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Arthur May Become Hurricane; Water Leak on Plane; Fears of al Qaeda Attack; Backlash over Adam Richman; Robin Thicke's Twitter Q&A; Clashes Escalate in Jerusalem

Aired July 02, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hear, hear, to Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

Great to be with you this afternoon. I'm Brooke Baldwin. And we begin with Tropical Storm Arthur making its way up the East Coast and is on track to make landfall Friday, the holiday, Fourth of July. It will most likely strike as a category one hurricane. In fact, take a look at this picture. Loves these images from space. This is actually from NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, posted this on Twitter and said specifically, "hope it heads out to sea. Looks mean." It does look kind of mean.

CNN is tracking Arthur's path ahead of the holiday weekend. Joe Johns is live for us in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, or the outer banks, who are supposed to really get the brunt of it, and Chad Myers is watching it all from the CNN Weather Center.

Chad, let's begin with you. Talk about timing. When will it hit and be the worst?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Great question because I think we talk about hitting and then we talk about the effect. And the hitting may be at the outer banks somewhere near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. And that happens after midnight Thursday, about 3:00 a.m. on Friday. But that's not when the big effect is going to take place on North Carolina's coast.

There is the storm, 60 miles per hour. It gained some strength last night. Here is the shot I want you to pay attention to. Here is where the storm becomes a category one hurricane, somewhere in here, and runs right along the coast between about Myrtle Beach and right through Wilmington and right over here to Morehead City. As this storm is in the cone, maybe very close to shore, maybe a little bit further away, but right now somewhere in the middle probably, we're going to have intense waves, we're going to have intense wind, we're going to have waves probably six to 10 feet making a large area with significant rip currents.

This is not a landfall problem hurricane. This is a rip current problem hurricane. We're going to lose people because they're in the ocean swimming and everything just as happy as could be. Oh, look at the pretty waves. But the problem is, when the sand bar breaks, that's when we're going to get people torn out to sea. There is the stand bar. You always see it offshore. It's kind of that lighter area of stand, that lighter area of water off shore. The water comes over the sand bars and just kind of - kind of plays around here where the people are.

The problem is, when the sandbar breaks through here, kind of an erosion issue. That erosion takes the water with it at 35 to 45 miles per hour and people, things, beach balls are sucked out 100 yards, then they have to try to make their way back. Well, if you can get here and come back around, take the feeder current back, that's great. But that's not what your body wants to do. Your body wants to fight it and try to get back and get back and get back because all of a sudden you're getting sucked out to sea. I've done it once. It's not a pleasant thing.

You get back around here and you come back through on the feeder currents, you're OK. But that's the issue with this and it doesn't happen except one -- you're doing great. All of a sudden you're not.

BALDWIN: It takes you.

MYERS: The sand bar breaks and it goes. It doesn't just go all the time. It just goes all at one. One more thing, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes.

MYERS: Some severe weather possible up and down the East Coast. Just thunderstorms. There's been a couple of small tornado warnings but severe thunderstorms probably with wind, hail, and some gusty winds for even the big cities at the northeast tonight.

BALDWIN: It's incredibly frightening, though, what you were describing earlier. And all these people at the beeches. Chad, thank you.

MYERS: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: Joe Johns, I mean what a wonderful spot, outer banks, North Carolina. You got a couple extra days off. I saw, you know, your shot earlier with all the umbrellas lined up on the beach. People enjoying the sun and the sand, right?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: But are they aware of what's coming?

JOHNS: That's right. Yes. Yes, I think people are aware. I've been talking to them down on the beach and people, you know, from around here live in the mid-Atlantic region. They understand about hurricanes. They know that from time to time a hurricane comes marching up the coast from Florida, and you either have to deal with it or you move away.

Chad is also very right about that issue of erosion. That's a big consider here. Not just on the dunes, but also out on the roads. A lot of concern in this area about roads being watched out and sand making those roads impassable. Something like 250,000 people expected in this area for the Fourth of July. And now the officials are scrambling, trying to sort of rejigger the schedules for things like fireworks so that they can still occur on the holiday weekend but maybe not on Friday when that storm is supposed to hit this area.

Otherwise, a little bit of concern, I think, right now about the economics of this part of North Carolina and the possibility, of course, that some people who were planning on just coming for the weekend might have to truncate that visit or might have to not come at all. Otherwise, there are a lot of people here in North Carolina who rent houses for the week in this area and that just has to do with postponing your trip a day or so. So that's the status as we know it and people are hoping for the best and hoping that storm keeps far enough out shore so that the winds don't cause any real problems here, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I know. No fun for those people in their homes and they want their vacations. Joe Johns, thank you so much. Chad Myers, we'll be in close touch through the week as we watch this thing advance.

Meantime, have you seen these pictures? Nothing like a water leak 30,000 feet up in the air to ruin a perfectly good flight. Look at the aisle. Do you see this? This happened early this morning. The floor of this flight to Australia washed out. Flight attendants scrambled, tried to use those blankets to soak up some of this rushing water, but the plane actually had to turn around, head back to LAX. Qantas Airlines has issued an apology, said there were no safety concerns here. Actress Nicole Yvette Brown was on board. She described the experience to CNN today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLE YVETTE BROWN, ACTRESS (voice-over): All of a sudden it looked like a trickle at first and I thought someone had spilled like a soda or a pop or something. And then it just got bigger and bigger and filled up both aisles and it literally was like a river running down the aisles of the plane. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Sara Sidner following this for us from Los Angeles.

A river coming down the aisle of the plane, how does that even happen?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's a good question. Simply put, the airlines, Qantas, basically said, look, we did spring a leak. Yes, they were at 35,000 feet. And that's why the plane turned around.

I do want to talk a little bit about how often this happens because I don't think I've ever heard of this and a lot of people I'm talking to haven't either. And aviation experts say, look, it is extremely rare. And though Qantas said, look, we -- there was not a safety issue here. They were an hour into a flight. You might wonder where all this water is coming from, why is there so much water on a plane? Well, it's for the plumbing, it's for the bathrooms so you can wash your hands and use the restroom. And generally speaking, you know, you don't know it, you don't know that it's there. But apparently they sprung a leak. And they're going to go to Airbus to try to figure out exactly what happened in this particular case. Usually the problem when it comes to water and leakage, it's outside

the plane where what they call blue ice comes falling out of the plane and lands on cars and lands on homes. This is a rarity, but scary as heck, as you might have mentioned. And you talked about what Qantas said. They said, look, we apologize. We are trying to figure out what the problem is. Nobody was in danger. But aviation experts say, this actually could been dangerous because there's a lot of wiring, a lot of electrical wiring. And if it seeps down into that, you could have a real problem.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Quickly, just because you mentioned that the reason why you have the water and bathrooms, how do I put this delicately, was this clean water at least?

SIDNER: We don't know, but looking at it, you know, and people weren't mentions smell or anything like that. It was probably water that just went into the, you know, into the bathrooms.

BALDWIN: My goodness.

SIDNER: But they are going to check with Airbus because they do have to check with that. You know, a lot of people are going, we've heard a lot of crazy things happening on flights like, for example -

BALDWIN: The chute coming out, right, that flight (ph) the other day.

SIDNER: Exactly right. Is it more dangerous to fly? And time and again, when you talk to folks in the industry, when you talk to experts who watch all of this, they say actually flying is safer than it ever has been. Over the years, it's got safer and safer and safer. I think what you might be seeing is, we have cell phones, right, we take pictures of everything -

BALDWIN: Taking those videos.

SIDNER: Selfies when crazy stuff is going on and that's why you're starting to see a lot more of this out there.

BALDWIN: Citizen journalists. Sara Sidner, thank you.

Just ahead here, the TV host from "Man Versus Food" tells critics to kill themselves during a battle over a hash tag. And now his professional future is in doubt.

Plus, just days after the bodies of those three Israeli teenagers were found, violence erupts in Jerusalem after the body of a Palestinian teenager has also been discovered. We are live there.

And is al Qaeda trying to one up the militant group currently attacking Iraq by plotting an attack against America? This so-called terrorist turf war brewing overseas. We'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Speaking of flying, if you have a flight to catch today, you may want to get there a little earlier because we are now getting word that a clamp down on airport screening could take effect in the coming hours. This news coming to us as we learn terrorists are creating explosive devices designed to slip through the cracks of U.S. airport security. Right now we are waiting on official word from the Department of Homeland Security and we'll bring you that information as soon as we get that precise news from them.

Although officials are playing down the link, there are reports that these tightened security measures could be because of a battle happening on the other side of the world. For weeks and weeks here we've been talking about this militant group, ISIS, seizing territory, town after town in both Syria and Iraq. But right now there's a different kind of war brewing. It's a sort of terrorist turf war between these Sunni militants and the group they broke away from, al Qaeda. For years al Qaeda stood alone as the most fearsome, the most brutal of all militant Islamist organizations. But now that top spot is being threatened. ISIS leaders declaring an Islamic caliphate, or in other words complete control, demanding allegiance from Muslims and jihadist factions all across the world.

So joining me now, Thomas Joscelyn, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and senior editor of "The Long War Journal."

Thomas, welcome.

THOMAS JOSCELYN, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: So with this news about, you know, upping airport security, officials are fearing this unprecedented attack, possibly a suicide bomb by al Qaeda, specifically in the Arabian Peninsula, we know about this mastermind bomb maker, to garner back some respect, for lack of a better word. Do you see that as a legitimate concern, first of all?

JOSCELYN: Well, I think al Qaeda has legitimate concerns about its authority within the jihadist world. Certainly what the Islamic State is doing in Iraq and Syria is the biggest challenge to al Qaeda's authority since 9/11 within the jihadist world. However, I don't think they need that sort of challenge in order to plot attacks against us. We've seen a consistent threat stream coming out of Syria for a while now going back a couple of years of terrorists there potentially plotting attacks against the west and certainly preparing or laying the groundwork for those sorts of plots.

BALDWIN: You know, I was reading this article a couple of days ago in "The Daily Beast" that it was talking about al Qaeda being eclipsed by the very fighters they disavowed, by ISIS, kicked out because of their sheer brutality and their refusal to obey orders. Can you just - a, your reaction to this one upping one another, and, b, what are the fundamental differences between these two groups.

JOSCELYN: Well, the Islamic state right now has a lot of momentum behind its sails, but I think it's too early to say they've eclipsed al Qaeda per say. Al Qaeda still has a sprawling international network. They still have the allegiance of a number of groups. They have not broken ranks yet anyway. And, you know, really, what here - the fundamental difference between these two groups goes to how you play the long game in terms of waging war. ISIS are now --

BALDWIN: How do you mean?

JOSCELYN: Well, ISIS are now the Islamic State basically thinks they can tell everyone in the jihadi world and everybody in the Muslim world to obey them and do exactly what they say, whereas al Qaeda's involved in much more, I think, sophisticated strategy of trying to build a consensus amongst jihadist groups and jihadist leaders.

You know, just recently, the Islamic State declared itself as the head of the new caliphate. Well, one of the things they didn't do before making that declaration was building support from key jihadist ideologues throughout the region for that announcement. And we've seen --

BALDWIN: And as a result, what happened?

JOSCELYN: Well, that's a big mistake on their part because what you see is a lot of ideologues have come out against them and have come out against that caliphate announcement. And so really that was a gift back to al Qaeda and the rivalry because it basically took some of the wind out of the sails that the Islamic State has been really experiencing of late.

BALDWIN: Rivalry between these groups. And then for years, Thomas, you have these Muslim extremists. They sought this creation of the caliphate that, you know, once ruled this part of the world. Do you think this declaration by ISIS will, as you point out, see more terrorists maybe instead of the ideologues turning away, more terrorists flocking to Syria and Iraq to fight?

JOSCELYN: Well, I think they're going to get the hot heads basically in the jihadi world.

BALDWIN: The hot heads, huh.

JOSCELYN: They're going to get the most - the most extreme of the extreme. And that's really been their brand all along. The problem for them is sort of, how do you play the long game. Remember, al Qaeda had to change its tactics and strategy even really because of the excesses of the war in Iraq and its brutality against Muslims. You know, what ISIS is doing or what the Islamic State is doing is killing a lot of its potential recruits. And that's a message that eventually really turns people sour on them. Now, right now, they have military victories, they're on the offensive in the Iraq --

BALDWIN: They have incredible momentum right now.

JOSCELYN: Sure. But the trick for them is, they need to maintain that, because ideologically speaking, within the jihadi world, they have not build up a massive support yet. So they really need to maintain the momentum, they need to maintain the territory they've gained and they need to be seen as sort of the strong horse, as Osama bin Laden would say. Remember the al Qaeda master said that when people can choose between a strong horse and a weak horse, they're going to go with the strong horse. Right now they look like they're the strong horse, but as soon as they get weakened, that may fall off.

BALDWIN: The optics of terrorism. Unbelievable. Thomas Joscelyn, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, senior editor of "The Long War Journal," thank you so much, sir, for your expertise. We really appreciate it.

JOSCELYN: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Just ahead here, violence erupts in Jerusalem after a Palestinian teen was found dead in the wake of the discovery of those three murdered Israeli teenagers. And our CNN correspondents were caught in the crossfire. We will take you there.

Plus, "Man Versus Food" host Adam Richman gets into a social media showdown after comments about his weight, even suggesting one of his critics commit suicide. That story and the fallout, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: A popular TV host is in some hot water and his professional future is right now in doubt. Here's the story. The man made famous by the popular shows "Man Versus Food" and "Amazing Eats" has this new show, "Man Finds Food," set to debut tonight, put on hold by The Travel Channel. This uproar all began after an ugly exchange between Richman and his online followers. Our senior media correspondent, host of "Reliable Sources," Brian Stelter is here to explain the fallout.

Brian, so we know that Adam Richman posted this picture of himself after losing all of this weight followed by the #thinspiration, which was very offensive to many, many people.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, I've been exactly where Adam was. I lost a lot of weight a few years ago. I was very excited the way he was. I posted pictures of the smaller me, showing off the clothes I couldn't wear any more. That's what he was trying to do. He was trying to celebrate his success. But he used the #thinspiration, a word that has negative connotation with a lot of people. Some people say it encourages bulimia and anorexia and, frankly, very bad food behaviors, food related behaviors.

I don't think he knew that when he used the word. I think he was using it in a very different way. But he got into this terrible kind of fight online with people who shamed him and pointed out the bad mistake he made using that term and how it could be misinterpreted. So he seemed to go down this ugly rabbit hole on the Internet -

BALDWIN: Very ugly.

STELTER: Where he was sending messages to people. And that's the problem often times with social media, it's not the original back and forth, it's when you go down that rabbit hole and just keep responding to people. And in this case he got kind of nasty about it.

BALDWIN: Can you be specific? Let's explain the nastiness and what he said.

STELTER: You know, he was using acronyms basically saying, do you think I give a, you know, and then he was using expletives like that. He was saying that even though he's a celebrity, he deserves fair treatment too and kindness too. But he did come out and apologize. Let's put his apology up on screen.

He said, "I've long since struggled with my body image and have worked very hard to achieve a healthy weight. Instead of responding to hurtful comments with compassion, I lashed out in anger. I'm not asking for sympathy, but rather forgiveness."

I think that was a very well put statement. But The Travel Channel has gone ahead and yanked his new show, which was going to premier tonight. It's unclear now when it's going to premier.

BALDWIN: OK. We'll watch to see if he still has a job and if that will make it on TV.

STELTER: Oh, and I think he will, by the way.

BALDWIN: Yes.

STELTER: I think it will blow over in a few days. I think it's kind of weird they pulled the show to begin with, but I understand, these networks these days are very sensitive about these things. They don't want to be associated with any kind of controversy. So I bet the show will be on later this summer.

BALDWIN: OK. Well, let's continue to talking about some media sensitivity. OK. Singer Robin Thicke trying to get his wife back, Paula Patton, very, very publicly. Has this new album out including the song, "Get Her Back." Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBIN THICKE, MUSICIAN (singing): Let's keep alive (ph) keep alive (ph). Keep you satisfied. All I want to do is make it right, make it right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Say what you want about Robin Thicke, this guy's been all over TV. He did this Twitter, you know, question and answer session yesterday and the whole thing backfired.

STELTER: It sure did. The - the hashtag for this was #askthicke, so he was encouraging people to ask him questions. Ask him anything. But as you can imagine, a lot of the questions were about his family, about his personal life. Ones that he didn't necessarily want to answer. So it's probably not a well thought out question and answer session for him. Maybe it's not the right time for him to be asking for questions. BALDWIN: But if you're singing about - sorry, maybe I should zip it, but if you're being so public about what's going on in your personal life, what do you expect?

STELTER: I agree with you. I agree with you. I mean -- but all singers, I suppose, are using their personal lives as grist for their songs, aren't they?

BALDWIN: Yes.

STELTER: He did seem to take it in stride, though. He said he is a big guy, he can handle the questions. That doesn't mean he's going to answer the questions though.

BALDWIN: All right, Stelter. Brian Stelter, thank you so much. We'll look for you on Sunday morning, as always.

STELTER: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Coming up, how closely do you look at your cell phone bill each and every month. T-Mobile is accused of charging its customers hundreds of millions of dollars in these bogus fees. What you need to look for. That's ahead.

But next, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Things are very tense here at the moment. In fact, I'm going to spin the camera around very briefly here. Oh, excuse me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Look at that. That was - that was Atika Shubert and crew in the thick of things in this tense situation in Israel after these three dead teenagers have been found. After now a Palestinian teenager has been found. We'll take you there, take you live to the region, explain what is going on. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just about the bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN.

A kidnapped Israeli teenager apparently made a desperate 911 call before his murder. Sixteen-year-old Gilad Shaer, in the white cap here on the left, buried yesterday next to his two friends. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed his country would avenge their deaths. Israeli media outlets aired excerpts of what they described as an emergency call that this young man, Shaer, made when he realized what was happening, when he realized he was being kidnapped. Israeli authorities say they did not leak the audio. CNN affiliate Channel 2 in Israel was one of the first to air the audio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLICEMAN: Hello, this is Udi (ph).

ABDUCTED TEENAGER GILAD SHAER: I've been (INAUDIBLE).

VOICE OF (INAUDIBLE) ARABIC ACCENT: Put your head down! Put your head down!

POLICEMAN: Hello?

VOICE OF (INAUDIBLE) ARABIC ACCENT: Put your hand down and your head down.

POLICEMAN: Hello?

IN HEBREW WITH POSSIBLE ARABIC ACCENT: Put your had down! Hands down!

POLICE: Hello?

POLICEMAN: Hello?

ONE OF THE ABDUCTED TEENAGERS: A Ow!

POLICEMAN: Hello?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And now, today, the body of yet another teenager, a 17-year- old Palestinian, was discovered in a Jerusalem forest. His death, a possible revenge killing. The United States has condemned the killings and condolences to his family. But as you can imagine, and you've been watching, tensions are escalating. They're escalating quickly in Jerusalem. Our correspondent, Atika Shubert, was there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Things are very tense here at the moment. In fact, I'm going to spin the camera around very briefly here. Oh, excuse me. I think - there's a lot of police trying to disburse us here. Sorry for all that noise, but it seems that they just let off a stun grenade near us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Talking about a stun grenade. We can tell you that Atika and her crew are OK. The White House is encouraging both sides to act responsibly.