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NYT: 3 Substances Found in Russian Skater's Test Sample; Senate Republicans Ask DOJ to Reject Request for Federal No-Fly List for Unruly Passengers; Ex-Officer Testifies in Civil Rights Trial over Floyd's Death; Prosecutors Present Racial Test Messages in Federal Hate Crimes Trial of 3 Men Convicted in Arbery Murder; Alarming Report on Rising Sea Levels. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 16, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

DON RIDDELL, CNN "WORLD SPORT" ANCHOR: Let's break down these three substances for you because we're all learning a lot about these three items.

The first one, the main one, Trimetazidine, that is the one that Valieva tested positive for. She took the test on Christmas Day and we didn't learn until last week she tested positive for it.

This is a banned substance. It would enhance endurance.

The story being given by the Russians and Valieva's team, her grandfather was taking the medication and somehow it ended up in her system.

The other two, Hypoxen and L carnitine, as the graphic says, they are not banned substances.

Hypoxen, according to Valieva's mother, used to treat heart variations in her 15-year-old daughter.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency says they actually tried to ban the drug in 2017 because they believed it would have performance enhancing qualities. But it is not banned.

L carnitine is a supplement that's usually taking orally. But the United States Anti-Doping Agency says, if that one was taking intravenously, that could have performance-enhancing qualities.

But they don't yet know how she was taking that or how it ended up in her system. The United States Anti-Doping Agency's head is absolutely fascinated

by the combination of these three drugs all in the system of one so young, a 15-year-old girl, and a high-performing athlete.

He's basically saying this would indicate a deliberate use of substances to enhance performance and raising the issue of Russia themselves, a bright, red beacon that is beeping here.

Of course, we know what Russia did in the 2014 games when they doped their way on an industrial scale to glory. And yet, Russia are still at these games -- Ana?

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Quickly, Don, if you will, do we know how long the investigation could take to be completed?

RIDDELL: Weeks or months. We don't know.

What we do know is Valieva is still in the competition. She will be skating again between 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning Eastern Time tomorrow.

She is leading this competition. She is expected to win it.

The Olympic committee says there will be an asterisk next to her name if she does end up on the podium.

But, of course, there will be no podium, no medal presentation. That will take time to figure out really who wins this event.

CABRERA: Obviously, we won't have the answer before the end of the Olympics.

RIDDELL: Yes.

CABRERA: Thank you very much, Don.

Now to those behaving badly on airplanes. Delta's CEO wants the Department of Justice to put unruly passengers convicted of crimes on planes on a federal No-Fly List.

Now a number of Republican Senators are pushing back.

As we've been reporting, incidents have gone up, in part, because of mask requirements.

And some Republican lawmakers say banning these passengers from flying would equate to those who refuse to wear a mask on planes to terrorists.

Here are the stats. Since the beginning of last year, there have been more than 6,300 violent or disruptive incidents on planes. Most of them mask related.

And of the more than 6,000 incidents 80 have been referred to the DOJ for prosecution.

But there's no denying flying has been downright scary on some flights.

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(SHOUTING)

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CABRERA: That's just a sampling.

Remember, just last week, two American Airlines flights were forced to divert.

This video from a flight where a passenger tried to open the cockpit door, we are told, and a crew member stopped him by hitting him on the head with a pot of coffee.

I want to discuss all of this with Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants.

Sara, it's always good to see you.

In this letter to the Justice Department, this group of Republican Senators argues -- and I quote from this letter:

"The creation of this list by DOJ would result in a severe restriction on the ability of citizens to fully exercise their constitutional right to engage in interstate transportation."

What say you?

SARA NELSON, PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS: I would say they should start with voting for voting rights to make sure people can express their constitutional rights.

But what I would also say is get serious. Come on now. This has been over a year these events have been off the charts. People are starting to look at this and, like you said, it's downright scary.

And they're looking at that and so they're saying, when I buy a ticket, is this what my flying experience will be like?

The flight attendants working these flights have been punched, kicked, spit on, disrespected, and constantly under assault.

And so we need to be very clear about what the rules are, what the consequences are if you don't follow them.

And the consequences need to be in place. We have fines from the FAA. We have the DOJ now prosecuting some of these cases.

And we have the ability to put together a list where we're sharing this information and telling people that for a period of time you're also subject to losing your freedom of flight if you are behaving this way.

[13:35:08] And the reason this is so important is because, if we make this a normal occurrence, what we're handing to the terrorists, who would like to still use commercial aircraft against this country as a weapon, we are handing another distraction to them and another tool in their tool kit.

We simply cannot allow that to happen. These Senators are really not on the right path here in terms of making sure that our country remains safe.

CABRERA: Well, I think they have said they do support airlines instituting their own No-Fly List, which I know some have.

Why doesn't that work?

NELSON: It's really important there's a federal program where there's consistency of sharing that information and reporting that information.

And if you have individual airlines doing that you don't have that kind of consistency.

You also don't have potentially a very good due process in this process because what you're doing is you're counting on the airlines and their internal investigations. And there may not be real due process for those passengers.

If you have a government program, where that can be transparent, everybody understands how it works, you under how you get on the list, you understand how up get off the list.

You also have a protocol for how you're sharing the information on the day of the event and then what you're doing for the long term in terms of the consequences.

You can do that through a federal program that you cannot do through individual airlines just coming up with how they're going to put this in place on their own.

CABRERA: Real quick, because we know there have been 80 cases of more than 6,000 violent or disruptive incidents referred to the Department of Justice so far.

Is that enough? And do you think the DOJ is acting fast enough on those?

NELSON: Well, one thing that's really important to recognize is we keep hearing there are all these mask incidents.

The reality is the vast majority of the incidents that become these high-profile incidents that become very violent incidents, these are the ones that have been referred to the DOJ, those very rarely have anything to do with masks at all.

So we need to focus on the worst offenders. We need the DOJ to focus on the cases that are the best cases that the FBI has referred those cases to them, that doesn't include the ones the FBI have taken up on their own as well.

And those cases need to be prosecuted. We need to get through the whole process so people are landing in jail.

Because until we have people actually landing in jail and understanding there's real consequences for acting out on a flight, we're not going to see these incidents go down.

We saw this in the late '90s around the world. We put this program in place. There were actually high-profile events reported out by the media where people started landing in jail by 2008.

And those events in the U.S. went down while they were still rising in the world. We know this works.

DOJ has to prosecute those cases as quickly as possible and we can use this as a real consequence that people understand.

CABRERA: Sara Nelson, thank you for your time and your perspective.

We go to Georgia now where the federal hate crimes trial for the men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery is under way.

Today, the jury was shown the defendant's racist texts and posts, and a moment that upset Arbery's father so much he left the courtroom.

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[13:43:10]

CABRERA: Now to Minnesota. And moments ago, a second ex-officer, who is facing charges in the murder of George Floyd, took the stand.

Alexander Kueng was one of the first officers to respond to a report that Floyd had tried to use a counterfeit $20 bill.

You can see him in this evidence photo from Derek Chauvin's trial. Chauvin is the one circled in red, kneeling on Floyd's neck. Kueng is directly to Chauvin's right, near Floyd's midsection there.

Now all three defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to intervene as Chauvin kneeled on Floyd's neck until he died.

CNN correspondent, Adrienne Broaddus, is joining us now.

Tao Thao is another ex-officer. He finished his testimony earlier today.

What are you hearing from these officers, or ex-officers, I should say? How are they defending themselves?

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Each defendant has a different defense. Right now, J. Alexander Kueng is on the stand. The court, I will mention, is in recess.

But Kueng is starting out his testimony saying he grew up in north Minneapolis and he became an officer because he wanted to serve the city where he grew up.

We heard the most so far from Tao Thao. And he testified saying he was crowd control that day, calling himself a human traffic cone.

Now his defense attorney, Bob Hall, he showed some of Thao's body worn camera in court. And Thao testified he thought Floyd was on drugs. And he also claims he requested EMS to arrive quickly.

During Thao's testimony, the defense showed images of Thao's training. Some of those pictures show a person in handcuffs while the officer had a knee on their neck. Thao testified this was common practice.

And when asked why a knee would be used in that type of restraint, Thao responded by saying, quote, "to prevent them from rolling around or get up."

[13:45:08]

And there was an interesting exchange on cross-examination. Let's take a look at what was said there.

The prosecuting attorney, Bell, asked, did you see Officer Chauvin's knee on Mr. Floyd's neck? Thao responded, I did.

Moments later, Bell says, you were in a position to hear Mr. Floyd stop talking? Thao replied with, yes.

And also during that cross-examination, Attorney Earl Gray reminded jurors, it was the first week on the job for the other two officers, Lane and Kueng and these officers will testify in their own defense.

It's also important to underscore, during the re-cross, Thao pointed to Chauvin's experience as a veteran, saying he should have known to check for a pulse -- Ana?

CABRERA: Adrienne Broaddus, thank you.

Let's head to Georgia and the federal hate crimes trial of the three men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery. Prosecutors are trying to prove that Arbery's murder was motivated by racial bias.

Today, jurors were shown new evidence so upsetting Arbery's father had to leave the courtroom.

CNN's Nick Valencia is in Brunswick, Georgia, outside that courthouse.

Nick, cameras aren't allowed inside. But you've been inside. Tell us about the new evidence.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, it was an explosive day of testimony.

During which federal prosecutors laid out evidence the McMichaels and co-defendant, Roddy Bryan, repeatedly used racist language, repeatedly used the N-word and, often times, referred to a black human as subhuman or savages. In one bit of evidence that was presented, Roddy Bryan went so far as

to compare black people to monkeys.

Most of the morning was spent focused on Travis McMichael and his use of social media as well as messages he sent to his friends in which he found amusing.

One of those clips was a racist song, called "Alabama N-word," that was edited over a clip of a young black child dancing on the "Ellen" show.

Federal prosecutors wanted to show that clip to infer that, seemingly, no one, however young, was off limits for the McMichaels' racism.

At one point, this was clearly very disturbing and emotionally distressing to the family of Ahmaud Arbery.

Marcus Arbery Sr got up, at one point, when prosecutors showed evidence that Travis McMichael told his friend that he thought the name of the Cracker Barrel restaurant should be changed to the N-word Bucket because so many black people hung out there.

It was during the court recess in the afternoon that Marcus Arbery Sr spoke about what he heard during court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCUS ARBERY, FATHER OF AHMAUD ARBERY: I'm not really shocked. I already know all the hate was in them three men. But it's just really a shame that they have that much hate in them for African-American people.

You know, people running around our neighborhood. When they hate African-American people like that, that's just really bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: Now they did focus on these racist messages. But also focus was Gregory McMichael's Facebook post in which he seemingly supported vigilantism.

That's something the prosecutors here are also highlighting -- Ana?

CABRERA: Nick Valencia, thank you.

More flooding, even on sunny days. Ahead, which cities could be under water just years from now? The alarming report next.

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[13:52:57]

CABRERA: Millions of Americans live on a coast, but a new report says sea levels could rise as much a foot within 30 years. That means coastal cities could flood even on sunny days.

Meteorologist Tom Sater joins us.

Tom, show us what the world is expected to look like just 30 years from now.

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Ana, these reports that are coming out in the scientific committee are still heralding the same message that climate change is occurring.

If you're not onboard the climate change train, get on board.

The hottest seven years. I mean, look at it. The last seven have been the hottest. But we've been warning much more before that.

These reports however are coming with more severity.

This is the month of January. Temperature anomalies. Many are like, hey, it's been a cold winter. Look at the blue in North America.

That's because all the cold is getting pushed out of the Arctic. The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet.

Remember last year, in Texas. And 40 percent of the U.S. population lives within 60 miles of the coast. And 40 percent of the world lives on coastlines.

So here's what we're looking at. An increase in sea level. Not just the melting of the icecaps in Greenland or in Antarctica.

It's the warming of the waters. And that's called thermal expansion. It creates a higher sea level.

So the report, here it is. We will warm up, will warm up, or should say, a sea level rise, in 30 years just as we saw in the last 100. An incredible rate.

Again, coastal areas, 10 to 12 inches. That's if we stay where we are in a planet rising.

Notice, we're at 1.2 degrees Celsius. We're trying not to get to two. At 1.5 degrees, we're a foot and a half.

But if we continue to do nothing, the report says a 3 degrees Celsius warm-up, we're at 23 feet on the coastlines.

Again, the report goes on to say the Jersey coast, back in the '50s, would have coastal flooding with a high tide maybe once every one to two years. Now, it's several times a year.

But also, since 2000, two days of flooding in Miami, Charleston and New York City. Now it's 10 days.

The before and after pictures are astonishing. If you look at around Lady Liberty here, Ellis Island, complete inundation. That's with three degrees.

[13:55:04] So we're looking at some worst-case scenarios because the planet is not doing enough. Governments think it's too expensive.

If you think it's too expensive to change our policies to get into renewable energy, try moving cities from around not just the eastern coastline of the U.S., but out to the west as well, and around the world.

Again, as we're noticing this, the increased rate we're seeing now, with doing absolutely nothing, is mindboggling.

And now, scientific projections say, hey, we're warming up faster than we thought we would. So these futuristic models are getting a better handle -- hey, that's San Francisco.

You can go down to other areas, even around the world. I mean, there's London.

Again, these policymakers, sure, they can pledge whatever they want, but don't leave it up to individual companies to change this.

These images are astonishing. However, one country is. Indonesia. That has their capital in Jakarta, just broke grown on a new capital in Kalimantan. They are sinking as the sea levels rise.

So these reports are coming out left and right. And it's never good news.

CABRERA: Those befores and potential afters are really striking.

Tom Sater, thank you.

SATER: Thank you.

CABRERA: That does it for us. Let's meet again tomorrow, same time and place, shall we? Until then, follow me on Twitter, @AnaCabrera.

Alisyn and Victor take it from here after a quick break.

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