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New Day

Michael Brown's Stepfather being Investigated; Charles Barkley Speaks out on Ferguson; Three Dead in Bus Collision; Woman Accuses Cosby of Sexual Assault in 1974

Aired December 03, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Fighting words -- police now investigating Michael Brown's step-father, could his emotional reaction to the grand jury's decision land him in hot water? Can prosecutors make the case and should they?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Another woman comes forward accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault. This one is different -- she says she was 15 years old at the time and she is now suing Cosby. Will he break his silence?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Major mix-up, two arrests thought to be the wife and son of the leader of ISIS could be a case of mistaken identity. Are intelligence officials any closer to capturing one of the world's most wanted terror leaders?

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY starts right now.

Good morning. Welcome to New Day. It is Wednesday, December 3rd, 6:00 in the east, Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota here. Up first, the grand jury's decision in Ferguson may result in a prosecution after all. Not for Darren Wilson, for Michael Brown's step-father, Louis Head.

Here's why. They are now asking, did he incite a riot? He is under investigation by authorities for an emotional outburst on the streets of Ferguson following the grand jury's decision to exonerate Officer Darren Wilson.

CAMEROTA: Meanwhile, the FBI has arrested a man in Washington State for making deadly threats against Wilson and his family on Facebook. And the National Guard begins to scale back in Ferguson as violence tapers off there. CNN's Ed Lavandera is following it all for us. He is live in Ferguson this morning. Hi, Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. Well, this is one of the first businesses that was torched last Monday night, just moments after Darren Wilson -- it was announced that Darren Wilson would not be indicted by a grand jury. And the question is, is one man responsible for all this damage?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LOUIS HEAD, MICHAEL BROWN'S STEPFATHER: Burn this (EXPLETIVE DELETED) down. Burn this (EXPLETIVE DELETED) down. LAVANDERA: This explosive reaction to the non-indictment of former

Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson is now under investigation. Police want to know if Michael Brown's stepfather, Louis Head, possibly incited the crowd to riot with these words.

Michael Brown's mother explained the emotion behind the outburst in an interview with CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin.

LESLEY MCSPADDEN, MICHAEL BROWN'S MOTHER: He just spoke out of anger. It's one thing to speak, and it's a different thing to act. He did not act.

LAVANDERA: Investigators have not yet spoken to Head, and no charges have been filed.

JEFF ROORDA (D), MISSOURI STATE HOUSE: Remember, there's people in the crowd that decided to burn down those buildings, and I'm not so sure that they wouldn't have burned down those buildings without urging from Mr. Head or others.

LAVANDERA: The National Guard is scaling back its presence in Ferguson, since protests have gotten smaller. But businesses are still reeling from their losses.

(on camera): How angry are you?

MUMTAZ LALANI, BUSINESS OWNER: Well, it doesn't help, you know. I'm mostly disappointed by the authorities, because last, twice, two times, the governor said that "We'll take care of that." And the third time, they said "We'll really have a National Guard here, and there's nothing to worry about." And they didn't do their job.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The destruction prompted this response from former NBA player Charles Barkley.

CHARLES BARKLEY, FORMER NBA PLAYER: There's no excuse for those people to be out there burning down people's business, burning up police cars. That serves no purpose.

LAVANDERA: There's also a dispute as to whether officials from the St. Louis Rams apologized to local police following the "hands up, don't shoot" demonstration by several players at Sunday's game.

St. Louis County Police Chief John Belmar sent an email to his staff said the Rams chief operating officer called Monday to apologize. The Rams say that's not the case. However, talks between the police and the team are scheduled to continue.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA: And Alisyn, a little bit of perspective: when you look back at that night and Louis Head's comments, the night and the moments right after Darren Wilson, it was announced that he would not be indicted. You have to remember, there were two different locations, basically, where most of the rioting and the damage was done. At this location where the vast majority of the fires were set along

this stretch of West Florissant Avenue, this was several miles away from where Louis Head was on that night. And this is where I was, and I can tell you that many people here on the street that night had no idea that those comments had been made. So that might be an issue that plays into this case as it moves forward through the legal system.

CAMEROTA: That is important context. Ed Lavandera, thanks so much for that.

Let's talk more about Charles Barkley. He is known for not shying away from talking about race relations, and he's defending his comments now about Ferguson and his reaction to the grand jury's decision. He sat down last night with CNN's Brooke Baldwin.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's just begin with the news of the day, that Michael Brown's stepdad is being investigated for saying eight different times, burn this "B" down the night the grand jury decision was made public.

HEAD: Burn this bitch down. Burn this bitch down. (EXPLETIVE DELETED)

BALDWIN: He's being investigated for inciting a riot. Do you think that is fair? Should police be pursuing that?

BARKLEY: Well, I think under the circumstances, this has just been an awful incident for everybody. And I just think that that just clouds the discussion.

BALDWIN: What about all the walkouts and all the protests, and you've definitely caught some, you know, flak for calling some people...

BARKLEY: Yes. You know what it's like? I don't do social media.

BALDWIN: I know you don't.

BARKLEY: And I don't sit around and watch what everybody think about me. I had no...

BALDWIN: The scumbag comment. Respond to that.

BARKLEY: When you're looting people's property, that's what you are. That's against the law. It's not your property. You wouldn't want people to do it to your house.

BALDWIN: Do you think that we would be seeing all of that, had this been a black police officer? Had Darren Wilson been black and all the facts remaining the same, we would still have a slain 18-year-old, would the outrage be there?

BARKLEY: No. Because we have a racial issue in this country. We've always had a racial issue in this country. And the biggest problem with it is, we never discuss race until something bad happens. We never have meaningful dialogue over a cold beer when things are going good.

But what happens is, everybody, when something bad happens, everybody has a tribe mentality. Everybody want to protect their own tribe, whether they're right or wrong.

BALDWIN: What do you mean when they're right or wrong?

BARKLEY: We all got bad characters in their group. We all got bad characters. So my grandmother taught me, you judge everybody on their own individual merits. You don't care what any other jackass has to say. You don't put everybody together. Black is not always right, and white is not always wrong.

But let me say this: the notion that white cops are out there just killing black people, that's ridiculous. It's just flat-out ridiculous. And I challenge any black person to try to make that point. This notion that cops -- cops are actually awesome. You know, they're the only thing in the ghetto from between this place being the wild, wild west.

BALDWIN: Let me go back to the notion of white cops killing black people. What about the case we're waiting for the results to come down from the grand jury for Eric Garner here in New York? I mean, it's one thing in Ferguson. There's some audio. But you see the video, you see these cops surround him.

BARKLEY: Yes, yes.

BALDWIN: And he -- ultimately, it was a homicide. He died.

BARKLEY: I don't think that was a homicide. I don't think that was a homicide.

BALDWIN: What was that? It was a chokehold. You see it.

BARKLEY: Well, I think the cops were trying to arrest him, and they got a little aggressive. I think excessive force, you know, something like that. But to go right to murder -- when the cops are trying to arrest you, if you fight back, things go wrong. That doesn't mean -- I don't think they were trying to kill Mr. Garner, you know? He was a big man, and they tried to get him down.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: All right now. What Charles Barkley says often resonates, and certainly these comments have. The question is, is it positive or negative? Let's bring in Marc Lamont Hill, CNN political commentator, host of "Huth Post Lies (sic)" and professor at Morehouse College. "Huth Post Live." I think I said "Huth Post Lies."

MARC LAMONT HILL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Freudian slip.

CUOMO: We're always competitive. So it's great to have you here, professor. Let me ask you this. First of all, does Charles Barkley deserve

criticism for what he said?

HILL: Absolutely.

CUOMO: Why?

HILL: Anyone who says that deserves it, not because he's Charles Barkley.

Because I think it's not nuanced, and I think it misses some of the point. To call people jackasses, to sort of dismiss the, quote unquote, "looters" out of hand without really sort of thinking about what they're going through at that moment, I think it's problematic. You can condemn bad behavior, but I think it's too simple to say that.

Also, his defense of the police to me was somewhat puzzling and bizarre.

CUOMO: All right. Let's unpack it. He said a lot of things.

HILL: Yes.

CUOMO: He called looters scumbags. Why is that wrong? It's an ugly word. It's not a productive word. But when you talk about that segment of the population, not the protesters, not those who were there who were to voice their outrage and exercise their rights, but who just took on straight criminal activity. Why should they not be condemned roundly?

HILL: Well, I think there's a difference between condemning people and calling them scumbags. Scumbags goes beyond -- I think there's something about dehumanizing people that makes it easier to see the types of police action that we saw out there. That's a problem for me. Saying, "I wish they'd made different choices," if you think they should be prosecuted, make that claim. It's a little bit different.

CUOMO: If it were your business, would you be saying, "I wish they'd made different choices" or do you think you'd be calling them scumbags?

HILL: I mean, I stood in Ferguson. Bullets whizzed past me. I was in a store when it was set on fire. I mean, I was very much in imminent danger, and I still have the same claim that I have right now. It wasn't my business, but I certainly felt the brunt of what happened.

CUOMO: All right. So he says cops in general are awesome. In the ghetto they're the only thing that keeps it from being the wild, wild west. We do have to be careful in these discussions not to demonize all cops, right? They are very useful. But you bristled when he said that, as well. Why?

HILL: Because it goes back to the dehumanizing piece. Again, is it black people are these savages and these animals, and the only thing stopping black people from murdering each other is the presence of police. Again, he seems to have this huge defense of police, this hurried police -- defense of police and not the same of vulnerable black people.

Let's not forget: It's riots; it's unrest. It's all that stuff that has us talking about Michael Brown. Black people die every day. Oftentimes black people die at the hands of law enforcement, and we don't have national stories about it. It's the uprisings in Ferguson that made us talk about this.

Yet somehow, Charles Barkley can rationalize choking out Eric Garner by saying, "Oh, he resisted." You can -- resisting is not what you're supposed to do, but you're also not supposed to be choked out. He can defend police in Ferguson. Not this.

CUOMO: Right. I want to -- I want to talk more about Eric Garner. But first, there's another point that's on the table that often gets ignored. But why should be?

It's okay what Barkley says, because he's a black, and that's a lot of the cover he gets. If I went on TV and said those things, I'd have a long day in the boss's office. Barkley will not. Is it okay that he's black and that's why he gets to say these things?

HILL: Again, black people are not monolithic. Black people have a variety of opinions, and I want to hear all of them. But I do think it's interesting that they constantly go to Charles Barkley for commentary on things like that. And I think it's because he can offer an opinion that can't be offered by mainstream white people, even if it's oftentimes the exact same opinion.

No one goes to John Stockton or Chris Mullen and says, "Hey, I wonder what you think about ISIS," right? But if there's a perspective that you want, you know Charles Barkley will offer it, and that's why media runs it.

CUOMO: Is he a leader in the black community?

HILL: I mean, people -- he's a role model, despite he's said in the past. He's someone people look to; he's someone people admire. I don't know if people look to him for political leadership.

CUOMO: All right. Eric Garner, the case, you could argue, has been ignored or overshadowed by Ferguson. It involved a handgun. It goes right to the heart of the Michael Brown killing of what is feared most about police in certain communities.

But Eric Garner, there's video of it. They take him down. There's a choke hold. There's a big issue for the grand jury of whether or not it was a homicide. Charles Barkley actually nailed a very subtle legal point.

HILL: Accidentally.

CUOMO: No. I don't know. I don't know. Brooke says, "What do you mean? You see him get choked." He says, "I don't think it was a homicide. Homicide is death caused

by a person." And the issue before the grand jury, and again, it's going to be somewhat of an unshaped case by the prosecutor's office, will be whether or not the cops actually killed him or whether his heart did. What do you think happens if there's no indictment in Eric Garner's case?

HILL: I think you see more of what we've seen. More unrest. I'm not saying more rioting, but certainly more unrest, which I think is...

CUOMO: Why?

HILL: Because I think people are finally tired.

CUOMO: Of what?

HILL: Of black people dying at the hands of law enforcement. I really think it's that simple. And again, every case isn't the same. Sometimes there's resistance. Sometimes police are in legitimate danger.

CUOMO: You could argue Michael Brown was a bad case to hang the issue of whether or not cops are unfair to blacks because of the assault at the car, you know, and because of what happened before the shooting. Is that a fair argument to make?

HILL: I think Michael Brown is actually the perfect case.

CUOMO: Perfect case?

HILL: I think too often when it comes to black death, we need the perfect case. We want the perfect shoot. We want the kid who's never stolen from the store, a kid who's never been suspended, the kid with no weed in his system. We want this perfect case to model.

There's a long history of that in the civil rights movement. Claudette Colvin sat on the bus...

CUOMO: Yes.

HILL: ... before Rosa Parks, but they said, "She's an unwed mother, so we can't go to her."

We don't need perfect cases. We need cases that say that no matter who you are, whether you steal a cigar in a store, whether you may have been inappropriate with a cop at one moment, it's not a lethal offense. That's the point, and that's why Michael Brown is such a telling case for me. CUOMO: Professor Marc Lamont Hill, thank you for being on.

HILL: My pleasure.

CUOMO: Sorry for changing the name of your show. You know it was unintentional.

We will be watching today what happens. We've been told by authorities here in New York we could get a decision in the Eric Garner grand jury today. We'll stay on that for you -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Chris. Now to a tragedy in Knoxville, Tennessee, a deadly collision involving two school buses.

Police say the school buses were traveling in opposite directions Tuesday when one crossed the concrete median and struck the side of the other bus, leaving three dead, including two young girls.

CNN's Martin Savidge joins us live from the CNN Center in Atlanta with the latest. What happened, Martin?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

Well federal investigators, the NTSB has now been dispatched to help in the investigation to answer that very question: How in the world could something like this happen?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): The images are horrifying: two buses, full of elementary-school students, colliding on a Tennessee highway. One, rolling over, left mangled on its side. The other, completely caved in from the front.

CHIEF DAVID RAUSCH, KNOXVILLE POLICE: It's a horrible tragedy. You know, our hearts go out to these families who have lost loved ones.

SAVIDGE: Police say Bus 44 was traveling east, taking children home from school when for some unknown reason it made a sharp left turn, crossed the median and slammed into the other bus traveling west. The impact flipping Bus 57 on its side, sending it sliding down the highway. Two young girls and one female adult aide on the bus were killed.

Parents and relatives, feeling helpless.

GLORIA JOHNSON, GRANDSON ON BUS: I'm sick worrying about those little kids being hurt bad.

SAVIDGE: One of the bus drivers and at least 22 more children were treated for injuries.

RAUSCH: We just ask the community to pray for -- for the loss of lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Now the two schools that have been impacted as a result of this terrible tragedy are both going to be closed today. But counselors have been brought in for any of the student body who needs them.

Back to Alisyn and Chris.

CAMEROTA: So sad, Martin. Thanks so much for the update.

All right. There's other news to tell you about. Let's get over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: Good morning, team. How are we today?

CAMEROTA: Great.

PEREIRA: All right. Happy Wednesday. Let's look at those headlines right now.

Breaking overnight, a pair of car bomb attacks overseas, a blast near the gates of the international airport in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu. Four people were killed. Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for this attack that is said to have targeted a U.N. convoy.

In the meantime, six people were killed and at least a dozen others injured following an attack in Yemen. This happened outside the residence of the newly-appointed Iranian ambassador. He was uninjured. So far, in that attack, no group has claimed responsibility.

Iraq is now disputing reports from Lebanon that officials there have detained the wife of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Iraq's government says her identity does not match either of al-Baghdadi's wives. Now, these revelations cast doubt on whether authorities could be any closer to finding the terrorist leader. We'll have more on this story coming up a little later this hour.

Administration officials say former Pentagon deputy Ashton Carter will be President Obama's choice to succeed Chuck Hagel as defense secretary. The president is expected to announce his nomination by the end of the week. In the meantime, we are learning that Chuck Hagel defied the White House, refusing to hold off his resignation announcement for a week after he realized he was being forced out of the job.

Former NFL player and current league executive Troy Vincent getting choked up at a Senate hearing on domestic violence in sports, recounting his own experiences.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TROY VINCENT, NFL LEAGUE EXECUTIVE: We recognize we have to break the culture of silence.

I relate to the 20 million victims. Survivors of domestic violence. Sexual abuse in every community across our great nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Representatives of the major sports leagues and their players' unions were grilled by lawmakers, Vincent telling the panel the NFL made a crucial mistake with its initial two-game suspension of Ray Rice on his arrest of domestic abuse. Recounting his own story of he and his brother surviving domestic abuse, watching their mother being beaten. You can tell that it has impacted that man.

CAMEROTA: It really hits close to home for so many people.

PEREIRA: Very close.

CUOMO: Well, it does. It's not a sports story.

PEREIRA: No.

CUOMO: It's a story about what's going on in the culture at large.

PEREIRA: You're right.

CUOMO: All right. Extreme weather is back and this time in the form of heavy rains and mudslides in California, leaving some streets looking like rivers. Let's get to meteorologist Indra Petersons, tracking it all. What do you see?

INDRA PETERSONS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we're going to go out west in a second. First, I'm going to take you out east, where conditions are actually improving. Looking at temperatures really on the rise in comparison to yesterday. Look at this: D.C., 60, when yesterday they had temperatures into the 30s. So it looks so much better out there.

You can actually see it's the front making its way through. So that low that was here yesterday is now exiting out of the region. What we are looking at is another cold front kind of pushing through, bringing some light scattered showers throughout the area today.

So there's this cold front. Now let's see what comes in behind it. High pressure, so by Thursday, it's the nicest day of the entire week. And what's behind it, comes another low that's going to make for a soggy mess in through the Ohio Valley, mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. By the time we talk about Thursday, Friday, Saturday, even Sunday, we will be talking about showers.

The one plus side we have is that the outlook for the next several weeks is everyone is going to be seeing above-normal temperatures or at least normal. So we kind of paid our dues for the early-on portions of winter. And now it's actually going to start to feel a little bit better, as we're actually starting to get more into winter.

But here's the story everyone has been talking about. Out West, we've been seeing heavy amounts of rainfall, record amounts of rain for San Francisco and even Los Angeles yesterday. All thanks to a low that kind of tapped into some of the subtropical moisture.

Yesterday you saw these two areas very close to each other. Today the low is pulling away from that moisture source, so we're going to be looking at conditions improving. But until then, we still have another day filled with heavy rain, about one to three inches of rain still expected. Talking about a lot of (UNINTELLIGIBLE); heavy months of rain. The old (ph) -- record rain yesterday; you're adding even more to it today. Definitely not a good story. The threshold is high for floods.

CAMEROTA: OK. Thanks so much for the update, Indra. Good to see you. All right. Another revelation in the Bill Cosby scandal. A new accuser claims the comedian sexually assaulted her back in 1974 when she was just 15 years old. We have the new details of her lawsuit next.

CUOMO: And air bag company Takata defying safety regulators, ignoring demands for a nationwide recall. The question is obvious: why? And is there anything else we don't know? Company executives will testify today. We have the inside scoop, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Bill Cosby facing a lawsuit from another woman claiming he sexually abused her. But there's a big difference: the alleged victim says s was only 15 years old at the time of the assault.

Jean Casarez joins us with more now. That's a fundamental distinction, both legally and practically.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

Let's start with the facts here, according to the complaint, and the complaint was filed yesterday, late, at superior court in Los Angeles, California.

It's 1974. That's 40 years ago. The alleged victim right now is 55 years old. Her name is Judy Huth. And she is alleging sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and also negligent infliction of emotional distress.

And what she says happened was that back in 1974, she and her -- she was 15 years old, and she and her 16-year-old friend were at a park in San Marino, California, and who was there? Bill Cosby. He was filming a movie.

They went up to meet him. He said, "How about next Saturday you come to my tennis club?" She says they went. He then took them to a house where billiards were played, and he forced her, according to the complaint, to drink one beer every time he won a game of billiards.

From there he said, "I've got a surprise for you." He allegedly took them to the "Playboy" mansion. She says at that point she had to go to the bathroom. He took her to a bathroom from a master bedroom. When she returned, he was sitting on the bed. And there she says that he sexually molested her.

Now, Chris, here is the issue. This was 40 years ago. So the question is hasn't the statute of limitations run in all of this? But they cite law saying that there is an exception. Back in 1974, they state that if you reasonably don't realize the injuries that are happening to you. But within the last three years you realize there's psychological injury from that sexual molestation, you can bring a suit.

CUOMO: No matter how much later the three-year period is? That's going to be the question for the... CASAREZ: Within the last three years is according to the law. So it doesn't cite here of when she realized there was psychological injury to her.

CUOMO: Right. Right. That's going to be the space that they litigate on. But still...

CASAREZ: They'll say she should have known.

CUOMO: Very interesting thing.

CASAREZ: She knew the facts so clearly. She should have known she was injured.

CUOMO: Jean, thanks for laying out the facts.

Let's discuss this, though -- Mick.

PEREIRA: All right, Chris. I want to bring in Brian Stelter, CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES." Also Joey Jackson is here, HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, to dig through all of this.

We'll get the legal angle in a second, but Brian, OK, this is the first case, a lawsuit that we've seen since the one he settled with Andrea Constand. Do you think Bill Cosby now has to address this?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT/HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": The gravity, of course, is different. It's hard to imagine before yesterday something worse than what we had already heard. But then to hear about an accuser who was 15 at the time, that does take it to an even different place than we've been before.

It's interesting to me that we've heard nothing from Cosby's attorney overnight. Because they've been very aggressive about, you know, refuting and attacking some of the people...

PEREIRA: Words are one thing; a lawsuit is another. Right?

STELTER: You're right. Words are one thing; lawsuits are another. And it just so happens that on this same evening where this lawsuit was reported on, we did see Bill Cosby tweet for the first time in weeks. Just three words. He wrote, "Thank you, Whoopi Goldberg." Because Whoopi has been one of his few defenders in the media. Maybe that's an unrelated point, and we can get back to that tweet, because almost no one in Hollywood has been supporting him or speaking out publicly about him.

PEREIRA: And he has not publicly addressed this.

STELTER: He has not. So I've got to think every time we hear from another accuser, it puts more pressure on Bill Cosby to talk. But I asked his publicist last night, "Any plans for an interview?" And I got no reply.

PEREIRA: I want to pick up on that in a second. I think we need to dig through some of this legal stuff. Joey, this is kind of curious when we hear Jean lay out all of the accusations: 15 years old, proceeded to sexually molest her by attempting to put his hand down her pants. I mean, I can't even talk about it. It's just -- it's really kind of upsetting. Does this take things to a whole different level for you?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's a problem legally, Michaela. Good morning to you.

Good morning, Brian.

And let's lay out the legal problems and then the practical evidentiary problems.

PEREIRA: OK.

JACKSON: From an evidentiary perspective first, understand that statute of limitations are there, Michaela, for a reason. And generally, they're imposed because people get faulty memory over time.

And so you want to impose some statute of limitations so that the evidence and the proof are fresh, so that it can be litigated in court and, of course, so that there can be some finality and closure and people could move on with their lives.

Now, if you look at the evidence or the proof, you certainly need witnesses; you may need physical evidence. And so in cases where there is proof that's not stale, they're hard enough to prove. So when you go back 40 years, that could be a major concern. Particularly when you're talking about someone who was 15 and her friend, 16 at the time.

Now the legal problems, Michaela, are these: The legislature in California certainly did amend the statute of limitations in 1990. And in that amendment, they said, "You know what? We're going to give you eight years from your 18th birthday, when you're 26, to file a civil suit; or we'll give you three years from the date of discovery."

But that date of discovery, Michaela, is very difficult, and here's why. Generally, when you're filing a civil suit, talking about the date of discovery, say if there's a foreign object in your body and you have no basis to know at the time that it's there. You discover it. Now you move forward with a lawsuit.

The practical problem here is that the issue will be, certainly, she could have and should have discovered it, predicated upon the facts. Now I'm not making, you know, any claim that I know what happened. I don't know. But just from a legal perspective, to make the argument that she discovered it 37 years later.

PEREIRA: Right.

JACKSON: Because remember, it happened 40 years ago. So what she's saying is she now, 37 years ago, within three years, discovered that there was a psychological causal connection between Bill Cosby's conduct and between her intentional infliction of emotional distress. His intentional infliction.

PEREIRA: So quick -- so quickly explain, do you think it will hold in California, this lawsuit?

JACKSON: Look, having evaluated the laws that are cited in that particular lawsuit, I do not believe so. I think that Bill Cosby's attorneys will make a motion to dismiss. It's called a motion for summary judgment and legally, based upon the law. Again the facts are one thing, but based upon the law, I think it's highly problematic, and it's likely that the lawsuit will not stand.

PEREIRA: OK. So there's the legal aspect. Back to you, Brian.

STELTER: That's why there's been no comment about this lawsuit.

PEREIRA: I want to ask you about that. Is there a place where -- it seems this has put more gas on the fire, if you will. Is there a place, is there a way that he can address these allegations now? Is there a safe place? Is there a place that he could go and somehow make his case?

STELTER: There certainly, any number of interviewers would love to talk to him about it.

PEREIRA: Sure.

STELTER: Let me get to what Joey has talked about on this program before, which is legal advice versus P.R. advice. Right? People like me and...

PEREIRA: Talk to me about your aspect.

STELTER: And the P.R. point of view would be to have him out there and to say his point of view, to share his side of the story. Because otherwise, we've heard none of that. But I would understand legally that would be a big risk.

PEREIRA: Who would do it?

STELTER: Well, I think -- I think you could see a Barbara Walters sort of interview, which would be his side of the story, where he could, where he could express the emotions about what he's gone through in this experience. Without maybe going into all of the cases. But I've heard of none of those interviews actually in the works.

JACKSON: Not likely to happen, Michaela, because the -- his attorneys will say, "Don't say a word."

PEREIRA: Yes, I can imagine. I can imagine he's getting that kind of pressure.

STELTER: Maybe Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi, you know, defended him, so maybe that's why.

PEREIRA: I've got to end it there. Thanks so much, guys. I appreciate it -- Alisyn.

JACKSON: Thank you, Michaela.

CAMEROTA: All right, Michaela. Japanese air bag suppliers are caught up, pushing back on demands by U.S. safety regulators for a nationwide recall of potentially dangerous air bags. Fireworks on the agenda when both sides appear at a House hearing today. We're live with those details next.

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