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Rihanna Reveals Pregnancy During Halftime Show; Death Toll Rises To 36,000+ As Rescue Efforts Intensify; U.S. Military Shoots Down Another Unidentified Object over North America; Analyst Examines Identity of Possible Objects U.S. Shot Down in Recent Weeks; Kansas City Chiefs Beath Philadelphia Eagles in Close NFL Super Bowl Game. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 13, 2023 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I want to turn now to CNN's chief national security correspondent and anchor of Newsroom Jim Sciutto in Washington, D.C., with more this morning. Good morning to you, sir. Talk to us about these unidentified objects. Where were they, and what do we know about them, if anything?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Don, the U.S. military has been busy in the last 72 hours. As you noted, three objects, this one up here off the north coast of Alaska on Friday, then over Canada on Saturday, and Sunday here, Lake Huron. What's the common theme here? They're all coming this direction. That's the direction of the jet stream, prevailing winds, et cetera. That brings China into play, but not only China. Russia is up there as well.

And the fact is, we don't have an answer yet as to what country owns them, or even the Pentagon leaves open the possibility it's not a nation state. It could be privately owned and operated.

The two big questions are this -- why is the U.S. now detecting more of these? And are there more of these? In answer to the first question, we know that, and that is that the Pentagon, U.S. military, NORAD, they're looking more closely. They've in effect tightened their radars, their sensors to look for smaller options, particularly in that space you mentioned, 60,000 to 20,000 feet, and they are seeing more.

So the big question is, are there more? Is this a part of the globe that China and other countries have been trying to exploit more in recent years? And that seems to be the suspicion here. You had the NATO secretary general say this morning, that's exactly the suspicion of the U.S. and its allies, that this is a space that not just China, but perhaps other countries are using to look down at earth and gain intelligence.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Jim, what about how they actually took it down? Because I know we heard from the Pentagon yesterday, they considered a range of options, maybe shooting down some of these objects. But in the end, it was actually with missiles. How did they make that decision?

SCIUTTO: In part because missiles have just been more successful. It's no accident they've used the same kind of missile going back to the balloon off the coast of South Carolina and these. It's hard to shoot at things with bullets at that speed. And keep in mind the jets firing, the F-22s are going much faster than the target here. So it seems, Kaitlan, that the missile was just the highest percentage shot that they had for the pilots given the target in mind here.

LEMON: The Chinese are claiming that they have spotted their own unidentified object, and late yesterday, there were reports that they were preparing to shoot it down. What can you -- what do you make of that claim, Jim?

SCIUTTO: It's a great point, Don. And this is something I've been concerned about since the beginning, and that is escalation here. So the U.S. has now shot down four objects. We know one of them the U.S. has identified as being from China. Open question as to whether China is responsible for the others, but certainly a suspect here. There's always been the possibility that China shoots back. And China has been saying for a number of days, we reserve the right to do the same. And now, in the last 24 hours, you have China saying, hey, we spotted something here. We may shoot it down.

We don't know if this is a U.S. object that they're talking about. What we do know is that U.S. drones, also crewed surveillance aircraft, are operating all the time, not over, but very near Chinese airspace. China doesn't like that. So, of course, the question, the danger going forward is, do those two forces come into conflict at some point? Does China feel it has to take a shot? You start with uncrewed surveillance aircraft, drones, et cetera. But this is a really dicey time between the U.S. and China. So when we think about escalation, these are the kinds of encounters we have to watch very closely, because there are also a lot of crewed U.S. surveillance missions about China -- I've been on one of them before -- every single day. It's a dicey time between these two countries.

LEMON: Let's hope it doesn't escalate. Thank you very much, Jim Sciutto, joining us from Washington this morning.

COLLINS: And joining us for more analysis of what Jim just laid out there is CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analysis, John Miller. John, we keep talking about the Pentagon and what the military is viewing this as, but it stood out to me yesterday the Pentagon said actually, it's the FBI running point on this investigation. Why is it the FBI?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the FBI is running point on the technical collection of the pieces and the parts and taking them over to the operational technology division, or OTD, with a lot of partners from other agencies to look at them and say, what of this technology do we recognize? What of this technology can we say what it's for, what it does, how it acts?

It's unlikely that there's going to be a prosecution in a case like this, because as we all understand, China spies on us, Russia spies on us, North Korea spies on us, Iran spies on us, and guess what, we spy back on all of them. Since Francis Gary Powers was shot down in 1960 over Russia in a U.S. U2 plane, a spy jet run by the CIA, this is game we play. What's happened here is this readjustment, which is these things are being now detected. They're now being hunted, which is different from something that was happening three weeks ago. And it's been talked about in the open.

[08:05:07]

LEMON: So let's talk about what you would do in the room when you were trying to figure out what was going on with these. So give us a threat assessment. What is your -- are we in more danger now?

MILLER: So, I'm going to take the threat assessment and bring it down to the bottom.

LEMON: I agree with you on that one.

MILLER: These are unarmed things. They have a purpose, and their purpose is to look around and to sniff. They're sniffing for signals. They're sniffing for radar patterns. They want to know when you fly over, where, what are the radar patterns, who's looking for flying objects. If you're trying to figure out in World War III, where the facilities are, that's generally known, what the protection is and the patterns there. All of that can be useful to an adversary. It's the same thing we do. None of these things shoot anything. They're not spreading anthrax through the air. And we're probably shooting down stuff that we're later going to find belonged to somebody, you know, who is not a foreign adversary. There's a lot of stuff flying around out there.

COLLINS: That's what you think?

LEMON: Like, who? What do you mean, who is not a foreign adversary?

MILLER: I think we're about a week away from a cartoon in "The New Yorker" of an alien standing on the White House lawn next to his wrecked spaceship saying, what was that all about?

LEMON: What do you mean by that?

MILLER: There are commercial entities that are looking for oil fields.

LEMON: Got it.

MILLER: There's the National Aeronautic and Atmospheric Administration. And not everything up there is working properly or squawking. But let's assume everything is a hostile foreign power's surveillance craft. It's still a low threat. What we're creating here is a very expensive proposition, which is, we weren't really paying attention before, because we know in the past few years, there have been 366 documented sightings of either balloons, drones, or radar signatures that they were never able to identify, that NORAD has recorded. They've finetuned that now to say, let's go find them, fix them, and if we can't identify them, take them out. So that's why we're seeing four, three in as many days.

COLLINS: But we're also seeing them take actions that they were not even taking two weeks ago. They were hesitant to shoot that Chinese spy balloon down. And so I do -- you make a joke about aliens, but the Pentagon was actually asked this yesterday, because in the void of information, people are raising questions about what exactly --

MILLER: They did say that.

COLLINS: -- it's going to be. This is what we heard from the NORAD commander general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENERAL GLEN VANHERCK, COMMANDER OF NORAD: I'll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven't ruled out anything at this point. We continue to assess every threat or potential threat unknown that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: He hasn't ruled anything out yet.

MILLER: And that was in response to the question, could any of this be from outer space? Which I think he was giving himself a wide berth on, because, frankly, if they can't say what it is, they can't say what it's not yet.

LEMON: How much of this is optics? Like, we have to do something?

MILLER: I would put it at the 85 to 90 percent realm, which is you've got three things going on here. One, you have the anomaly, and the Chinese incursion. Two, you have all of the shouting. So that's on the political side. Three, you have the intelligence community, which hates to work out loud. Everybody wants it all, they want it now, and they want it in detail. And they're like, we're trying to figure this out, and then we're trying to figure out what it means and what our strategy is. And you're not supposed to get that in real time.

COLLINS: Yes, but it's fair for people to have questions? They can't --

MILLER: When we shoot something down, that's a conversation.

COLLINS: Yes, especially this many times in this many days.

LEMON: And it's a balloon, and people are going to be fascinated by balloons. Oh, my gosh, what is it?

COLLINS: John Miller, as we learn more, we will bring you back to analyze all of that. Thank you for breaking it down.

MILLER: Thanks.

COLLINS: We also have more questions. We're going to be joined in just moments by Canada's defense minister Anita Anand. She's going to join us.

Also, we're tracking what happened in the Super Bowl, if you missed it last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Did you catch that moment? That was Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni with tears streaming down his face during the National Anthem. There would be no tears of joy for the city of brotherly love after Super Bowl 57. Kansas City chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes earning MVP honors as he led his team to a 38-35 win. Mahomes became the first black quarterback to win multiple Super Bowl titles as he led his team to a night of epic celebrations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to Disneyland!

(SHOUTING)

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:16]

LEMON: That was a nice moment. That was Patrick Mahomes and his dad, Pat Mahomes Senior, embracing after the historic win. WNBA star Brittney Griner making an appearance at the big game with her wife Cherelle, but they ended up on the losing side as they were rooting for the Eagles. Donna Kelce was rooting for touchdowns, and she got her wish. She was cheering on both of her sons from the stands as she sat between NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Damar Hamlin.

Philadelphia Eagles defense tackle Fletcher Cox, I'm going to ask about this, turned heads with a pregame outfit, Eagles star showing off with a shiny silver, I think it's kind of a lavender suit. And people said it looked like a blouse. We're going to talk about that, church lady, what was it?

But it was Rihanna who stole the show with a stung halftime performance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Rihanna's partner, ASAP Rocky could not contain his excitement. The rapper was caught in the crowd enjoying the show like the rest of us. There he is partying. And you've got to see this. This is comedian Kevin Hart punching well

above his weight class at the Super Bowl.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here at the Super Bowl. The Eagles --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At any time. At any time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

COLLINS: Oh, my gosh.

LEMON: Joining us now, Bomani Jones, the host of "Game Theory with Bomani Jones," which is now streaming season two on HBO Max. Hello. I have so much to ask you.

BOMANI JONES, HOST, HBO/HBO MAX "GAME THEORY WITH BOMANI JONES": All right.

LEMON: So was this one of the best? Was that an instant classic?

JONES: Yes, no question.

LEMON: Yes?

JONES: No, no, no.

LEMON: Why you say that?

JONES: The game was close. You've got high scoring, but it didn't necessarily feel like bad defense. The story coming in was the two quarterbacks. Both of them played well. And then Mahomes, quite possibly the best quarterback we've ever seen had one of those performances that we love in sports. This was the gut through it. It wasn't just that you played well. It's that we knew what the struggle was, we knew what he was overcoming. We watched him damn near crying in the second quarter because the pain was so bad. And then to get it done at the end, we'll talk about this one for a long time.

LEMON: Michael Jordan, you said he's Michael Jordan --

JONES: He's the Jordan of football.

LEMON: Really?

COLLINS: So good.

JONES: A dude that you recognize five or six years in. Like, you go from, hey, I don't know. And then you look at it and realize, no, we're not overreacting here. He's that dude. We've never seen anybody this talented ever play quarterback in the NFL.

COLLINS: I'm biased, and I don't hide it about Alabama, obviously, and we do talk a lot about Patrick Mahomes. I think he's once in a generation. But Jalen Hurts had a really good game last night. And our producer Alex pointed this out to me, which I couldn't believe, first player from Alabama to actually ever score a rushing touchdown in a Super Bowl.

JONES: Right, and I think for the Alabama fans, the most interesting part with him is we saw in 2017 where they had to bench him at halftime at the national championship game because, quite frankly, he wasn't able to get it done. And that for people, including me, had been a holdup about how good he could be in the NFL if we saw him at that moment. This is the championship game on this level. Wasn't nobody taking him out of the game on this one. He was excellent. To see him get to this point win or lose is a really inspiring and empowering story.

LEMON: What did you think about that holding call that --

JONES: It was a hold.

LEMON: You think it was a hold?

JONES: Yes, it was a hold. The question was just whether you felt like calling it.

LEMON: They say that happens on almost every play.

JONES: That's what everybody says when somebody gets called on holding. It happens on every play, that's the excuse you use when you got caught. Everyone goes 70 in a 55. You got caught. It happens.

COLLINS: Even he said it was a hold.

JONES: Yes, it was hold.

COLLINS: He was like, I was just hoping it wouldn't get called.

JONES: It was a hold. They've been calling that hold all year long. It was a hold.

LEMON: Did it change the trajectory of the game?

JONES: It went from a field goal you could trust that a kicker is going to make to a field goal that would have been a little bit long to have a kicker make in the Super Bowl and ignore the pressure. He probably still makes the field goal under those circumstances, but that's what you do when you lose. You've got to find something to point at as to why you lost. They lost.

COLLINS: Yes, there is a reason you did lose.

Some people thought the actual Super Bowl was Rihanna's halftime performance.

LEMON: Exactly.

JONES: Really? I am rather surprised by that. LEMON: You didn't like it?

JONES: In my house we kind of wished the 49ers might have done halftime because it would have looked like they wanted to be there. I know the 49ers wanted to be there. I did not feel like I was watching somebody that -- I thought the dancers, they did an incredible job. Like, everything surrounding did a great job. This was not like supreme superstar Super Bowl performance.

LEMON: You are saying, a lot of people were saying she was just sort of -- OK, I'm not saying this. So Rihanna, what do you call Rihanna fans?

JONES: They are the Navy. And I'm a little worried about getting in the water.

LEMON: But they said it looked like she was phoning it in, because even some of the lip-syncing, like she would be singing and then put the mic down and she would still be going, the voice.

JONES: Look, man, she is a woman who said during the Kaepernick thing, I'm not doing a show for the NFL, right. She had principled issues why she did not want to do the Super Bowl show.

[08:15:00]

Now, I don't know why she did it this go-round you know, but this relationship with Jay Z and all of that stuff. It just got to look like she -- feel might be in here. I mean, she wasn't getting paid, OK? So much blame her for that. I know what it looks like when I don't get paid to do stuff.

LEMON: Yes.

COLLINS: OK. When someone at this table performs pregnant at the Superbowl halftime show, I -- then, I think we can talk I don't think anyone can criticize.

LEMON: I'm not criticizing. Just saying about the -- talk about the thing it was.

JONES: Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm tired of criticizing her pregnancy, right?

LEMON: No, you're not. Yes. (INAUDIBLE)

COLLINS: What was that?

JONES: If that was the reason that she didn't feel like doing it, that's the reason. But it didn't change the fact that it didn't -- this was not a great halftime show. We don't have to lie.

LEMON: OK. As someone who has gotten scrutiny for his wardrobe. But I got to say what Fletcher Jones -- Fletcher Cox --

COLLINS: No. LEMON: -- that you -- what was that?

JONES: I don't have to answer that. I need to call my nieces who went to high school with him in Yazoo City, Mississippi I don't -- like what I'm wondering is that look at that top is what does it look like at the shoulders like this? This just go all the way around like is this really just a tube top? I don't know how he pulled that off. But the thing is, you as big as that boy, I mean, you're welcome to go tell him to take it off.

LEMON: I'm -- no, I'm not saying. I'm just wondering because my phone started blowing up saying what is Fletcher?

JONES: Yes.

LEMON: He looks like my aunts or my grandma, the church lady on Sunday if you put a purple hat on him. I'm not saying, Fletcher. That's what people say.

JONES: Yes.

LEMON: I'm not saying that. That's not me.

JONES: I'll say it is. It -- anybody saying they church lady grandma but look like Fletcher Cox, I got a lot of questions. Like I don't know if it's really Joe tall when you say that. I don't feel like it's all Fletcher Cox.

LEMON: I read one thing that says why is Fletcher out here dressing like Kamala Harris?

COLLINS: Ah -- yes. I saw that -- I saw that. Wait until Don shows up tomorrow wearing the same thing.

LEMON: I wonder to wear the same outfit, but the chain --

JONES: You wore better

LEMON: -- quite similar.

COLLINS: On morning --

LEMON: By the way, Lavender is a new color for the spring. Watch it.

JONES: Lavender?

LEMON: Good for their suits for dudes still. We all be wearing it.

JONES: You would do that?

COLLINS: OK, we'll be checking that. Thank you, Bomani.

JONES: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you. Good to see you.

COLLINS: Season Two of Game Theory with Domani Jones, if you did not get enough of him just now is now streaming on HBO Max.

LEMON: Never enough.

COLLINS: Also, this morning, in a serious development we're tracking, the despair and frustration that many people are feeling in Turkey this morning. Over the weekend, we're learning more about how the death toll has only continued to grow. Some people though are still being pulled alive from the rubble, most of them still waiting for help.

Sara Sidner is on the ground. It is an incredible live shot. We're going to bring it to you live in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:38]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in a foreign language)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our houses were demolished. There was no building left. Whole cities were flattened, everything disappeared. We can feed ourselves here, but no one knows how we're going to live.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking in a freezing language)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's freezing and we will be frozen to death here. If we sit inside the tent, we will freeze.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Those are the stories that we are hearing from some of the survivors about a week after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake level parts of Syria and Turkey leaving so many people in despair with major questions now about what to do. More than 36,000 people have died and the toll is continuing to rise as aid and rescue efforts are underway. Here, a nine-year-old boy was pulled from the ruins of a collapsed building on Sunday. This father and daughter were rescued out of the rubble, still alive in Turkey.

All of this is coming as criticism and anger is building towards the government and President Erdogan of their handling of the crisis. Even Erdogan acknowledging that the government's initial response was slow.

CNN's Sara Sidner is live in Southern Turkey. Sara, I know we were talking earlier, the rescue efforts were very much underway -- the recovery efforts of all of this debris that you're seeing behind the scenes, so it's even hard to breathe because there's so much smoke in the air. What are you hearing from people?

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, the moment that we got on the ground just within moments of stopping and getting out of the car, we were approached by a woman who was begging us to help her find her husband. The sorrow is so palpable here. That is what you notice first. Then you see the amount of destruction and it really is hard to get your mind around it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KUDRET KOCEBELER, HUSBAND UNDER THE RUBBLE: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDNER (voiceover): 38-year-old Kudret Kocebeler desperately pleads with volunteer rescuers to search for her husband, Badier (PH). He's buried she says in their corner apartment which is somewhere under this rubble.

KOCEBELER: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDNER: They tried to console her but this mother of twins wants action, not words.

KOCEBELER: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDNER: There is nobody out there. It's been six days. I'm waiting here with my twin standing in the cold. She says she's been asking anyone who will listen to dig her husband out but for six days, she says officials kept telling her they needed permission from the government to start on her building.

KOCEBELER: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SDINER: I want my husband back even if he's not alive. She may have accepted his death but can't go on without seeing her husband's body removed from this hellscape.

KOCEBELER: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDNER: My life, my blood, my everything, my best friend in life. He left me with my twins here alone.

(on camera) While she waits for the realities of her husband's death, here in this area where you see enormous piles of rubble. These are different buildings, but you can't really distinguish them because there's just so much destruction. There have been signs of life. A child was found here alive after a week in the rubble.

(voiceover) Nurses comfort the girl who they think is three or four years old. She's dehydrated and in shock, but alive. This is the moment she was rescued. Her exhausted little body pulled from under the seemingly endless mountains of rubble in Hatay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDENR: She was rushed to the makeshift hospital set up in the parking lot of the actual hospital that was evacuated after the earthquake.

FILIZ BOZKURT, NURSE: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDNER: When she first arrived, as a mother, I felt that she was like my own daughter. This nurse says. She's cracking up the staff. She's talking. When we walked in, the toddler managed to make the nurses laugh. Relieved, she could talk about. What is it that she said that made you all laugh? She made all the nurses laugh?

BOZKURT: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDNER: The word that made all the nurses laugh was mama and I'm hungry, I want to eat something.

[08:25:00]

(on camera) What did that do to your heart when she said, mama?

BOZKURT: (Speaking in a foreign language)

SIDNER (voiceover): I felt a great pulse in my heart, she says. No one knew her name. And when they asked, she said dada. It turns out this toddler does not speak Turkish. She speaks Arabic. Rescuers later tell us she's Syrian.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Here we go.

COLLINS: Sara, I know you've been reporting on her, do we know anything else about the little girl?

SIDNER: You know, we went to the area where they pulled her out and there was no one left. What we do know is perhaps what's going to happen is when she is fully treated, she's going to find out that they have not yet been able to find either of her parents. At this point in time, we are now in the eighth day. They do not think that they have survived. So, this little girl may indeed become an orphan after all that she has been through, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: And just the thought that she's not the only one. There are so many other children living through that same thing. Sara Sidner, you're live in Southern Turkey, thank you for being here this morning.

LEMON: Yes. Such an awful situation. Meantime, this. Our coverage of the unidentified objects shot down over the U.S. and Canada continues. We're going to be joined by Canada's Minister of National Defense, Anita Anand, and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado.

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