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Tornadoes Tear Through Homes in Plains States; New Video Surfaces of Texas Gunman; Baltimore Mayor Asks DOJ to Investigate Police; Will NFL Punish Patriots' Brady for Deflategate?; ISIS Recruiter's Threat: 'Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.' Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 07, 2015 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This large multi-vortex tornado is getting ready to cross Highway 14 in Kansas.

[05:58:47] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just came right over this hill. It actually flung the basement doors open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We could hear the sound of a train. Our ears started popping.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the very first time we are seeing and hearing from Elton Simpson himself.

ELTON SIMPSON, TEXAS GUNMAN: When you come together and you pray five times a day with the brothers, you're reminded about the hereafter.

PASTOR VOCAB MALONE, ROOSEVELT COMMUNITY CHURCH: He expressed to me admiration, specifically for Osama bin Laden. He used the word "hero."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the Patriots quarterback a cheater?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a mountain of circumstantial evidence that they intentionally deflated the footballs.

TOM BRADY, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS QUARTERBACK: I feel like I've always played within the rules. I would never do anything to break the rules.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CO-HOST: I'll take it whenever. Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It is Thursday, May 7, 6 a.m. in the east.

A tornado outbreak in the southern plains destroying homes, overturning cars. More than 40 tornadoes reported overnight in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CO-HOST: The storms injuring at least a dozen

people in a mobile home park in Oklahoma City, and forcing officials to declare a flash flood emergency for the first time in the city's history, shutting down roads and grounding all flights.

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is in the CNN Weather Center with our top story. How's it looking, Chad?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's going to continue for now, until today and longer, all the way into the weekend. Forty-six tornadoes yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have...

MYERS (voice-over): Debris launching into the sky.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike, we have a roof that just flew through the air here. I don't know where it came from.

MYERS: Tornadoes wreaking havoc yet again across the plains.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Large tornado north of Verden, Oklahoma.

MYERS: Residents in the heartland...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got trees coming down, power flashes. I got to back out of here.

MYERS: ... waking up to disaster as the Red Cross and emergency personnel begin combing through the neighborhoods, damaged or destroyed in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw two clouds meet as one. And then we could hear the sound of a train. Our ears started popping because of the air pressure.

MYERS: For the first time in history, the National Weather Service declaring a flash flood emergency in Oklahoma City. The massive storm causing up to eight inches of rainfall in a matter of hours. The main airport in Oklahoma City shut down as employees and passengers evacuate through a pedestrian tunnel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to take shelter immediately. This is a large tornado, which is continuing to grow in size.

MYERS: South of Oklahoma City, the hardest hit. Lightning flashing through a wall of clouds as tornadoes rip roofs off buildings, including the side of this hotel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm in the middle of tornado damage right now.

MYERS: At least three residents in critical condition after a tornado flattened a mobile home park. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got power flashes in front of me.

MYERS: The tornado emergency including the city of Moore.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The entire strand is a tornado, folks.

MYERS: Where two years ago a massive EF-5 tornado killed dozens of people and demolished over 1,000 homes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS: And more weather coming for the rest of this week today, tomorrow and maybe the worst even into Saturday.

It continues to rain in Oklahoma now. I expect a lot of that weather to get into Arkansas today. Not included in the severe watch right now or even in the potential for slight risk today. I believe, Arkansas, you are still in it today.

And for tomorrow and into Saturday look at this. The severe weather continues from Nebraska all the way down to Oklahoma. More tornadoes likely with this system.

Now, back out here another storm system in the Atlantic could be a tropical system. If it turns into something it would be early. But it would be Ana or "ahna," if you will, out here in the Atlantic Ocean. Sounds kind of nice, actually, but for the people in the Carolinas, not a good beach weekend, I'm afraid, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK. Lots of stuff to keep an eye on. Chad, thanks so much for that.

MYERS: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: An update on Sunday's Garland, Texas attack. CNN has obtained never-before-seen video of Elton Simpson, one of the two gunmen who tried to ambush a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest.

CNN national correspondent Kyung Lah is live from Phoenix for us this morning. What have we learned, Kyung?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

The reason why this particular piece of video is so important is because this is the very first time that we're actually seeing Elton Simpson speaking. You get a sense of what we've been hearing all week, that he is mild-mannered and he appears to be so measured. And it's so difficult to reconcile this with the man who went on the shooting rampage.

We also spoke with a friend of his, an evangelical Christian pastor. And he says, as disturbing as it may seem to the rest of us, that he believes that Simpson did not snap. That this move in the Texas area, that it was a logical defense of his faith. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALONE: I was surprised but not shocked. I wouldn't put it past him, because I understood the sincerity of his beliefs. And he had expressed to me admiration, specifically for Osama bin Laden; he used the word "hero."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: And Pastor Malone says that he also believes Simpson must have known that he and his accomplice, Nadir Soofi, would both die by doing this, by taking this step.

We have also learned, Chris, that the FBI has now begun making inquiries, trying to talk to people at the mosque. It's being described to us as bringing them in for friendly interviews -- Chris.

CUOMO: Well, there does seem to be this unusual confusion about how much activity these men had with the wrong kinds of people and the wrong kinds of intent, and yet nobody knowing anything about it. Kyung, thank you for continuing to dig.

Now in Baltimore the mayor this morning is asking the Department of Justice to investigate her city's police department.

This as serious inconsistencies emerge between the police investigation and the prosecutor's case against the officers who arrested Freddie Gray.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux joins us live from Baltimore with the latest -- Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Chris.

Well, there are a lot of developments this morning. First of all, you mentioned the mayor, the mayor asking for the federal government to step in now. She wants her entire police department to be investigated for patterns and practices, potentially, of civil rights violations. Did they use excessive force, search, harassment, these type of things?

[06:05:04] We've seen these reports recently for Albuquerque as well as Cleveland, most recently Ferguson. This report is likely, very likely, going to take at least a year to be produced. So that's in the works.

She also said she wants body cams on her officers by the end of the year.

And, Chris, we're looking at some inconsistencies here when you look at the case. There are sources, attorneys for the police officers who were charged, those six police officers charged in Freddie Gray's death, and sources inside who are familiar with the police report as well as the prosecution's case. And they say the police report does not necessarily support some of the aspects of the prosecution -- the state's attorney's office. Namely the autopsy report, not necessarily showing that this

would be a homicide. Also, not necessarily showing that this is second-degree murder. That would be an intent to kill but rather manslaughter.

And then some of the attorneys for the officers, they want to see the knife. The knife that was on Freddie Gray. Because they say if it was a switchblade, that would make it illegal possession and therefore give them probable cause to have arrested Freddie Gray in the first place.

All of these things playing out inside the courtroom, inside the police as well as the prosecutor's office. And some of these things obviously being leaked but very contentious -- Chris, Michaela.

PEREIRA: I'll take it here, Suzanne. Important to have you there. Thank you so much for that update.

In other news, the Pentagon set to begin training moderate Syrian rebels in Turkey and Jordan to fight ISIS as early as this week. But the move comes loaded with risk and resistance. The top Syrian opposition leader telling our Jim Sciutto exclusively that his forces need help against the Assad regime, saying U.S. help in that fight has been too small and too slow.

Voters heading to the polls in the U.K. today, and it's one of the closest races in decades. Conservative David Cameron seeking a second term as prime minister, his main challenger Ed Miliband of the opposition Labour Party. Stay with CNN today for full coverage as those results come in.

CUOMO: How about this? Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum may throw his hat into the 2016 ring. The Republican says he's going to make a decision before the end of the month whether to run or not. He had a strong showing in the 2012 GOP primaries. Remember, he beat Romney in the Iowa caucus.

PEREIRA: What did Tom Brady know and when did he know it? The NFL's report on Deflategate offers no definitive answers, but there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence that the Patriots intentionally deflated footballs and that their star quarterback was aware.

My former TV husband John Berman is here.

CAMEROTA: Now estranged.

CUOMO: Over this.

PEREIRA: Over this, nonetheless.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So here's the deal. The world is waiting right now for Tom Brady to come forward and make any comment at all about what I am holding in my hand, this gargantuan, mammoth report with pages and pages of documentation laying out how the store [SIC] -- star quarterback was, as they say, more probable than not generally aware that footballs before the AFC championship game were deflated.

New details in the NFL's stunning 243-page report on Deflategate. It concludes the New England Patriots megastar quarterback Tom Brady more probably than not generally aware that footballs before the AFC championship game were deflated.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice-over): New details in the NFL's stunning 243-page report on Deflategate. It concludes that New England Patriots megastar quarterback Tom Brady more probably than not was at least generally aware that game balls were deliberately under-inflated. This is something Brady has more or less denied since January.

BRADY: I have no knowledge of anything. You know, I didn't alter the ball in any way.

BERMAN: Based on video evidence and witness accounts, the report claims that two of the team's personnel -- Jim McNally, the locker- room attendant, and John Jastremski, an equipment assistant -- deliberately made efforts to release the air from Patriots game balls after the balls were examined by the referee. The theory: footballs with less air are easier to grip.

Inside the report, damning text messages exchanged between the two men with talk of cash, free shoes and autographs. McNally even calls himself "the deflator," texting, "Tom sucks. I'm going to make that next ball a" -- expletive -- "balloon."

Jastremski: "Talked to him last night. He actually brought you up and said you must have a lot of stress trying to get them done."

The report also says on January 18, during the AFC championship game, McNally was seen on surveillance video, committing a violation, taking the game balls on a sudden trip to the bathroom before bringing them to the field.

Also notable, a flurry of phone calls and text messages between Tom Brady and Jastremski after the news of Deflategate blew up. Brady texting, "You good, Johnny boy?"

Jastremski responding, "Still nervous. So far, so good, though. I'll be all right."

BRADY: "You didn't do anything wrong, bud."

JASTREMSKI: "I know. I'll be all good."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[06:09:56] BERMAN: So Tom Brady did meet with the investigators. He did answer questions, but he did not turn over his cell phone, his text messages or his e-mails. And it seems clear the NFL probably not too happy about that -- Chris.

CUOMO: Well, we have the perfect forensic team to discuss this. The two Mikes, Mike and Mike, they're on your screen. Golic and Greenberg.

The big question is: for all the names and all the time and all the hype, do you believe that the NFL has revealed the truth, and what is it? Mike Greenberg.

MIKE GREENBERG, CO-HOST, ESPN RADIO'S "MIKE AND MIKE IN THE MORNING": Well, those are excellent questions. And my answer to the first one is, no, and the second one is we still don't know.

At the end of the day I'm not a huge fan of more probable than not.

MIKE GOLIC, CO-HOST, ESPN RADIO'S "MIKE AND MIKE IN THE MORNING": I understand that might be the preponderance of the evidence and that might rise to find you, you know, on your side in some sort of a civil proceeding.

But if you're going to destroy the reputation of one of the greatest players of all time, I'd like a little more than "probably."

GOLIC: I was a little surprised that's all we got, but if you put it in -- in terms of what discipline is coming, this -- this report is lost in the case in a courtroom. But in a civil courtroom, it's not.

CUOMO: You mean the court of public opinion?

GREENBERG: ... Roger Goodell. No, no, no. In a civil court, I think you -- they would be found liable, given the preponderance of the evidence. And, more probably than not, I think you would be found liable in a civil court. I'm not a lawyer. I only play one on TV.

GOLIC: He plays one exceptionally badly.

GREENBERG: Yes. But to your second point there, Chris, about the court of public opinion. At the end of the day that's the one that really matters.

Tom Brady is overwhelmingly likely to get suspended. The very first game the Patriots play this year is the NFL's huge kickoff, that Thursday-night opener against the Steelers. It will be one of the highest rated television shows of the year on NBC. It's the biggest NFL game of the year until the playoffs start.

CUOMO: All right.

GREENBERG: And Tom Brady is going to be suspended for that game.

GOLIC: Right.

CUOMO: All right. Let's talk about why. First of all, the first big question is, does the report show to your satisfaction, Golic, that the balls were underinflated?

GOLIC: Well, it shows that the balls were underinflated.

CUOMO: And that somebody did it.

GOLIC: And it shows by phone conversation -- well, I believe so. I think what helps in that cause is the fact that the locker-room assistant and the officials assistant -- and these people haven't talked to Brady by phone in months. And all of a sudden, they're talking -- they're talking a couple of times in a couple of days after that, talking and texting.

So I think that leads you to believe there might be something there. But that's the issue, is just what the report said. There might be something there.

CUOMO: Right.

GOLIC: So you're right to ask, should a reputation be ruined on that? But I do think there's enough there where the league will discipline him. And while public opinion will come into play, if discipline comes into play, as Green just mentioned -- and he has to miss a game, that's huge. That's huge if he's got to miss a game when there's only 16.

CUOMO: But Green -- Green, let's say that, to people's satisfaction and those who are relevant, they say, OK, these balls were underinflated; and somebody did it on purpose, period.

So forget all the mistakes. Forget the environmental, you know, hype and drama and all that. It's to the side. Now it goes to all right. Whom do we point the finger at?

I have to tell you, more probable than not, that Brady was at least generally aware is not strong legal language. And it seems almost like an intentional hedge, Greenie. What do you think that the intent here is by the league?

GREENBERG: Yes, there are two separate equivocations and the very first sentence that matters in the entire thing. I agree with you.

The most important thing to remember is that this was an independent investigation done by Ted Wells and his group.

CUOMO: Right.

GREENBERG: So their intention is clear. They have passed the buck now on to the league, and it's going to fall in the lap of Roger Goodell and one of his lieutenants, Troy Vincent (ph), who by the way, is a longtime former player.

CUOMO: Right.

GREENBERG: And they will make the decision on whether or not this is enough on which to suspend Brady.

And they walk a fine line. Because the relationship between Roger Goodell, the commissioner, and Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, is long known to be extremely close. So either way, I think Goodell has a challenge. If he goes soft on them...

GOLIC: Yes.

GREENBERG: ... people will perceive he went soft on Kraft.

GOLIC: Right.

GREENBERG: If he goes hard on them, he's got a problem with Kraft, who was one of his primary supporters...

CUOMO: But I've got to tell you, the best...

GREENBERG: ... during the bad year that Goodell had.

CUOMO: The best proof they have is this tweet exchange. Want to put it up on the screen. You guys are intimately familiar with it, I'm sure, where Brady is talking to him: "You doing good, Johnny boy?"

"Still nervous. So far so good, though. I'll be all right." And then Jastremski goes on to say, "Dave, who's obviously involved with the organization," is going to pick your brain about it later. He's not accusing me or anyone, just trying to get to the bottom of it. He knows it's unrealistic. You did it yourself."

What is damning in that, other than Brady and the time lapse and why he had talked to him? But why wouldn't there be an occasion for Brady to be talking to the guy in the wake of the controversy?

GOLIC: Listen, let me reframe it if I could, because you're right. Could you convict -- could you put a guy in jail with the evidence they have? Absolutely not.

[06:15:01] GREENBERG: But you can find him liable for it.

GOLIC: At the end of the day here's the question, let's say Brady was at least a little bit involved. Because it certainly seems overwhelmingly likely that he was.

I've been asking the question ever since the day this broke just how big a deal is it anyway?

[06:15:17] GREENBERG: Right. Well, here's the thing. My overall thought on this is I don't think this is a big deal anyway. But that's not what we're looking for.

Did it have an effect on the game? Absolutely not. But that doesn't matter. If you knowingly tried to cheat, that's what you should be punished for, not whether it had an effect on the game or not.

Overall, I don't think this is anything. But that doesn't matter what I think. The bottom line is it's bad timing for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.

With what the league has been through this past year, there's no way, if they're going to discipline here, that they're going to discipline softly. They can't afford to anymore. They'd be getting crushed at every decision they've made.

So I think, even though Roger Goodell is getting paid by the owners and he's putting Troy Vincent in charge of the discipline, I don't think there's a chance that they're going to go soft here because of the year that they've had.

CUOMO: I don't know, Greenie. To me, it seems to me like this has been best just to hear the lines that come out of your mouth about it when you guys are talking about this game because of all the right puns.

I'm even holding a ball for our discussion for absolutely no reason just because it's kind of funny.

But if the league is deciding to put its flag in the sand on this, after all of the problems with domestic violence and general violence they've dealt with, I don't know that they're going to get a lot of depth (ph) with anybody, let alone the faithful.

But guys, thank you very much. We look forward to hearing the in depth coverage on "Mike and Mike." And always good to have you on NEW DAY, my brothers.

GOLIC: Our pleasure. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: All right, fellas.

So what do you think about this? How big a deal is it? Does the league have to act? Do you think they have a good basis for acting? The report's, like, 250 pages. They have plenty to go through.

So you tweet us or use -- you use the hashtag #NewDay for this one, CNN. And you can obviously go to Facebook.com/NewDay -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: OK, Chris. New concerns that ISIS may be plotting an attack on U.S. soil. A member of the terror group tweeting, "You ain't seen nothing yet." Our terror experts weigh in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:03] CAMEROTA: New fears this morning that ISIS is closer to carrying out an attack in the United States after a known terror recruiter connected to the Mohammed cartoon shooting in Garland, Texas, sent an ominous tweet.

Let's bring in Paul Cruickshank. He's our CNN terrorism analyst. And Phil Mudd, CNN counterterrorism analyst and a former CIA counterterrorism official.

Guys, great to see you this morning. Let me put up this tweet on the screen so that we can talk about it. Here's -- again, this is a hacker, a former hacker, now a recruiter for ISIS. And he says, "You ain't seen nothing yet," hashtag words that mean soon. Soon.

Phil, I mean, how seriously are we supposed to take this tweet? PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Look, this is not a

tweet about ISIS potentially conducting an attack. It's a tweet about potentially ISIS sympathizers conducting an attack.

Let me tell you what I mean by that. This game of counterterrorism has shifted on its head. Fifteen years ago Al Qaeda has a secret plot. Nineteen people -- nobody knows about it -- no communications about it that are discernible.

Fifteen years later you have a 20 -- 20-year-old -- 21-year-old Brit in Syria. What he's doing is probability terrorism. He's not trying to keep a plot secret. He's communicating with potentially tens of thousands of people.

If one in 5,000 does something, that's a tremendous success. So what he's trying to do here is not to stage a plot conducted by ISIS. He's trying to stage a revolution with tens of thousands of people, hoping that, if just a couple of them pick up on it, ISIS wins.

CAMEROTA: Paul, what do we know about the author of that tweet?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, we know he's Junaid Hussain. He's a British ISIS hacker. He's somebody with significant hacking skills. He was part of an international hacking collective called Team Poison. He was based in the U.K. He was actually convicted of stealing Tony Blair's address book online and then posting it on the Internet.

Former hackers say he's so skilled that he could steal millions of dollars from bank accounts online.

Well, in 2013 he went and joined ISIS in Syria. And he's put all his skills at their disposal. He appears to have a link to this Texas attack. And he appears to have potentially have had some foreknowledge of this attack.

So the worry is, if he's predicting some kind of future attack, that may not just be bravado. He could have some knowledge. Because he's somebody who's interacting with all sorts of people in the west, somebody in a position, potentially, to groom people in the west for terrorist attacks.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Phil, I want to ask you about the words he used. "You ain't seen nothing yet." That's uniquely American. I mean, he's quoting Bachman Turner Overdrive, for heaven's sake. So he must know Americans are his audience.

MUDD: Sure. He does. This is, again, another transformation in terrorism.

Remember, back in the day we're talking about watching bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri. Now the leader of al Qaeda. On al Jazeera, talking through a translator, looking like they just walked out of the crypt.

Now we have a 20-year-old who speaks native English, using Bachman Turner Override. And by the way the second album I ever bought as a 14-year-old, talking to people in the U.K. and the United States. We've also seen this in cases, for example, of Germans talking German to potential recruits to western Europe.

What's going on is kind of the revolutionary aspect of the terrorist movement.

Back in the day you just had small cells. Now you have entire waves of people who are trying to be recruited as far afield as the Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria, North America. This is really the third stage of the terror movement: from small cells to groups, now to individuals in places like Texas or California or New York, who are becoming part of a movement, because they feel drawn in by people who speak the same language they do.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Paul, I quickly want to touch on this new report out this morning from the "the Wall Street Journal" that is about the second gunman in Garland, Texas named Nadir Soofi.

They interviewed his mom. And it turns out that she tried to stop him. She didn't know what he was up to, but she did know that he had recently bought an AK-47 and that he was perusing some jihadist websites.

[06:25:11] And she said to him, quote, "You have a young child. What are you doing?"

And he said, "Nothing, nothing. Nothing to worry about."

And it just sort of goes to prove that we always say that people in the community should keep an eye out for people who are becoming radicalized or people in families should keep an eye out. But it seems impossible to do so.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, it's obviously very difficult for parents when they become aware that their kids are being radicalized. But obviously, if a parent has seen that their child has bought an AK-47 and is looking at radical websites, they really have a duty to inform authorities at that point, because it's an obvious risk to public safety.

One of the things that Al Qaeda and ISIS and other groups have been doing is to encourage these American lone wolves to take advantage of relatively lax gun laws in the United States when compared to international gun laws to purchase these kind of automatic weapons to launch attacks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right. Paul Cruickshank, Phil Mudd, thanks so much for all the information this morning. Great to see you guys.

Let's head over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, Alisyn.

Baltimore police are questioning the evidence used by the city's top prosecutor to charge six of their officers in the death of Freddie Gray. We're going to take a look at the case. Is it about to unravel on them?

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