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New Day

Legendary UNC Coach Dean Smith Passes Away; Eastern Ukraine Under Siege; Jordanian Planes Strike ISIS Stronghold Raqqa; NBC Looks Into Williams' Claims

Aired February 09, 2015 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Is the United States standing in the way of a Ukraine peace deal? German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pressing the president to resist sending weapons to Ukraine because she fears Russia could respond by escalating the conflict and forestalling peace.

The problem is, Ukraine forces are getting pounded. And our reporters say they desperately need the help.

Merkel has given Vladimir Putin until Wednesday to agree a road map for peace. That's when four-way talks are scheduled between Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Jordan's military continues to pound ISIS targets in Syria. Officials say they have launched 56 airstrikes against the terror group since the video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive. Meantime, coalition forces are attacking Mosul in northern Iraq, a city under ISIS control. The strikes are in tandem with Turkish troops on the ground, who are trying to surround Mosul and cut off ISIS supply lines.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Bruce Jenner telling L.A. police that paparazzi were chasing him when he was involved in a fatal car crash. But investigators say there is no sign the photographers played a role in Saturday's accident. Officials may seek cell phone records and search for possible video to figure out what led to the crash that killed a woman in her 70s. Jenner has issued a statement offering his condolences and pledging to cooperate with authorities.

CUOMO: All right. We don't usually give you advice. Here's some. Got a dream? Buy a Powerball ticket. Jackpot is $450 million.

No one hit it big in Saturday's drawing. So, you got another chance, my brothers and sisters. The next drawing is this Wednesday if you get in, good luck. Remember me fondly if you win.

CAMEROTA: Should we do an office poll?

PEREIRA: Sure, why not.

CAMEROTA: OK.

PEREIRA: I'm not in charge, though.

CUOMO: I'm in charge. Leaders go first.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: Legendary University of North Carolina head basketball coach Dean Smith has passed away Sunday at the age of 83.

Mike Galanos has more on the legacy of the man many are calling the greatest college basketball coach of all time.

The tributes are pouring in, Mike.

MIKE GALANOS, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, aren't they, Michaela?

It goes so much further than the basketball court. Let's go over the accomplishments, though, they are great and we certainly take notice.

Smith coached for 36 years, 1961 to '97. He said never had a generation gap with his players.

More on the accomplishments, 11 final four, they won two national championship under Smith, one with Michael Jordan. Remember that play as a freshman back in '82?

He also fought the good fight for immigration, giving the first scholarship to a black athlete in North Carolina, 1967. That was Charlie Scott.

So, yes, we talked ability the accomplishments, but let's hear from the current coach at UNC. Roy Williams also coached under Smith as an assistant saying this guy was about much more about the wins and losses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROY WILLIAMS, NORTH CAROLINA HEAD COACH: I think Coach Smith was the best who's ever been on the court, getting people to make sacrifices towards a common goal, truly coaching to make people better and helped them reach their own individual dreams. But at the same time, he was better off the court. He cared more about people than wins and losses or records.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALANOS: That's the measure of the men. He made men, not just basketball players.

Here's what Michael Jordan had to stay, part of his statement, "Other than my parents, no one had a bigger influence on my life than Coach Smith. He was more than a coach, he was my mentor, my teacher, my second father."

Another former Tar Heel, NBA champ James Worthy tweeting, "There are so many things I can say about coach Dean Smith, but simply put, he is the greatest man I've ever known."

And if you look, guys, at the greatest coaches, no matter what the sport, whether I'd be Dean Smith, John Wooten, Vince Lombardi, guys talking about making them men, and not just a better player in whatever sport. Impact.

PEREIRA: Oh my goodness and felt in so many ways, as you mentioned, Mike. Thanks for that. We appreciate it.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Mike.

Well, coalition airstrikes slamming key ISIS controlled cities in Iraq and Syria. Are they working?

PEREIRA: Brian Williams under fire. Taking time off. Cancelling an appearance on David Letterman. Here's the question: can he survive this firestorm?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

Fighting on two major fronts this morning, in Eastern Ukraine, people fleeing as Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels clashed. And in Iraq and Syria, coalition airstrikes trying to force an ISIS retreat.

Let's talk about all of that and take us to the two battle zones with Bobby Ghosh, CNN's global affairs analyst and the managing editor of "Quartz".

Bobby, great to see you.

Let's start with Ukraine.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Let's look at the territory that is now held by the pro- Russian rebels.

So, let's pop that up on our map. So, those two key areas. Tell us what we are seeing.

GHOSH: Well, in the South, basically, that's Crimea. That's gone. Russia has claimed it. They have incorporated it into Russia. That's basically off the table now in any negotiations with Putin.

CAMEROTA: So, even the peace plan that they are proposing, Germany and France are proposing, Crimea doesn't go back?

GHOSH: I can't see a scenario in which Putin hands back Crimea. It's so much of his prestige in Russia depends on his image as somebody who took Crimea. They regard that historically as their territory. So, I can't see him give that back.

CAMEROTA: OK. Then this other territory, that's up for grabs. GHOSH: Well, yes, the eastern part of Ukraine bordering there, that's

Luhansk and Donetsk, these two provinces very, very crucial. A lot of heavy industry, a lot of mineral wealth is there. That's where you have a large Russian-speaking population that has been acting as a kind of fifth column for Russia.

And that's what is basically being discussed now. Can Russia get its own troops out of that? Can they create sort of buffer zone around it? Can Ukraine, in turn, give these two provinces greater autonomy to act on their own? And basically can they stop the shooting?

Nearly 5,500 have been killed. More than a million have been displaced from there. Quite a lot of those have gone to Russia. So, there is a burden on Russia, as well in eastern Ukraine.

CAMEROTA: Let's go back to the map and show where the NATO has decided to add more troops to these bordering countries. Does that get Putin's attention?

GHOSH: Yes and no. He will take note of that. I don't think it will change his calculus on Ukraine?

On Ukraine, Russia regards it. Putin regards it as a critical national security issue. Having more NATO troops in the neighborhood is not going to -- because he knows NATO is not going to fire on his troops. NATO is -- he's been calling NATO's bluff for more than a year now.

NATO has been huffing and buffing, but they are not going to engage militarily with Russia. Ukraine in that sense is on its own.

CAMEROTA: Let's move to our Iraq map now and show what the territory is that ISIS seems to be in control of. Let's look at this on the map. This is where you will see it in a second. In the bright red is where ISIS appears to have a very strong foothold and control.

What are you seeing there?

GHOSH: Well, the most important thing to see by this map is if we want back several months and look at this map. ISIS is not taking fresh territory. In some places, you probably can't see that. In some places, they have been pushed back.

But the momentum of ISIS we saw around this time last year when everyone thought this was an irresistible force. That has been slowed, that has been stopped. So, that's important.

Now, to take back these larger urban areas --

CAMEROTA: Such as Mosul. Let's look at the map of where Mosul is and what is the situation with Mosul?

GHOSH: Well, it's a city of 2 million people. It's Iraq's second largest city. And when ISIS took it last year, that was a big feather in their cap. Now, the coalition, the U.S.-led coalition is bombing the areas around

Mosul, that's sending them, they're rattling the cage, really. But to take Mosul back would be very difficult. It requires urban warfare, a city, as I said, of 2 million people. ISIS is well-entrenched there. It would have to have some sort of an internal upheaval against ISIS to begin to push them back.

CAMEROTA: Last, let's look at Raqqa, the city in Syria. Is that now just in ISIS control?

GHOSH: Yes, it has been for while now. It is that capital city. They place a lot of importance on it.

Again, coalition bombing has come closer and closer to Raqqa. But it's an urban area. You can't fight against a terrorist group that is perfectly happy to hide itself amongst civilians. It's the civilians who are going to have to carry some of that burden, and we have no control of it.

CAMEROTA: Of course, Jordan is trying to put a dent in that in Raqqa but --

GHOSH: Yes, talk about rattling cages. They are really pushing very hard. Jordan feels furious about the killing of their pilot. But everybody acknowledges, I think -- and Jordan does, too, that the aerial campaign can shake things up, can maybe stop new recruits coming into ISIS, can hurt ISIS economically. But to push them away from the territory they had, that will take more than sort of bombs in the sky.

CAMEROTA: Bobby Ghosh, thanks so much for walking us through all of this. Nice to see you.

Let's go to Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Alisyn.

He has apologized. He is off the air, at least temporarily. However, the firestorm over Brian Williams Iraq story intensifies. Is the writing now on the wall for someone who may have been one of the most trusted names in news?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON HELUS, CHOPPER PILOT WHO TOOK RPG FIRE (via telephone): The fact is, is that, you know, Mr. Williams wasn't in or near our aircraft at the time, and it saddens me that you have so many other combat journalists out there that are in that type of situation. You know, seeing those things happen, and more likely, they probably don't tell the story like that. You know, with embellishment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was chopper pilot Don Helus, whose aircraft was hit by RPG fire during the Iraq war back in 2003, a moment that is really at the center of the Brian Williams controversy.

Williams, for his part, now backing out of an appearance that was scheduled on "The Late Show with David Letterman" after announcing that he's going to take time off from anchoring "NBC Nightly News" over his false account of that incident.

I want to turn to Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCE", and CNN senior media correspondent.

There are so many pieces and parts of this. Let's start on the announcement Saturday, that he says he needs to step down to adequately deal with the issue. You got a sense after you have done digging and talking to folks, that this was his idea, that he was encouraged to do so.

What was the genesis?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: That is -- that is the official version of the network, that he decided to do this.

PEREIRA: They support?

STELTER: And that they support him. But the silence is one of my guests on "RELIABLE SOURCES" yesterday, the silence from NBC is deafening. It's not as if the executives of the network have come out and expressed support for him, or said anything about him.

David Carr in the "New York Times" this morning pointed, it's not like you can bench yourself. You know, the American people aren't usually going to go with that story. They have to know, Carr says in the column this morning, that somebody is in charge here. And right now, there's nobody publicly in charge of the situation, except for maybe the man who's investigating Williams' prior claims. He's an NBC investigative producer.

CUOMO: Richard Esposito.

STELTER: Yes. And he is now in charge of digging through and fact- checking. Now, he is known as a digger. He has a great reputation in the industry. He's not the kind of guy that would whitewash something like this. So, he is trying to fact-check the claims of people like Don Helus who you heard right there, to get to the bottom of what's really true.

CAMEROTA: So, Brian Williams says he's temporarily taking himself off the air. Is he ever coming back?

STELTER: As soon as he said several days is when he'll be away for, the ticking clock started.

PEREIRA: Open-ended, yes.

STELTER: And every day he doesn't come back, it would seem to be a difficult situation for him, right? Any day you're off the air is a tough day, even in a situation like this, when you've said you've taken leave of absence. But I do have to wonder, this would be something to be sympathetic of Brian Williams, he's not going to be on tonight. It will be the first night he's not on. Lester Holt will be filling on.

How will viewers react? How will viewers respond? Will viewers complain about it? Will viewers write in to NBC and say they want to see Brian back? Or will they not?

And will the ratings hold up just fine just steady without him there? I think basically today is the first day where NBC is going to have a sense of how this is going to go?

CUOMO: How do they do Thursday and Friday, do we know?

STELTER: We don't have the ratings yet. And that's the other way to measure how this is going. You think maybe people will tune in to see how he is holding up, and whether he says anything more about this. But we don't have the numbers yet.

PEREIRA: Another big question is how it's covered, right? The question of how the other networks cover it. They are their direct competitors of NBC -- ABC, CBS, how they are covering it. How their own network covers it? MSNBC, of course, has their own sub-network, if you will.

STELTER: Yes, they have started to talk about it on air. You are seeing ABC and CBS mention it on air, too.

PEREIRA: What was the tune of the coverage?

STELTER: I think what you're getting from NBC and MSNBC is obviously more sympathy. That's understandable. They're talking about a colleague. And even though there are some legitimate issues and some real scrutiny that needs to be applied, there is also sadness in the TV industry.

Larry King last night tweeted, "This all just makes me sad." I keep hearing that word a lot. Even though I got to say at the same time, there are some questions here, real issues about credibility. So, you can be sad about the situation and yet believe there are some real problems with the stories he's told over the years.

CAMEROTA: But for NBC to take him off the air permanently would be a huge move, because they're winning in the ratings. I mean, ratings are our currency. When you are winning, you are very reluctant to ever make a move.

Now, ABC I guess was gaining on them a little bit. But still, in the demo and the total viewers, Brian Williams wins every fight.

STELTER: The day Brian apologized and, you know, he's been criticized about a half-hearted apology, he needs to stay a lot more, needs to explain a lot more. But the day he apologized on air for his errors, I was going to write a story for CNN.com about how he is gaining in the ratings. He's actually been doing better lately. He's been solidly winning the key demographic, 25 to 54 year old, the

TV people live and die by. He was coming back, he was in a strong position for the ratings.

CUOMO: Coming back is the right word, because the truth is, he is not as strong as he has been. ABC, David Muir, the team they put together there. Yes, I am a former ABC person. percent I love them over there, but I wish him the best.

But he has been making inroads to Brian. Brian has been more vulnerable than he's been in the past. There is $240-plus million in revenue here.

It's day two. I do not know their bench well, but I do not think they have anybody they have been grooming to take over for him. So, that then leads to the question of "MORNING JOE", our friends over there, obviously, they're talking about this. But it's how they're talking about it, as Micky said.

Joe is compromised on this, right, because not only it's his network, but he is not really known as a journalist. So, it's hard for him to talk about. What do you think they are saying this is too much, this is too much? You know, you'd be the one to cast the first stone? Is that right for them to say?

STELTER: I guess it's the only thing they can say. I mean, they're in the same building as Brian Williams. Their bosses are basically the same bosses at the end of the day.

I don't know if they would fell fully able to talk about this story in that way. I can tell you that privately, NBC people, the sources I talked to from the top to the bottom are horrified by this. They're horrified by what's happened. They think it's a real stain on the whole network and not just on Brian Williams, and that's something that's not going to right away.

People privately are talking about this as if he's -- it's possible he won't come back, you know? On Thursday, someone said to me, Brian Williams is too big to fail. No one is saying that anymore in --

CUOMO: We know how that goes.

PEREIRA: Yes. What about the stain beyond him, his career and NBC? Do you think this has, is going to be a defining moment for journalism? I mean, we look at this in our own way and we have to do some introspection on our own part, do we not?

STELTER: Any time one high profile A-list journalist falls. It hurts everybody in a little way at least. I think it damages credibility overall, because then people can point to and say this is how it always goes. I think it does have an impact on credibility overall. We've seen trust levels of media falling over the years rather steadily.

At the same time, most journalists try to get it right and retell the truth every day. We need to regain people's trust on a daily basis, and whenever someone or something like this happens, it does hurt the whole industry.

But I think we're on important point about the ratings -- fundamentally, this is now a business decision. That might feel wrong. It might feel awkward. But we might want this to be simply about ethics and emotions and more -- but, no, it's a business decision for NBC at this point, and that's why nobody can say for sure whether he's going to be coming back or not.

PERERIA: Brian, so many things to mull over for all of us and for the folks at home. Let us know what you think. Get into the conversation, tweet us. Reach out to us on Facebook. Keep the discussion going.

Brian, thank you.

STELTER: Thanks.

CUOMO: One story for you. But there is a lot of news this morning, so let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARSENIY YATSENYUK, UKRAINIAN PRIME MINISTER: To get these, you have to defend your country.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: How long can Putin sustain a war that he tells his people is not happening?

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: President Putin's got to make the decision.

MCCAIN: We must provide defensive arms to Ukraine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Already they have seen in excess of 63 inches of snowfall, seven inches just yesterday.

MARTY WALSH, BOSTON MAYOR: I want you to be both vigilant, be safe and remain calm.

UNIDENTIFEID MALE: The former marine was suffering from PTSD.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a tragic story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The "American Sniper" success will impact jurors and he wants the trial moved out of a small Texas town.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good evening, everyone. Welcome back to NEW DAY.

Competing plans put on the table this morning from President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as the search for stability in the Ukraine comes to the White House. The president is considering sending weapons to Ukraine. But Chancellor Merkel is advising them to pull back that Russia could respond with force.

CUOMO: Merkel and French President Francois Hollande are getting set for top meetings Wednesday with Ukraine and Russia. This as Vladimir Putin weights Merkel's warning -- agree to help and end the fighting by Wednesday, or invite more sanctions from the West.

There are a lot of different angles on this story. We have them all covered.

Let's begin with Fred Pleitgen. He is in Ukraine's capital Kiev.

Fred, what do we know?