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Erin Burnett Outfront

Passenger Jets Nearly Collide Mid-Air; Karl Rove Doubles Down On Hillary Attack; Bill Clinton Responds to Karl Rove's Comments; Jill Hansen Arrested; Top Cop Who Called Obama "N-Word" Resigns

Aired May 19, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Next, breaking news. Two planes nearly collide at Newark Liberty International Airport. It's the second near miss in weeks. The details next.

And the model charged with attempted murder for road rage. What drove her to the edge?

Plus, it's believed to be the biggest dinosaur bone ever found. We're in Argentina with the scientists who unearthed that giant. Let's go OUTFRONT.

Good evening. I'm Brianna Keilar in for Erin Burnett. OUTFRONT tonight, breaking news, two airliners nearly collide over the skies near New York City. The National Transportation Safety Board says planes came dangerously close to each other last month at Newark's Liberty International Airport. And we are just learning that at one point the planes were just 50 yards apart laterally and that's only about half a football field, of course. Rene Marsh just broke this news. Rene, what do you know?

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, a near mid-air collision, that's the word from the NTSB at Newark Airport. It was a United 747 from San Francisco to New Jersey with 160 passengers on board. It was coming in for a landing at Newark when it came within a half a football field of a United Express Jet, which was preparing to take off from a perpendicular runway. Now both planes were following the directions of Newark Airport's controllers.

I want you to take a listen to the conversation between one of the pilots and the controllers just seconds after this close call. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CONTROLLER: Traffic off to your right.

UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: Yes, nose is down. Yes, he was real close.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: All right, well, you heard it right there, he was real close. So quite a close call there. Preliminary NTSB report says the two planes, again, were about 50 yards laterally, 135 yards vertically, dangerously close. Of course, this happened just last month on the 24th of April. If you remember, that's just the day before another near collision we told you about over the Pacific Ocean.

But both of these two planes in the New Jersey case came much closer. There was no damage reported to the aircraft, no injuries on board, but nevertheless, this is under investigation. They take these sort of close calls very seriously -- Brianna.

KEILAR: I'm always amazed by how calm those pilots stay on the recordings. Rene Marsh, thank you.

MARSH: Sure.

KEILAR: Now I want to bring in Richard Quest and aviation analyst, Arthur Rosenberg. So Richard, as Rene mentioned, this is the second time in less than a week we're hearing about this close call. Friday we learned that two 757s nearly collided over Hawaii back in April. We heard Rene talking about that. That was an incident that was blamed on air traffic control. Who would be responsible for this new incident that we're hearing about?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It's way too soon to say until we have more details about who was doing what. I'm not entirely sure the diagram shows it exactly, judging by -- Arthur, you can assist me here, if you would be as kind.

ARTHUR ROSENBERG, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Do you want to be the 737 or the Express Jet?

QUEST: I'll be the 737 and you'll be the Express.

ROSENBERG: That figures.

QUEST: The way I think it must have been, I'm coming in to land on one of the north/south runways and you're coming in this way.

ROSENBERG: Easterly direction.

QUEST: That's how we think it actually probably transpired. Somebody either got permission to land when they shouldn't, somebody got permission to take off when they shouldn't. There will be -- there will be an error, but whose error we can't say.

KEILAR: Can you get a sense of whose error at this point?

ROSENBERG: Actually, I can. Shocking. Even though all the facts are not in, in all fairness to the pilots and the air traffic controllers, in a terminal control airport area like this, air traffic control, the tower, are primarily responsible for the separation of the aircraft. Now, with the Express Jet basically taking off it sounds like in an easterly direction and with the 737 on approach, deference would be given to the airplane that's coming in for a landing.

The clearance for the Express Jet to take off based on just what we've been told never should have been given. Therefore, I would just say -- we don't know all the facts, we don't know what instructions were given to the pilots.

KEILAR: You don't think the Express Jet would have gone into that area without someone telling --

ROSENBERG: That Express Jet should have been held in the ready to go position until the 737 had cleared that cross runway and made a safe landing, then taken off.

QUEST: And you don't know why?

ROSENBERG: Agreed, agreed. But the question was, do I have a sense, and the answer was, yes, I have a sense.

QUEST: Well, I'm prepared to wait longer to hear facts.

ROSENBERG: And then if it moves you off the needle, that would be incredible.

KEILAR: OK, gentlemen, so let's talk about what maybe could be another issue here. This is a very busy airport. Does this have anything to do with there just being too much traffic? Is this airport equipped to handle this many flights?

QUEST: Newark also has a couple other issues, for example, we don't know whether this is at the same time one of the runways has been out for various works. We don't know whether that was a factor. I know one runway was closed for resurfacing work. That may be a factor. There's no question the air space around Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia is amongst the most -- the busiest in the world.

KEILAR: So congested.

QUEST: It is.

ROSENBERG: And air traffic controllers and pilots are under incredible pressure to get the job done. Take offs, landings, a slight miscalculation can result in a close call.

QUEST: One of the things, of course, in the U.S. that's different to elsewhere, permission to land, permission to land, quite often is given very far out. Not so much in Europe where literally permission to land may be over above. The 737 coming in might have been given permission to land quite a long way out on visual.

ROSENBERG: But the priority for the safe operation of the aircraft is always given to the airplane on short final with the Express Jet basically in the take off ready to go position. He should have waited. He either didn't know, didn't see, or was given a bad clearance.

KEILAR: We'll be waiting to see exactly why that was.

QUEST: You look out of the window, I mean, before you take off, you look out of the window.

KEILAR: Sure. QUEST: It could be as basic as that.

KEILAR: And as they said, real close. We'll be waiting to see. Arthur, Richard, thank you so much to both of you. We're also following breaking news in the hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Vital information. This is very vital information. It's expected to be released tonight about the jet's last known location. We'll be talking about that raw data from the British satellite company Inmarsat, which determined the current search zone for Flight 370 in the Southern Indian Ocean.

The families of the passengers have been demanding this information for months, and it's the subject of a very bitter battle. Inmarsat says the Malaysian government has the raw data. Malaysia's government has been adamant that they don't have it. Richard Quest, when this information is released, what is the one thing you're going to be looking for?

QUEST: For certainty, when we see this report, I'm going to be wanting to see -- it's not a report, it's going to be the data. Why are they so confident that this is what actually happened? I am not qualified to understand the minutia of satellite technology, but the experts will be telling us in their analysis why they are so certain.

KEILAR: But you still want them to convince you there's a reason why they've looked at x, y, and come to z?

QUEST: They don't have to convince me, but it will be interesting to see what their justification is.

KEILAR: So Arthur, how is it when these data points come out, how do officials stop there being this free for all of conclusions?

ROSENBERG: Well, I don't think that's really the criteria to focus on in terms of whether you should release the information or not, because there's crowd sourcing going on even as we speak based on incomplete information, but just to do a quick take off on Richard, I would like to see not just the so-called data points, but there is something called meta data, which is really the data that generated the data points.

And this information is critical to a full and complete understanding. I would hope that Inmarsat not only releases that meta data and provides us with a sense of the algorithms that they use to come up with the southern arc, but even if they don't give us the methodology, at least give us enough information.

KEILAR: What they said in math class, show your work. That's what we want them to do, right?

QUEST: Here's your problem with show your work, here's the problem, how much do you want them to show? You want them to show how they came up with it, but then you get into people that want to show the wobble of the satellite.

KEILAR: I want to see that, and I think we're going to have to leave it at that, Gentlemen, but we'll have you back, of course, this week. Thank you so much to both you, Arthur and Richard.

OUTFRONT next, Karl Rove doubling down on Hillary's health. Are his attacks actually working?

Plus, after days of defiance, the police commissioner who called the president the "n" word finally resigns. What the Republican Party had to do with it.

And the Michael Jackson hologram that everyone is talking about. How did the artist pull it off? We'll show you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Tonight, the GOP is ready for Hillary. Karl Rove is doubling down on his reported comments suggesting Clinton may have suffered lasting brain damage after a fall two years ago, and Republicans say her health is a legitimate concern.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A concussion is, by definition, a traumatic brain injury.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So is a blood clot in the game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Health and age is fair game. Fair game for Ronald Reagan, fair game for John McCain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any presidential candidate or vice presidential candidate is going to have to answer questions about their health.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: OUTFRONT tonight, CNN political analyst, Maggie Haberman and CNN political commentator, Sally Kohn and Margaret Hoover with us. You know, Margaret, first to you. You actually worked for Karl Rove. Do you think this is the right move for him to start this kind of fight?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think this notion that this was a premeditated strategy is erroneous. The guy had an off the record accusation, this was leaked to "The New York Post." I love Karl Rove is the architect and everybody tends to attribute political genius to him. I don't think this is the moment of political genius. I think this was an off the cuff remark that's become a media firestorm because we love to talk about Hillary Clinton.

What's interesting, he's ended up discussing this being a Darth Vader strategy. It's actually ended up revealing that something quite serious did happen to Hillary Clinton, as her husband later confirmed she had actually a serious brain episode that took her six months to recover from. Health is fair if you're going to be the president of the United States. We don't know if she's going to or not, but it was certainly on the table for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, John McCain, and every other Democrat who's ever run.

KEILAR: We didn't know the six months, Sally. That comes out. Is that a problem? Bill Clinton says -- in fact, let's listen to what Bill Clinton said. This is how he responded to Karl Rove's comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They went to all this trouble to say that she had stayed, what was a terrible concussion that required six months of very serious work to get over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: OK, so two points. One is that he used humor, which I thought was effective and we will talk about that in just a moment, but he also did reveal in his comments that it took six months. And he was trying to say she had been very straightforward about the process that she went through, but he also sort of revealed a fact. Do you think she was being really straightforward?

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there wasn't a full vetting of this conversation yet. It's sort of interesting; of course, Hillary Clinton hasn't had her say on this moment. It is also interesting what Bill pointed out. There was a time when Republicans' conspiracy theory was she faked this to get out of job duties, and now they say, now, she's hiding it, it's a cover-up. And they are just so desperate for any scandal to try and ding her because of her incredible lead, should she choose to run, and also because they don't want to actually talk about the serious issues of governing the country.

KEILAR: Also a reminder, he's ready the transcript to her book, so maybe we'll see her full account in that regard on this.

Let's talk about this, Maggie, because you've covered the Clintons for years. What did you think about the initial reaction? We talked a little bit about this. There was sort of a tongue and cheek reaction from her spokesman, tell Dr. Rove she's fine. And then there was a larger kind of sledge hammer of a response. Bill Clinton used humor. You thought to kind of correct that.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I thought it was (INAUDIBLE). He did it absolutely. The statement that came out the day before from her spokesman was very long. I remember you reading it live on air and commenting on the length. And also it was very harsh. It was very, you know, this is outrageous, and these are lies, and Karl Rove, he's ruined the country and so forth. There was some (INAUDIBLE) that between the two statements and Bill Clinton went much more sort of in sorrow, head shaking, this is Karl being Karl, as opposed to being angry, which seemed like to a lot of Democrats like the better response.

I think the Clinton machine is still shaking the rust off. They have not done this for awhile. She's been fairly apolitical at the state department for awhile, her husband, obviously, less so. But I do think a lot this is still figuring out the mechanics. I do want to make two points, though. Health is absolutely a legitimate question about any presidential candidate. There is no question about it. But also, Sally is right that there -- the Republicans seem to be having trouble with what the right attack line is against her.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: More adept with it if it's going to be a political plus.

KOHN: Benghazi brain damage, Monica Lewinsky into one sentence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans, her greatest vulnerability is going to be she's an insider from Washington. She's been in Washington for 25 years. I think that is the line Republicans should run with, not this like Benghazi and Boko Haram, which is a travesty, and sort of all these other Hillary Clinton things going back to the '90s playbook is going to get them absolutely nowhere.

KEILAR: So let me ask you this, are the Clintons -- not the Clintons, but the Clinton camp as they sort of have a little rust that they are working through, is Hillary Clinton's camp at this point in danger of kind of being its own worst enemy as it works out a way to respond? What do you think, Sally?

KOHN: I mean, there are two theories to this. And I actually don't think we know. Because I don't think someone has been this scrutinized as this is sort of singular front runner this early on, maybe Maggie will correct me. But does this sort of get all these things off the table kind of ask and answer to how does the public consciousness or does this allow too much time for dirt to be dug up?

I don't know. But you know, it seems to me she remains a pretty Teflon-y person and she lands incredibly highly likable, whether some of us on the left like her or not. It just -- the dust shakes off.

KEILAR: Her poll numbers are very high. Sally, Margaret, Maggie, thank you to all of you.

And still to come, a model and surfer accused of attempted murder. Was it road rage or just an accident?

And bones from what may be the largest dinosaur of all time, ever, have been found. We're going to take you to Argentina where the discovery was made.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: A model and surfer is in a Hawaiian court today facing attempted murder charges in a case of extreme road rage. 30-year-old Jill Hansen is accused of hitting an elderly woman with her car, and bystanders say she was ready to hit the woman again.

Kyung Lah has the details of this bizarre story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JILL HANSEN, SURFER: I'm a surfer girl.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jill Hansen appeared to embody the care-free surfer life, full-time surfer, part-time sportswear designer, seen here wearing her own swim line. Part-time model, even inspirational speaker. She spoke four years ago about her belief in the power of God at a ted-ex conference in southern California.

HANSEN: If there's a God, show me a sign right now, and that very second, and I just got goose bumps, a drop of water on my head inside my car on a perfectly sunny day with no water anywhere, on the crown of my head, supernatural baptism.

LAH: But there appears to be nothing Godly about what Honolulu police call her apparent act of road rage. Police say Hansen followed a 73- year-old Elizabeth Conklin, then, waited until she got out of her car. Police say Hansen then struck her with her car. It's not known why. Conklin told "Good Morning America," she doesn't remember the moment she was hit.

ELIZABETH CONKLIN, JILL HANSEN'S VICTIM: When I got out and then all of a sudden I woke up in an ambulance.

LAH: Conklin's life may have been saved by a bystander, who smashed the back window of Hansen's BW (ph) after the first alleged strike. He says it looks like Hansen was preparing to strike again.

Just a few hours after the incident, Hansen posted this message on her facebook page, announcing she was becoming a professional surfer. Later that day, police arrested her. Hansen has more than a dozen infractions on her record, many of them driving related, as well as a temporary restraining order filed by her own father. He wrote his daughter via facebook was soliciting someone to come murder me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Kyung Lah joining us now from Los Angeles.

Kyung, as you followed this story, Hansen was in court this afternoon. What happened there?

LAH: She was in court just a short moment ago and we did actually get this video. This is a court in Honolulu. This is something called an initial appearance, and you can see she was a bit disheveled. She didn't really say anything, and all that she did do was wave good-bye to somebody in court as she was led away. Bond remains set at $1 million. Today's appearance is much more of a date setting. The preliminary hearing, Brianna, will be on Wednesday -- Brianna.

KEILAR: We'll be waiting for more information.

Kyung Lah, thank you much.

Now, still to come, after days of saying that he would not, the police commissioner who called the president the "n" word finally resigns. Did Republicans force him out?

And a potentially deadly virus spreading in America, the latest man infected may have contracted the virus through a simple handshake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Now breaking news on a story that we've been following.

Robert Copeland, the wolf-thrown New Hampshire police commissioner who was overheard in a restaurant calling President Obama the "n" word, has resigned. The story gained national attention when it broke last week and soon major Republican voices as well as Democrats were calling for Copeland to step down. Among then, New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte, former Massachusetts senator Scott Brown who is running for the other New Hampshire Senate seat, and Mitt Romney, who, of course, was the nominee for president for the Republicans. He owned a vacation home in Wolfeboro, still does, and has been there since 1997.

Now, meanwhile, residents in Wolfeboro are dealing with fallout of their own.

David Mattingly is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Wolfeboro, New Hampshire looks like the kind of place Norman Rockwell would go on vacation, a quaint New England town, a tidy white picket fence picture of Americana on the banks of Lake Winnipesauke. Wolfeboro is 90 percent white, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 2-1.

And going to the town today, I find residents struggling with damage control.

DAVID OWEN, WESTBORO TOWN MANAGER: They want to boycott the town. They've been coming and demonstrating in the town.

MATTINGLY: It all springs from the revelation last week, one of the town's three police commissioners admitted calling the president the "N" word. Robert Copland at first refused to apologize or resign, leaving this normally quiet tourist town to take the heat. When the story hit the local paper, the editor says reaction was intense.

TOM BEELER: They really got worked up about it.

MATTINGLY: Immediately, local officials distanced themselves from Copland. The Wolfeboro town manager wrote town officials are appalled that the language used by Commissioner Copland, calling it reprehensible. The police chief reported being inundated with phone calls that were vile, obscene, and threatening, saying Copland's words do not represent the views or opinions of the department.

Even Mitt Romney, who frequents Wolfeboro at his vacation lake home condemned the commissioner's vile epithet, saying, "He should apologize and resign." (on camera): Commissioner Copland did not respond to our phone calls for comment, but he was apparently listening to the criticism being leveled at his town. In a one-line e-mail to the chairman of the police commission, he simply wrote, "I resign."

(voice-over): Commission chairman Joe Balboni describes a long, emotional meeting with Copland.

JOE BALBONI, CHAIRMAN, WOLFESBORO POLICE COMMISSION: He says, Joe, you're a good friend, you screwed up. You got to face it, you got to admit it. Made a bad mistake and we've got to move on. End of story.

MATTINGLY: But it may not be the end of the story for everyone.

(on camera): So this is where it happened.

(voice-over): The whistle-blower who exposed Copland after overhearing his words in a restaurant has been targeted by menacing calls.

(on camera): Threats?

JANE O'TOOLE, WOLFEBORO RESIDENT: Yes, yes, I have been getting threats.

MATTINGLY: What are they saying to you?

O'TOOLE: Some white supremacist things, like you want to just stick to your own kind, threatening to beat me up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: That is just one person's concerns. Most people here are talking about what's going to happen to the economy when so much of their money here is made during the summer months in tourism. People are wondering if Copland's resignation will be enough.

If you notice in that short message that he sent to his fellow commissioners, he did not apologize -- Brianna.

KEILAR: No, he did not say he was sorry.

David Mattingly in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire -- thank you very much.

With me now, Charles Blow, "New York Times" columnist and CNN political commentator, and Ron Bonjean, former top congressional aide and Republican strategist.

Charles, first to you, what did you think when you saw -- this is a small town, but there was a lot of response from Democrats and vociferous response from Republicans. What do you make of the reaction?

CHARLES BLOW, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's exact, appropriate response. This is the sort of language, this is hate speech. This is should not be tolerated in any part of our politics. It's not a left/right issue. We all have to work at stomping this out.

And I think that if there's -- sometimes, we have a knee-jerk reaction to want to pin it on one side or the other. This is the sort of thing where we have to say, there are plenty of ways to criticize the president. He has a record, policy differences, and those are fair things to do.

Hate speech is not fair. It is not OK. It is vile, and we must always together come at that and say we don't want that in our politics.

KEILAR: And, Ron, Mitt Romney responded to this, putting a lot of pressure on this man. He said, "The vile epithet used and confirmed by the commissioner has no place in our community. He should apologize and resign. Obviously, Mitt Romney has a personal connection to this town."

But is this, as the Republican Party tries to, I guess, widen its tent as they try to attract more minorities to the party, is this an opportunity as they say, there is no room for racism in politics?

RON BONJEAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I thought it was a very smart move by the leaders who, you know, called out this man and called on him to resign. I think that's right. I mean, it gives people a chance to understand that Republicans have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to hate speech like this.

Mitt Romney has a residence in the area, and he felt compelled to make sure that people in America understand that this town does not have those type of people, the majority of those type of people, in it. There's just no call for that type of language at all.

I was very proud of our leaders for calling on this gentleman to step down.

KEILAR: What do you think, Charles, if this had continued on -- actually, you know what I'm really curious about, he didn't apologize. I mean, what do you make of that? There's no apology, just clearly he's felt the pressure to step aside, but he doesn't seem to see the error of his ways.

BLOW: Right. I think there's a real concern for locals in this place, particularly in the piece you just did, you know, 97 percent white, I think they said, but there's 3 percent minorities. So, they have the chance to run into this person, he is part of the justice apparatus in that particular town.

That's a real concern, when a person not only has those sorts of biases, is not afraid to vocalize those sorts of biases, and then after the fact, refuses to acknowledge it is, in fact, the bias, it is hate speech, and that is -- and refuse to apologize. So, you worry about that small group of people who live in that town and whether or not they are getting justice if they run into a person like that.

KEILAR: And, Ron, we've seen examples of this in the past. Sometimes people -- Ted Nugent used a slur against President Obama. These things happen. They don't necessarily represent a party, but it's something that can certainly be used as a weapon. We've seen that, certainly, in the case of the Republican Party.

How does the party confront that?

BONJEAN: Well, that's exactly right. Think, neither party has a monopoly on racism, and the way to confront it, like I said, is to have a zero tolerance policy, to react swiftly and immediately to say, this is not acceptable. This is not what we as a party represent or our values.

I think by doing that today, sends a loud and clear message to every American that Republicans don't stand behind those comments, that that is a comment of one man who's, obviously, a little deranged.

KEILAR: What do you think, Charles?

BLOW: Well, I think that is a challenge. I think Ron's right, that no one has a monopoly on it, but a lot of times the high profile cases, too many of them, are on one end of the political spectrum, and that is the right. So, I think the Republican Party has an issue there trying to figure out how do you make sure that if this doesn't represent most of us, how do I make sure these people don't think they can find a home here?

KEILAR: Last word, Ron.

BONJEAN: Yes, I would take issue to that. There are a number of high profile Democrats in the past month that have said racist and anti- Semantic remarks on the national level, they don't necessarily raised to the attention level that we may get as a Republican Party, which may mean a double standard, but I don't think either side has a monopoly on this. It's just that for some reason Republicans seem to get a little bit more attention.

But if you look at, there's Governor Patrick Pat Quinn of Illinois, used Semitic remarks, you have a congressman, Benny Thompson of Mississippi called a superior court Supreme Court justice an Uncle Tom, and you have Vice President Biden and Harry Reid saying not so nice things about President Obama when he was running for office. So I do think that both sides have problems that need to be addressed.

KEILAR: But I know that you will both agree on the fact there's no room for this in politics.

Ron and Charles, thank you to both of you.

BONJEAN: Thank you.

KEIOLAR: Tonight, new concerns about the threat of the potentially deadly MERS virus. For the first time, the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, has spread person-to-person in the U.S.

Officials say an Illinois man contracted the virus after two short business meetings with an infected man from Indiana. Their only physical contact, a handshake. Now, the CDC wants to test everyone this man came into contact with.

MERS, which originated in Saudi Arabia, kills about 30 percent of its known patients.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is out front with us.

Sanjay, this latest case, it's sort of alarming when you hear that the only physical contact was a handshake, but should we be alarmed? Does this mean the virus is easier to catch than we thought?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it could mean that. You know, typically, when we talk about people being in close contact to catch virus, it means health care workers or family members, so when you hear about a business meeting and a handshake, it obviously raises concern.

But there's a couple very important points here. This man, the third person to become infected, he didn't get sick. The reason they found this, they were screening the people that the infected person -- the original infected person came into contact with and when they screened this guy, they found he had the antibodies to the virus. They didn't find the actual virus, they found antibodies, meaning that his body was mounting an immune response to the virus.

But it's important, he wasn't sick. It could be easier to spread than we previously thought, but it could also mean there's a lot of people out there who get exposed to this, they don't get sick at all or they get just mildly sick and that can potentially be some very good news.

KEILAR: So, they are asymptomatic, but they are still spreading the virus.

GUPTA: Well, so with regard to the third man -- I want to get the terms straight, the third person who took the handshake and had the virus, there is what's known as an incubation period, a period of time before someone gets sick. We don't think people spread the virus unless they are sick themselves. So, it's not -- the scenario is not that you got the virus, don't know you have it, walking around in an airport shaking hands spreading it indiscriminately. That's not likely to happen.

If you're sick, you're more likely to be contagious. The man who spread it was sick, he was coughing apparently, may have coughed into his hand before he shook hands, whatever it may be, but it's unlikely for someone completely asymptomatic, healthy, not showing any signs of illness, to also be spreading the virus.

KEILAR: That certainly does, this concern, so that's good news. But when you look at the statistics here, that nearly one in three die from this virus, should we be concerned by that?

GUPTA: You know, there's some interesting math here, Brianna, and I think this is really important. If you look at the numbers now, we were just crunching the numbers, the classification, 614 people have been infected, of whom 180 or so have died. It's about 30 percent lethal. But if you add into this new piece of information, could there many more people who also became infected, but develop either no illness or really mild illness, never saw their doctor, never got checked, if that's true and you start really increasing the denominator, if you will, from 614 people to 6,000 people or 60,000 people, then all of a sudden that 30 percent mortality number starts to drop way down, and that could be the case. There could be people out there who have MERS that don't know it. That, potentially, is a good thing.

KEILAR: That have no idea.

All right. Sanjay, thank you so much. Dr. Sanjay Gupta breaking all that down for us.

And still to come, a bone from what could be the world's largest dinosaur ever unearthed. An exclusive look coming up.

And the Michael Jackson hologram steals the show at the Billboard Awards. Was it cool or creepy? We'll show you how they pulled it off.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Now let's check in with Anderson Cooper with a look at what's ahead on "AC360."

Hi, Anderson.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Brianna.

Yes, we breaking news tonight on the program. The NBA takes the next step to remove Donald Sterling and his family from ownership of the L.A. Clippers, in part because of what he told me in our exclusive interview. Rachel Nichols knows the NBA as well as anybody. She joins me with her insider's take and CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin lays out the odds on a drawn-out legal fight.

Also reporting on the scandalous care or lack of care being given to military veterans at V.A. hospitals. It's prompted numeral congressional investigations. Tonight, the White House weighs in with claims it first learned about the problems from this program.

Senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin has been on the story from the beginning joins us to investigate those claims.

Those stories and a lot more, tonight's "Ridiculist", at the top of the hour, Brianna.

KEILAR: We'll be watching. Thanks, Anderson.

It's called a Titanosaur, and scientists in Argentina say it may be the biggest dinosaur ever found. Just take a look at the femur bone next to a technician at the museum where this gigantic fossil is being stored. The colossal creature is believed to be about 95 million years old, as long as two tractor trailers, weighing as much as 14 elephants and standing as tall as a seven-story building. OUTFRONT tonight, Dr. Ruben Cuneo, is a paleobotanist and the director of the museum that is leading the excavation efforts and Paul Sereno is a paleontologist at the University of Chicago.

I want to start with you, Dr. Cuneo. The images are amazing. What did you think when you saw this find?

RUBEN CUNEO, PALEOBOTANIST: Just we couldn't believe it. It was something -- it was absolutely unexpected. We had this idea something big was coming out from those archives there, but when we kept going in the digging, something bigger and bigger started to show up, and here we are in front of this incredible just few bones, because his is one of the 200 bones that we found in this fossil locality.

And, well, of course, everybody was absolutely happy when all of these bones started to show up and here we are, showing this to the rest of the world, as you can see right now.

KEILAR: And you're almost lost behind that bone in front of you right there, Dr. Cuneo. What can you tell us about this dinosaur?

CUNEO: Well, as you can see here, this is one of the bones of the huge, giant dinosaur, one of the good guys in the typical Spielberg movies, you know, those long neck ones with the small scars, but very, very heavy. Using this particular two bones, these are specific femur and the other bone that you can see over there, we were able to calculate the size of the body mass of this dinosaur that we are estimating now was approximately 80 tons.

So, the incredible thing here is that this is not only one specimen that we found, but about seven of them, and we didn't finish digging yet, so I think there are good chances that we could find more and more of this specimens, which is suggesting that this is a very, very particular and exceptional way of preserving this incredible amount of bones that are represented so many dinosaurs that live in Patagonia some 95 million years ago.

KEILAR: Dr. Sereno, I want to bring you in. Your team actually discovered some of the first dinosaurs to roam the earth. You have this informed perspective. How significant is this find in Argentina in the world of paleontology?

PAUL SERENO, PALEONTOLOGIST: I think it's really significant although the science papers are to be written and so we have exciting news and not a full picture you can see even in the photographs about what the Dr. Cuneo was talking about, there's tens and dozens of bones there and they are in beautiful shape. You can see the detail on the bone. That's what makes this find for me as a scientist and the community so important because there's more than just a single large bone or a couple of them. They've got hundreds of bones, so we're likely to find out a lot more about this animal.

KEILAR: And these are 130 feet long, these animals. This is what we expect at this point -- 65 feet tall, 180,000 pounds. I mean, it sounds like something that's right out of a movie, doesn't it? SERENO: Yes, it's incredible. I think that these animals, the animals that are being found in Argentina, Western North America, gigantic footprint, track ways in China and big bones in Africa and Europe. Well, we're just tapping the size range of land animals and we're probably going to see animals get even bigger than this in the fossil record.

But the key measurement is out there in the Spanish press, 2.5 meters for the hip bone, and that is a whopping big animal. That is an enormous dinosaur. It breaks the single measure for that bone on well-preserved material that we have. So, I think we're dealing with a pretty big critter here.

KEILAR: Yes. And we'll be waiting to see if there are even bigger critters.

Dr. Sereno, Dr. Cuneo with us from Argentina -- thanks to both of you.

Next, the Michael Jackson hologram that shocked the world. An Oscar winner tells us how they pulled it off.

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KEILAR: The Billboard Music Awards aired last night and despite some high-profile appearances by the world's top musical artist it was by a person who wasn't there that stole the show. A Michael Jackson hologram wowed the crowd with a live performance of "Slave to the Rhythm", a track from the late singer's posthumous album "Escape". Now, many insiders predict the performance could help propel the album to the number one spot on the charts this week despite the fact that Jackson died in 2009, which brings us to tonight's number, $160 million.

According to "Forbes" that's how much Michael Jackson earned last year and more than any other entertainer living or dead. The money comes from album sales, a huge back catalog, as well as a Cirque du Soleil show that also features a hologram Michael Jackson.

And, of course, this isn't a first time that a deceased celebrity has been used for promotional purposes.

For more, we turn to an Oscar-winning visual effect supervisor and the chief creative officer of the company that developed a similar hologram of rapper Tupac Shakur.

Eric Barba with us.

I mean, Eric, first tell us how does this technology work?

ERIC BARBA, OSCAR-WINNING VISUAL EFFECTS SURVIVOR: Hi, Brianna. So the easiest way to describe is, you know, we have to create a likeness, just like you would sculpt someone, we have to create the likeness of, say, Brad Pitt or Tupac, Croczilla.

So, you have to create that, you have a version in the computer that mimics the performance you're after, which is very daunting, as well as matching hair, the lighting of the show, getting the choreography right. It's a huge task.

KEILAR: So this Michael Jackson that we're seeing here is the entire body the hologram?

BARBA: Well, hologram is a loose term. It's a pepper ghost projecting. My company didn't do the particular Michael Jackson but it's similar to what we did for Dr. Dre and Croczilla, it's projecting technique that's been used for hundreds of years or a hundred years. Like in Disneyland you see the government traveling with you. It's a projection, you see that in front of you. In this case the Mylar, you kind of see bounces around and the initial part of the performance.

KEILAR: And that sort of tips you off to what kind of projection it is.

So, I'm wondering because Michael Jackson was there at the billboard awards to promote a new album even though he wasn't there. This is produce after he died.

Is this is going to become the new norm and do you think it's appropriate?

BARBA: Well, it's ultimately up to the audience to see -- you know, if they like the performance like any other performances. You know, they'll be the judges if it's appropriate or not. I think we've seen them -- celebrities being used in the past used in advertising. I think it's up to the individual advertiser and how it's used.

KEILAR: Yes, sure. I mean, we've seen that before. We've seen John Wayne, he was used for Coors Light, which, you know, it's not something that he's necessarily associated with. Fred Astaire was used for Dirt Devil.

I mean, you personally, do you think it's appropriate?

BARBA: You know, again, it's up to the audience to judge. These performances are made for the audiences there at the time and I know from seeing the audience response like Croczilla, they had a very positive response. They really were in the moment and it was great. And we've gotten great accolades since. Every one is dependent on how to talk those over.

KEILAR: Do you think it takes them back to and real quickly to actually being able to see Michael Jackson?

BARBA: I think it brings back memories, for sure.

KEILAR: It definitely does. I mean, it looked very much like him. And I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of this.

Eric Barba, thank you so much for explaining this very complicated technology to us.

"AC360" starts right now.