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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin
Zimmerman Trial Aftermath; Monteith Death Declared Overdose; Heatwave Strikes; The World Awaits a Royal Baby; All-Star Game Recap
Aired July 17, 2013 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Inside the verdict, exclusively on CNN, a juror in the George Zimmerman murder trial opens up about who she thinks is responsible for Trayvon Martin's death.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Cross country heat wave, it is hot and getting hotter. Now, wonder how high it will get, and you're going to need to turn that AC up today.
ROMANS: And struck by lightning inside a grocery store, one woman's miraculous survival.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON (on-camera): Welcome back to EARLY START, everyone. I'm Don Lemon.
ROMANS (on-camera): I'm Christine Romans. John Berman has the week off for vacation. People keep -- what did you do with John Berman?
LEMON: Our John Berman got a really good tan.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: He needs some time off --
(CROSSTALK)
ROMANS: There you go.
LEMON: He's probably drinking beer by the pool right now.
ROMANS: I don't know. Hopefully, he's sleeping. It's 5:30 in the morning in the east.
LEMON: The latest now on the public reaction to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. It's been more than three days now since he was acquitted of murder and manslaughter in the killing of unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin. And protests continue. In Tallahassee, dozens are still at the state capital staging a sit-in at Governor Rick Scott's office. They want a meeting, but the governor is out of state.
And there were protests overnight in Los Angeles and Oakland. And attorney general, Eric Holder, is blasting the stand your ground law that helped set Zimmerman free, telling the NAACP laws like that actually cause more violence than they prevent.
And we're hearing more this morning from Anderson Cooper's exclusive interview with Juror B37 on "AC 360." The interview proving controversial. Four other jurors have now issued a statement saying the opinions of Juror B37 expressed on the Anderson Cooper show were her own and not in any way representative of their views.
And they say serving on the jury was a draining experience, writing that, "The death of a teenager weighed heavily on our hearts, but in the end, we did what the law required us to do. And Juror B37 tells Anderson Cooper, emotions were high as the six women deliberated.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Did you cry in that jury room?
JUROR B37, JUROR IN GEORGE ZIMMERMAN TRIAL: I cried after the verdict. I didn't cry when they were reading the verdict out in the jury room, because we were all crying before we went in.
COOPER: What do you mean you were crying before you went in?
JUROR B37: Well, we were in a separate room when the foreman handed the bailiff our verdict. And we were crying back there before we went into the jury room. So, they gave us about 20 minutes to try and get everything together.
COOPER: What do you think you were crying about?
JUROR B37: The pressure. The pressure of all of it. And everything just kind of came to a head. Because I kind of tried to keep everything out, emotionally out, during the whole process, and then it just flooded in after it was done.
COOPER: Well, you want people -- the reason you're speaking is you want people to know how seriously you took this?
JUROR B37: I do. I don't want people to think that we didn't think about it and we didn't care about Trayvon Martin, because we did. We're very sad that it happened to him.
COOPER: And you want his family to know that as well?
JUROR B37: I do. And I feel bad that we can't give them the verdict that they wanted. But legally, we could not do that.
COOPER: Do you think Trayvon Martin played a role in his own death? And this wasn't just something that happened to him, this is something he also --
JUROR B37: Oh, I believe he played a huge role in his death. He could have -- when George confronted him and he could have walked away and gone home. He didn't have to do whatever he did and come back and be in a fight. COOPER: And the other jurors felt that as well?
JUROR B37: They did. I mean, as far as -- my perspective of it, they did.
COOPER: So, you think, based on the testimony you heard, you believe That Trayvon Martin was the aggressor?
JUROR B37: I think the roles changed. I think -- I think George got in a little bit too deep, which he shouldn't have been there. But Travon decided that he wasn't going to let him scare him. And get the one over, up on him or something. And I think Trayvon got mad and attacked him.
COOPER: You called George Zimmerman George. Do you feel like you know him?
JUROR B37: I do. I feel like I know everybody.
COOPER: You called Trayvon Trayvon as well?
JUROR B37: I did. Trayvon wasn't as well-known by us because there wasn't as much said about him. All we really heard about Trayvon was the phone call that he had and the evidence they had found on him. We basically had no information what kind of a boy Trayvon was, what he did, we knew where he went to school, and that was pretty much about it. And he lived in Miami.
COOPER: What would you say to Trayvon Martin's parents, to Tracy and Sybrina?
JUROR B37: I would say I'm terribly sorry for your loss. It's a tragedy. That's pretty much all I can say because I don't -- you know, I didn't know him, but I felt their pain because of his death.
COOPER: Would you hope for George Zimmerman now?
JUROR B37: I hope he gets some peace, because I'm sure he's going to be onslaught by media for months at a time. I hope his family can live a normal life after a while. I don't know how he's ever going to do that. But I hope he can. He'll never forget, but I hope he can.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: Also speaking out, former president, Jimmy Carter, and he's agreeing with the jury's verdict.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the jury made the right decision based on the evidence presented, because the prosecution inadvertently set the standard so high that the jury had to be convinced that it was a deliberate act by Zimmerman that he was not at all defending himself. And so, if it's not a moral question, it was a legal question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Coming up on "New Day," much more on the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict, including an interview with the NAACP president, Benjamin Jealous.
LEMON: It will be interesting to see that interview and to lighten things up a little bit right now and talk about the weather.
ROMANS: That lightens it up?
LEMON: Yes. Well, I mean --
ROMANS: It's hot.
LEMON: That is a very tough story. The weather, it will be over soon, hopefully. Indra Petersons is outside in Times Square.
ROMANS: The weather is never really over.
LEMON: Well, I mean, the heat wave will be over soon, at least we hope. A couple of days, a week or so, we'll be back to normal.
ROMANS: Good morning, Indra.
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. And yes, it's literally like the trend is never ending bad news, bad news. June was so rainy, now we're in July, and we're talking about this unbelievable heat wave. And I stress it all the time. People underestimate the power of heat. It's the number one killer of all weather related events.
And of course, it looks like major cities again today dealing with that current temperatures. This is where we're supposed to see the relief the overnight hours, and we're still -- upper 70s and low 80s. Currently, we know the sun is going to come out and I'm going to feel it today, right? The temperatures beating down 10 degrees above normal for this time of year.
This big dome of high pressure that you see has moved farther to the west. So, it's not just the eastern seaboard. We're going to see the Ohio Valley and even all the way into Minneapolis. Look at these major cities. We're talking about Southern New England. We're talking about Philadelphia, we're talking about New York, all of us dealing with temperatures, heat indices, feeling like 100 degrees.
And there you, it's stretching all the way even into the Ohio Valley and out towards Minnesota. So, definitely some dangerous conditions with us. Again, temperatures about 10 degrees above normal. You're talking about humidity in the morning. Seventy percent by the afternoon. Still up there anywhere from 30 to 50 percent.
With that, we're talking about these dangers -- you guys want to know, how long is it going to last? That's when the bad news is. All the way through the end of the week. We're not really seeing really up until this weekend. So, keep saying it. Drink the fluids, stay safe out there. ROMANS: Stay safe out there.
LEMONS: Air conditioning. Air conditioning.
ROMANS: Thanks, Indra.
LEMONS: All right. Thanks very much.
A professor at the University of Connecticut now under investigation for alleged child sex abuse going back for decades. Authorities say five men have come forward to accuse Robert Miller, a music professor, of sexually abusing them when they were between 10 and 13 years old, including at a camp for children with serious illnesses. Miller is now on administrative leave from the university as the investigation continues.
ROMANS: Was this doctor also a serial killer? Dr. Anthony Garcia now facing charges he was involved in four murders in Nebraska between 2008 and this past May. Authorities believe he killed a former medical school professor and his wife and the son and housekeeper of another professor.
Two professors had fired him for Omaha's Creighton University back in 2001. Garcia was picked up in Illinois Monday and faces another court hearing today.
LEMONS: Police in New Orleans have made an arrest in the murder of a six-year-old girl. Twenty-year-old suspect Matthew Flugence (ph) was taken into custody Tuesday night just hours after investigators found the body of a six-year-old stuffed inside a trash can. She had been beaten and stabbed in the neck and abdomen.
ROMANS: Oh my. All right. A wildfire in Southern California on the move. It doubled in size. And just today, it's destroyed at least half a dozen homes. It also closed down a camp for kids with cancer. Parents had to pick them up at an evacuation center. More than 2,200 firefighters are trying to get it under control. Last night, it was only 10 percent contained.
LEMON: So, think getting inside might protect you from lightning? Well, we have a woman, she might dispute that. She was in a grocery store in Houma, Louisiana, not far from New Orleans, with her two daughters when a storm rolled in with the lightning somehow got her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAKEISHA BROOKS, STRUCK BY LIGHTNING: It went straight through me. It went like from my head down to the back of my spine to my left thigh and on my foot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Goodness. She's OK. She's OK, but still experiencing some nerve pain. And local police said they've never heard of anyone being struck by lightning while grocery shopping. ROMANS: Wow! All right. This next remarkable story is about a man brought back to life and it was all caught on camera. That's Tony Gilliard playing a pickup basketball game at a Baptist church in Greer, South Carolina. He grabbed a rebound then went jogging down the court when, boom, he hits the ground.
He was having a heart attack. Luckily, the church had a defibrillator, and it brought him back to life.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TONY GILLIARD, HEART ATTACK VICTIM: I do remember seeing the lights, laying on my back and coming to.
EDDIE LEOPARD, PASTOR, FAIRVIEW BAPTIST CHURCH: The video is just a God (ph) thing that we just happen to have those devices at this time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: Wow! Very lucky. They used that defibrillator so quickly. It saved him and he seems to be all right, but boy, that was quite a rebound, huh?
LEMON: He always said --
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Ba-da-bump.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Well, everything turned out OK so I can joke about it, right?
LEMON: I know. I know. It was so cool with Christine.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: I know, I know.
LEMON: Royal baby watch. The world anxiously awaiting for Will and Kate's baby to be born. The commotion outside the hospital as we come right back. The rebound -- oh, my God!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: In Britain, a question remains this morning, when will the newest royal enter the world? Will and Kate's baby due any day now. Fans are passing by St. Mary's Hospital with their own kids in hand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP GROSS, ROYAL FAN: It's a sense of excitement in general, the children wanted to participate. Hopefully have a chance, who knows, to see the princess and the prince on their way here to have that much anticipated baby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROMANS: That hospital, of course, is where the duchess of Cambridge is set to have her first child and any other baby born that day will get a special penny from the royal mint in honor of the occasion. Do you get the fascination with the prince -- not even born yet baby?
LEMON: I do not, and I will just leave it at. But I know that some -- I know someone who's on baby watch, Kate Bolduan --
ROMANS: That's right.
LEMON: -- is on baby watch.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Kate Bolduan is --
(CROSSTALK)
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I think I'm considered the other Kate.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: But you're on baby watch, right, I saw a promo. You spent some time there. You're doing a big old blowout on the baby?
BOLDUAN: Exactly. We are on baby watch. Everyone is fascinated by this.
CUOMO: I love it. I love baby watch. I'm not like Don Lemon. I love baby watch.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: Have some fun. We're talking enough about the sad stuff in the world, what is better and happier than a baby coming into the world who will take the British monarchy into the next century? That is exciting.
LEMON: Cool. If you say so, yes.
BOLDUAN: Exactly. You can say, nod, and say yes, Kate, I agree.
LEMON: Yes, dear.
(LAUGHTER)
BOLDUAN: All right. We do have a lot more coming up, though, on the show.
CUOMO: Yes. Obviously, we're still looking at Anderson Cooper's interview with Juror B37. There were things there we haven't heard yet about what was going on in the room. Just how divided they were, just what the urgency was to convict, and why they found that they could not. It's very important as the country still struggles to understand this situation legally and socially.
We're also going to take on just the issue that's most obvious, a big reason for outrage is that this trial wound up representing themes that had maybe something to do, maybe something not to do with the case, race, profiling. The justice or injustices vis-a-vis Black used in the country. So, we're going to talk to NAACP CEO, Ben Jealous, about what the NAACP's trying to get done here, but about this conversation in general. It needs to be had, we're going to have it.
BOLDUAN: And what can we do -- what can be done going forward?
CUOMO: Yes.
BOLDUAN: The conversation starts, just don't end the conversation. do something is what a lot of people are saying. Chris will talk to Ben about that.
We're also learning more about what killed "Glee" actor, Cory Monteith. We're learning that it was clearly a fatal mixture of alcohol and heroin. He was so young, and he just left rehab. How does someone relapse so quickly? Or did he leave rehab too early? We're going to talk to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about that difficult process.
CUOMO: And just, you know, to help to feed the paranoia about the man this morning, we're going to talk about the NSA. You know, we thought, oh, they're spying on us. This is terrible. I can't believe it. What about stories like Nordstrom, Family Dollar, and Benetton tracking you while you shop? Yes. You have to hear it. Don Lemon, though, says he's not impressed.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: He's not so impressed.
CUOMO: He doesn't get the whole tracking thing --
LEMON: I always assume that there's a camera somewhere, I think that's right, these days, don't you?
CUOMO: Absolutely.
ROMANS: The cameras, the phone, when you walk in the door of the store, I mean -- they it's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing how the retail world knows every one of your moves and what makes you pull the trigger on a purchase.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Don Lemon?
LEMON: Yes?
CUOMO: Is it true that you are not impressed with these things because you're emotionally exhausted from a new daddy because you have a puppy? Is that true?
LEMON: Yes. I am --
BOLDUAN: We have sources. CUOMO: Cuomo knows all things.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Wrap it up, guys.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: I've never been a dog person. I like dogs. But, you know when dog people are like, oh, my baby, my baby, I'm like oh, my gosh. Now, I am one of those people.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: We'll see you with a stroller and it won't be a baby in the stroller.
(LAUGHTER)
BOLDUAN: I know that's happening. I can see it.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Lemon, I want to see the puppy.
LEMON: All right. I'll send you so.
BOLDUAN: Thanks, guys.
ROMANS: We'll see you in a bit, guys.
CUOMO: See you soon.
ROMANS: I love (INAUDIBLE). Keep going. Keep going. Go to break. Go to break.
LEMON: It was Chris Cuomo.
ROMANS: You're right. It was Chris.
Nike delivering big problems to fans of the Carolina Panthers. Can you spot what's wrong with this T-shirt? The "Bleacher Report" is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROMANS: The brightest stars in Major League Baseball gathered last night in New York for the 2013 all-star game.
LEMON: Andy Scholes joins us now with the highlights -- "Bleacher Report."
ROMANS: Good morning.
ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Hey, good morning, guys. Well, the all-star game baseball considered by many as the best all-star game in all of sports, but it's not just an exhibition. The winner, of course, secures their league home field advantage in the World Series, and that's a pretty big deal aside to win the last four all-star games also won the World Series.
Matt Harvey getting the star for the National League on his home field. Second matter of the game from -- out, Harvey drills him right in the knee and you know leaves the game but is expected to be OK. While it was a rough night for Cano, his teammate, Mariano Rivera, would have one last hurrah in the mid summer. Classic Rivera who is retiring at the end of the season came in to pitch the eighth for the American League.
He would get a standing ovation. He took the field by himself to start the inning. The 43-year-old would record three straight outs, and even though he didn't get the save, Rivera was named the MVP of the game as the American League got the win 3-0.
All right, guys. Take a look at this Nike T-shirt and see if you can tell what's wrong with it. Carolina Panthers logo with the letters NC are inside of the wrong state. That's South Carolina, not North Carolina.
LEMON: Oops.
SCHOLES: Nike quickly realized this mistake. They removed all the shirts from sale, now to apologize for the --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHOLES: -- maybe see how this could happen. They're called this the Carolina Panthers, not the North Carolina Panthers. But still, got to know your geography.
ROMANS: Now, you've got a Nike shirt that's a collector's item.
SCHOLES: Yes.
ROMANS: There you go.
LEMON: Stole my line.
(LAUGHTER)
ROMANS: Thanks, Andy.
LEMON: We'll be right. Thanks.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Chris and Kate are back now.
ROMANS: Hi, guys.
LEMON: I guess they are.
CUOMO: Here we are LEMON: There they are.
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: There we are.
BOLDUAN: There we are.
CUOMO: Thank you very much, guys. Great talking to you this morning. It's almost the top of the hour and you know what that means here on "NEW DAY" --
BOLDUAN: Yes.
CUOMO: -- time for the top news.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's exhausting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is sweat on just about every inch of my body.
CUOMO: Heat wave U.S.A. Temperatures soaring in much of the country with no relief in sight, making it even worse, hundreds of thousands trapped in the hot zone with no water.
BOLDUAN: CNN exclusive. New revelations from juror B37 in the George Zimmerman trial as four other jurors push back against their story.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Final days. The coroner announcing Cory Monteith died of a toxic mix of drugs and alcohol. New video of his last days alive and how his TV star girlfriend is coping.
CUOMO: Your "NEW DAY" starts right now.
ANNOUNCER: This is "NEW DAY" with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CUOMO: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to "New Day." It's Wednesday, July 17th, six o'clock in the east. I'm Chris Cuomo.
BOLDUAN: Good morning, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. We're joined by news anchor, Michaela Pereira, and we're going to have much more on the nationwide reaction to the George Zimmerman verdict this morning. We have extraordinary new revelations from juror B37 speaking exclusively to our Anderson Cooper.
It turns out some wanted to convict Zimmerman but just couldn't legally find a way to do it. This as protests continue really across the country for much -- though much more peacefully overnight. Everyone will say thankfully. CUOMO: And we've got to talk about the heat. Soaring temperatures all over the place, but what you're looking at there is one of the outcomes we have to deal with economically here. The gas pump. Congress now holding hearings on it, but assuming they don't take it on like just about everything else these days. We're going to help you figure out just how painful it might get for you this summer.
PEREIRA: All right. Mr. Fishman (ph), I want you to take a look at this, and you at home, too. This is a fellow Nantucket wrestling a shark onto the beach. He's wrestling it. Why is he doing this? Why?
CUOMO: Like a man.
PEREIRA: Oh, why. We're going to actually hear from him coming up.
CUOMO: All you'd hear from me are the screams that only a dog could hear.
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: All right. We're going to begin this morning with the growing danger from oppressive heat impacting and making an enormous part of the country. Fifty million Americans dealing with this dangerous heat. Look at this, see the red? That is showing the states in the northeast, mid-Atlantic and Midwest that are going to be sweating it out all the way to the weekend.
