. We'll see what today brings.

But you can see some of the debris behind me. We are in a neighborhood in Escondido, California. This was the latest neighborhood to get hit. You can still see some flames here behind me and of course, again, just a tough day, a tough night for firefighters. And so in terms of what we're going to be seeing today, who knows?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON (voice-over0: Raging on overnight at least eight fires in San Diego County consuming home after home. Smoke even visible from space as the blazes ravage over 10,000 acres. Evacuations now called for nearly 16,000 residences as the flames turned fatal, fire crews discovering a badly burned body in a Carlsbad encampment.

The unseasonably erratic wind would gust up to 50 miles an hour, spreading flames rapidly.

DIANNE JACOBS, SAN DIEGO COUNTY SUPERVISOR: I have never seen the Santa Ana winds, also called devil winds, in the month of May.

SIMON: Winds whipping in multiple directions, causing terrifying fire tornadoes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now we see another tornado right there on the other side.

SIMON: Watch this flaming vortex atop a hill spin wildly, nearly engulfing the house in front. Thousands of firefighters and military crews bombarding the blazes from all sides. Still no match for the swift-moving flames fueled by acres of dry brush.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It came down the hill. Once we started seeing black smoke, it was upon here within 15 minutes maybe.

SIMON: With so many wild fires erupting one after the other, speculation of arson on the rise. Two teens 30 miles north of San Diego now in custody, being questioned for two smaller brush fires in Escondido.

CHIEF CRAIG CARTER, ESCONDIDO POLICE: We have developed reasonable suspicion, probable cause to believe that they were involved in setting fires.

SIMON: Unrelated to San Diego's eight major brush fires reducing almost 20 homes now to ashes.

SOPHIE PAYNE, FAMILY HOME DESTROYED: It was absolutely gorgeous. And now it is all gone. All gone, what can I say?

SIMON: Fortunately, not everything was destroyed. Sophie's family is safe, salvaging a few photos. And their dog, Rocky, his fur singed from the flames found alive after being trapped in the house.

ANYA BANMNASCH, FAMILY HOME DSTROYED: After all of the devastation and the house is completely on the ground, we were just praying at least we could find our little dog here.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SIMON: Well, those flames are obviously very dramatic. But one thing you really feel here on the ground is the smoke. You really feel it all throughout San Diego County. It's kind of tough being here hours on end.

Now the weather, it is a factor, of course. The wind has really kicked up these fires over the last 48 hours or so. But right now it is a bit calmer. The temperatures are cooler. Humidity is rising, so that is good news. Hopefully that will allow firefighters to get the upper hand today. But, still eight burning fires so there is concern that we haven't seen the end of this. Carol.

COSTELLO: Dan Simon reporting live this morning.

Well, you have seen the video courtesy of Dan. And if you're like me, you cannot turn away from this. This is a firenado. Look at that. It's mesmerizing and ferocious. But why are we seeing so many? And why are they so dangerous? CNN metereologist Indra Petersons joins us to explain this. Really weird.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Carol, this is really something people literally cannot take their eyes off. One of the things you need to realize is you have to have dry fuel for what we cal la firenado. And unfortunately California right now is experiencing one of its worst droughts in history. We are talking about the majority of the state already in extreme drought conditions.

So why does that matter? You have the dry fuel - obviously you have the drought conditions. Let's look at this animation. You think about a firenado. What do you need when have a fire by itself? You already have the fire creating its own little eddies or own little winds here at the bottom. And you can't really see it; it's like this invisible funnel going all the way up.

But now counteract that brush. What is brush? It releases carbon. Carbon is combustable, but it doesn't combust within the funnel right here. Why? Because there is no oxygen. Only when it gets all the way to the top and encounters the oxygen way up here does the entire thing combust and that's where you get, is that entire line that we know as the firenado.

But think about this -- when you talk about the fire lines, take a look at this animation. These things can shoot up to 1,000 feet high, Carol, and you cannot combat these flames directly, not within the firenado itself because that's just kind of the gaseous substance inside it. You have to fight around it. It goes as high as 1,000 feet, right? It can jump fire lines (ph). And here's 'hat people don't know - it's not like tornaod. It doesn't start from a supercell. However, it can produce winds as damaging as 120 miles per hour. That's kind of like the equivalent of an EF-2 tornado. That is the problem of what is so tough on the fire lines.

In addition to that, they've been dealing with record-breaking heat. I want to tell you how bad this is, Carol. When you talk about temperatures being 25 degrees above the record -- above the record here, not above average -- along the coast line, that is what they have been dealing with in California. Conditions are improving. Why? You have had this dome of high pressure. The winds were squeezing through these canyons, so in the canyons you were seeing winds even as high as 60, 70 miles per hour.

So that's the problem. The good news -- this high pressure is breaking down finally. It's not really about those temperatures but all about the humidity. They're seeing a hint of recovery today. But once the marine layer comes back and you see the winds switch from off the ocean, bring that cool air and more important the humidity back up, that's where we're going to have that huge change today. Seeing a little bit of that humidity helping them out.

But, really, in through tomorrow you're going to see that huge drop in temperatures, near average, but more importantly they could start to see the marine layer. It will take some time but throughout the weekend, conditions are going to drastically improve. Carol.

COSTELLO: Wow. Indra Petersons, many thanks.

You knew this was coming. Donald Sterling told the NBA he will not pay a $2.5 million fine and you guessed it. He's threatening to sue the league. As he told Anderson Cooper, why should he pay for one mistake?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD STERLING, OWNER, L.A. CLIPPERS: Am I entitled to one mistake after 35 years? I mean, I love my league, I love my partnership. Am I entitled to one mistake? It is a terrible mistake and I will never do it again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Never, never, ever, he says. Sterling is going on the offensive as the Clippers' season came to a close sans a Cinderella victory. The Clippers lost their second round playoff series to Oklahoma City last night, their season now over.

With me now, HLN legal analyst Joey Jackson and CNN's Stephanie Elam. Welcome to you both. Sorry, I had to clear my throat. Welcome. I'm glad you are here.

Joey, according to the NBA's bylaws, Sterling's ownership could be terminated if he doesn't pay the fine in 30 days. Is this Sterling's way of holding on to his manhood while losing his team?

PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, I'm not feeling like Joey Jackson. I'm feeling like Paul Callan.

COSTELLO: Oh, Paul Callan! I'm sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

CALLAN: And I'll tell you this, Jackson is going to get a real laugh over this. COSTELLO: I'm so sorry, Paul. Let me apologize. Because of course I know you really well. I just didn't look at the screen. I apologize, Paul.

CALLAN: I got to say, Carol, this is a stunning development in the case. He went out last night - or there was an announcement that Sterling has hired an antitrust expert, one of the most famous antitrust lawyers in the country, to defend him. Now, this means that he is going to take an approach that every owner in the NBA was terrified of -- to say that this is a monopoly, it's illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act, that law used under Teddy Roosevelt to break up U.S. Steel and Standard Oil and a lot of big monopolies. This could throw the league upside down, on its ear and change everything. So it's a really, really big development in the case.

COSTELLO: It is. And, Stephanie, Lebron James, he threatened a player boycott if Sterling still owns the Clippers next season You were at the Clippers game last night. Did any of the Clippers address the controversy?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After the game was over, yes. I mean, their voices were very low, they were very quiet, and the were hurting over that loss, obviously. But when you take a listen to what they said, they did take the high road and pointed out to the fact that this was really about basketball at the end of it and not about Sterling. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS PAUL, L.A. CLIPPERS PLAYER: Tell you the truth, we don't think about that. You know what I mean? That's the least of our worries right now, is him. We just lost the damn series. We -- I'm sorry. But we don't care about that.

DOC RIVERS, L.A. CLIPPERS COACH: We've gone through a lot of stuff over the last three or four weeks. And I don't think that was why we didn't win. I don't think we should use that as an excuse. We are a team in process. I believe we were good enough to win it this year. Oklahoma City told us we were not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: And it was also interesting because Chris Paul also said when he's lacing up his shoes, he's not thinking about Sterling. Doc did at one point mention that this could have played into it, but all in all it was about the Thunder winning and he didn't want to take away from their win.

A lot of fans though looking at this and wondering how much it did distract them when we talked after the game. But all in all, their whole thing was just to focus on taking the high road here. And it was actually kind of admirable to sit there in the room with them and listen to them say that.

COSTELLO: I bet. Paul, in the end, let's go back to the legal matters at hand. The NBA is a private club that Sterling willingly belonged to. He knows the rules. So do the other owners. Do you think the other owners can convince Sterling to stop fighting?

CALLAN: Well, this could be a ploy obviously to get out and get the best price possible for his team. Obviously, if he's talking about breaking up the league under the Sherman Antitrust Act, a lot of owners may go to him and say, hey listen, we'll negotiate the best possible deal for you, let you get out with your dignity. So this could be a negotiating ploy.

But I will tell you that all of sports has been terrified for a long, long time that the federal government is going to look at them as a big business just like the car companies and everybody else. And you have to picture a situation, Carol, where if all of the car companies got together and they said, you know, we don't like electric cars so we're going to form a voluntary association, and anybody who tries to make an electric car, we're going to throw out. Well, that would be considered a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. It would be considered a restraint of trade, anticompetitive, and the federal government won't allow it.

Now, if you apply that rule to sports, they have common deals about how to do TV contracts, about how players get drafted from college into sports teams. All of those rules could be thrown out if the Sherman Antitrust Act is applied to them like other big businesses. So owners are going to be afraid that the courts might say, you know something, the time has come to regulate this sport more closely. And, ironically, the Donald Sterling case could be the case that makes the courts do that.

COSTELLO: Wow, now that is an interesting twist. Go ahead, Stephanie.

ELAM: One other point about those, too, is that now that we have seen that there could be the litigation going on, the idea of this being a quick fix also goes out the window. Which means the idea of boycotting also becomes crazy because you're talking maybe a couple of years before this is settled. And for players who obviously their life goal may be to get to the NBA, to play for that championship, then it throws into question how this would be.

But last night I can tell you that the players there for the Clippers, they weren't thinking about that. They were still thinking about showing up in October and playing for the Clippers.

COSTELLO: Because they have class. Stephanie Elam, Paul Callan, thank you so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a pro-business leader claiming victory in India. The votes are being counted after a five-week general election. CNN's Becky Anderson is following it all from New Delhi. Hi Becky.

BECKY ANDERESON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. It's an historic election day here in India. Coming up, why the new prime minister isn't very welcome in the United States, at least it seems not yet.

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COSTELLO: Checking some top stories at 17 minutes past the hour.

Already awaiting trial for the 2013 murder of Oden Lloyd, ex-NFL star Aaron Hernandez now faces two more charges. Prosecutors planned to release more details next week when Hernandez is arraigned for a July 2012 double homicide in Boston. Six weeks after the shooting, Hernandez signed a $40 million contract with the New England Patriots.

Eric Shinseki said he was mad as hell about allegations of cover-ups at V.A. hospitals. But the secretary of Veterans Affairs says he does not plan to resign. Shinseki was grilled on Capitol Hill yesterday. His testimony followed CNN reporting that at least 40 veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix V.A. health care system.

There was a new question at the center of the Flight 370 investigation. Who has the satellite data that shaped the search? The satellite company Inmarsat says the raw data has been released to investigators, but officials from Malaysia and Australia say they don't have it.

Big change is coming in India. People in the world's largest democracy have voted for a change at the top. More than half a billion people voted to kick out the ruling party and put a pro- business leader in power. And that could be good news not just for India's economy but also for the United States' economy.

CNN's Becky Anderson is in New Delhi to tell us why. Good morning.

ANDERSON: A very good morning to you.

This is a man who is really having extremely good day, historic Election Day here in India. He is, as we speak, speaking and addressing his own home crowd, as it were, in one of the western states here in India. He hasn't said what he will do on foreign policy. He hasn't said what his relations will be with the United States going forward.

Let me tell you, they are fractures at present not helped by the fact that he doesn't have a U.S. visa. It was revoked in 2005 after allegations that he oversaw anti-Muslim riots in his home state back in 2002. Those allegations he has always denied.

But if Washington wants to improve things, there are going to have to be some hands extended because at present, this is not a friendly relationship all around. Back in 2010, Obama talked about India and the U.S. forming the defining partnership of the 21st century. But India hasn't felt supported by the states particularly on things like Pakistan and the states haven't felt supported by India across the board on a number of issues not least not supporting the U.S. on the referendum with Crimea, for example, took a back seat stance and just hasn't spoken up in support of Washington in the past couple of years.

So, this is a difficult relationship. This is a $2 trillion economy. It is not reaching its potential at present. Modi says he can make that happen. So, there is clearly a lot of investment opportunity here. There are American companies already here and there will be others who want a bit of this action. So, it remains to be seen where we go at this point. As I say he is currently addressing his home crowd and really talking local politics at this point.

COSTELLO: Becky Anderson, reporting live from New Delhi this morning -- thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM: Beyonce, Jay-z and Solange finally commenting on the elevator scuffle caught on security cameras.

Nischelle Turner has the scoop. Hi.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPNDENT: We always thought Jay and B made beautiful music together. But Jay, B and Solange? I don't know. Now, they're borrowing the line from Sister Sledge, "We Are Family".

We will tell you about it when we come back.

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COSTELLO: Today, after five decades in television, Barbara Walters will say goodbye in a star studded tribute on "The View." Just a day after all 10 of Walter's "View" co-host joined around the set, she was surprised by some of the best known women in journalism, among them, Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric, along with ABC colleagues Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts, who tweeted this photo of the group.

Walters talked with HLN's A.J. Hammer about what the moment meant to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

A.J. HAMMER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It was truly a historic moment when the biggest women of all of television news came out here, from Lunden, to Couric, to Sawyer, all saying that they stand on your shoulders. You said they are your legacy but what were you thinking as you saw each of the faces showing up?

BARBARA WALTERS, JOURNALIST: The fact that they had shown up made me feel very proud. These are busy women and women who have accomplished so much. And they all came. I can't tell you how proud that makes me.

HAMMER: On the show that aired today you sat with your original co- hosts that have been on "The View" with you.

Did you take a moment and look around the table?

WALTERS: I did. The good thing is that I like them so much still and that they came. You work with people and you don't always end in the best of terms. They all showed up. I still can't get over it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: We'll talk more about Barbara Walters, her legacy and the current state of women in media in our next hour. My colleagues Candy Crowley and Christiane Amanpour will join me.

Jay-Z, his wife Beyonce and her sister Solange Knowles finally breaking their silence over the leaked hotel video showing Solange kicking and punching Jay-Z as they rode in a New York hotel elevator, all while Beyonce stood by and she watched it all happened.

Still unclear what triggered the scuffle but the trio released a statement that says, in part, quote, "At the end of the day, families have problems and we are no different. We have put this behind us and hope everybody else will do the same."

Fat chance of that happening.

Joining me now entertainment correspondent Nischelle Turner --

TURNER: Why did you have to crack up laughing?

COSTELLO: I know.

Senior media correspondent and host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter joins us, as well.

Everybody wants to know what happened, Nischelle. Are they crazy?

TURNER: No, we're not crazy. And that's why we're talking about it now. And I know, you know, this was their kind of carefully choreographed way to try to tell people to move it along. There's nothing to see here.

But the fact is, when you look at that video, the video is so incendiary and so bad, it doesn't stop people from wanting to know what the heck happened, wanting to hear the audio, wondering what led up to this. That statement didn't do much to quell anything, I don't believe.

COSTELLO: And, Brian, you have to agree. Actually, I'm like amazed that so many people are interested in this video. It's gone more than viral.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SR. MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: You are? Really?

COSTELLO: I am, I am.

STELTER: I spent more money than I should say on their concerts. These are some of the biggest stars in the world. So, you know, it might sound silly to say, it is not just a story about celebrities, it is a business story, also. These are giant stars caught on camera doing the kind of bad behavior that maybe all families have these problems. Rarely do we see it involving A-list stars. So, I do think it's a giant story.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I think it became bigger because Beyonce's image is so carefully controlled. Here we see her in maybe a setting --

STELTER: And because there was no audio on the video. Oftentimes we hear the audio, so we know what happened. In this case, it was almost like, choose your own adventure, make up your own story about what was happening in the video.

TURNER: And you know, Carol, Brian makes a good point, because this is a couple who makes $95 million a year combined. I mean, they are number one on Forbes list. They are the cream of the crop.

And so, when you see things like this on a couple that is deemed in the music world as hip hop and R&B royalty as the standard, you see that, how can you not watch it and want to know more? We have such an appetite for celebrity these days, good, bad or indifferent.

COSTELL: Well, that is true. You've got to believe, though, once Beyonce starts doing interviews again, which she will everybody will ask her about this video and that statement doesn't do anything to stop that, Brian.

STELTER: I got to say, if I were them, I would have really wanted to -- I don't if I were them what I'm going to do. If I was there PR adviser, I would be saying, give some explanation, give some context for the fight.