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NFL Suspends Tom Brady Over Deflategate; White House Calls Bin Laden Raid Report 'Baseless'; Official: Al-Baghdadi Still Running ISIS; NSA Chief: ISIS Message Resonating in U.S.; White House Calls bin Laden Raid Report 'Baseless'. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 12, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:17] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Well, back here at home, the NFL hammering quarterback Tom Brady and the New England Patriots over Deflategate. Tom Brady's agent expressing his outrage over the punishment, calling it ridiculous.

CNN's John Berman has more for us. Is it ridiculous?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Brady and his agent not used to losing. Let's just lay that out there. And they lost big, I think.

Look, the guidelines for this type of infraction, altering a football say $25,000 fine. That's the minimum. Of course that's what we've seen in the past. The NFL going way, way beyond that. They say what Tom Brady did, having his general awareness of this likely deflating of the footballs, it threatens the integrity of the game.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice-over): The unprecedented penalties, including a four- game suspension for Tom Brady, came less than a week after the bombshell 243-page report on Deflategate.

TOM BRADY, QUARTERBACK, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: I don't have really any reaction. I haven't had much time to digest it fully.

BERMAN: Players throughout the league are reacting to the punishment.

DEVIN MCCOURTY, PATRIOTS PLAYER: We have full belief and faith in our quarterback and Tom. And it's been like that for me for six years. And that's not going to change now.

ELI MANNING, QUARTERBACK, NEW YORK GIANTS: Someone's breaking rules, I understand, you know, you're going to get punished for it.

BERMAN: The report led the league to not only bench the star quarterback but also slap the Patriots with a $1 million fine, the highest ever. And in another staggering blow, the team has to give up it's 2016 first-round draft pick and fourth-round pick in 2017.

DREW ROSENHAUS, SPORTS AGENT: The NFL is on a mission right now to repair some of the mistakes that they've made in the past. The NFL league office on this one out of control. BERMAN: Brady's agent is blasting the decision, saying in a

statement, "We will appeal" and that "the discipline is ridiculous and has no legitimate basis."

New England fans are showing their support online and beyond. There's a hashtag #NoBradyNoBanner, pressing the NFL to wait to raise the championship banner until Brady is back on the field.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want to see a banner without Brady. He's been the franchise.

BERMAN: The Patriots owner is also sticking by his player, stating, "Tom Brady has our unconditional support. Our belief in him has not wavered."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Now, there will be appeals, that's for sure. And also, the league made clear here that the history matters. The Patriots, of course, do have a history of bending or breaking the rules in 2007 with Spygate. And the league made clear the severity of the punishments this time around have a lot to do with the past -- Chris.

CUOMO: Well, there's a lot of it matters here. You've got the rules, only supposed to be $25,000, but that's just the minimum. But then they go from that to the biggest fine ever. It's a lot of what really matters here that has to be sorted out.

So let's do some of that. John, thank you very much.

Let's bring in Donte Stallworth, former New English Patriots wide receiver; played with Tom Brady. And Jim Daopoulos, former NFL official and supervisor of officials; also a rules analyst for ESPN.

OK. So let's start with you, Jim, on the integrity side. We keep hearing, "Don't get caught up in the footballs. This isn't about the footballs. It's about how the situation was handled."

So from an integrity standpoint, because that word keeps getting used, how does this lay out as a punishment for you?

JIM DAOPOULOS, FORMER NFL SUPERVISOR OF OFFICIALS: Well, Chris, I believe the punishment is a little bit excessive for what actually happened. I think that's, again, the inflation or the deflation of the footballs really had no effect on the outcome of the game.

But it was the integrity of the game that concerned the NFL offices up in New York. And that's why the penalty has been so severe.

CUOMO: Not the crime, it's the cover-up, Donte. That's basically what they're saying here.

You point to the fact that the standard of proof that they've brought to bear here gives you some concern. The weird language in the report about how it seemed more likely than not that he was generally aware of what was done as describing Brady's culpability. You say you don't like it.

DONTE STALLWORTH, FORMER NEW ENGLAND PATRIOT PLAYER: No, I don't. I think if you're going to suspend someone for a quarter of the season, which is four games in the NFL, if you're going to suspend someone for that long, and you're going to dock the Patriots $1 million and take away a first-round draft pick and another fourth-round draft pick the following season, I think you should have a little more evidence than more probable than not and generally aware. That becomes an issue for me.

But I think that the biggest issue for the NFL anyway is that they felt that -- as if Tom Brady wasn't being extremely cooperative. And I think that's probably more so of what got him suspended, more than the actual act.

CUOMO: Now, you were on the team the last time they got in the stink like this with Spygate there, when they were filming. And the team wound up going 16-0, John Berman was just reminding me, because everybody was so riled up. Do you think this will have the same impact on the team this year in terms of their unity?

[07:05:11] STALLWORTH: Yes, I think so. I think any time that there is an issue in New England, regardless of what it is, if it's something against the Patriots, they are always going to rally amongst each other.

People always feel like -- or people within the organization in New England always feel like they're against the rest of the world. They're a part of what I like to call the axis of evil, the evil empire. It's the Yankees, the Cowboys, the Lakers and the Patriots. And of course, Bill Belichick is going to use this as an additional ammunition for them to really come together.

And if Tom Brady does appeal, I think that the Patriots are probably looking to reduce that suspension. But if not, you know, four games is a lot of games in the NFL.

CUOMO: Understood. Understood. So let me ask you something about selective enforcement, Jim. Obviously, the league is trying to make a stand in saying, you know, "We're all about the integrity game going forward." You've got this report that's being ignored in a lot of media about teams, including the Jets -- and I'm a fan of the Jets -- but a lot of teams in the league taking money from the military in exchange for honoring veterans during the game. Those ceremonies we all watch. Very often it's the best part of the game. The league is letting these teams take money from the military, getting paid to honor veterans.

Where's the league on that kind of issue? Doesn't that go to the integrity of the game?

DAOPOULOS: Well, that's a tough question for me to answer, not having been involved in that aspect of the...

CUOMO: I'm not blaming you, Jim. I'm saying if we're talking about the integrity of the game, doesn't that matter, too? DAOPOULOS: There's so many issues that go on here. I guess, Chris,

one of the things that's kind of concerned me in reading through the Wells Report is the National Football League was aware of a problem with the footballs. They informed the officials before the game that there was an issue with the footballs. So they knew something was going on.

My question is what happened to those footballs? How did they lose sight of where those footballs were? What happened with the officials? What happened with the NFL security? What happened with the Patriots security? There's some questions right there that I'm looking for an answer.

Why did those footballs lose their security or why did the people that were responsible for keeping track of those footballs, why did they let them out of their sight to have this problem that's caused some integrity issues with the National Football League?

CUOMO: And as you know, a lot of the anecdotal evidence suggests that it's because it wasn't a big deal. It was known, and certain things are stretched in the game. That's nothing new there.

But Donte, Jim doesn't want me to put him on the spot. I understand that. But now I'm coming at you. Because if you're going to talk about the integrity of the league and what you're about, and you want to turn a new page, how can you have on the same day that you're smacking Brady and the Patriots around for deflated footballs and how they deal with it, you have all these teams getting paid millions of dollars to honor vets on a game that's supposed to be about integrity? What says integrity more than how we treat the veterans? Where's the league on that?

STALLWORTH: Yes, that -- that was something I had no idea about. And I can almost guarantee you that a lot of NFL players we most of us I would say all of us have nothing but utmost respect for the ultimate sacrifice that our servicemen and women give to this country.

And to see that NFL teams have been accepting money on behalf of the DOD to show an expression of gratitude towards our servicemen and women, that was -- that was a little disappointing.

But when I look at it, I don't know if it's -- you know, I don't know who you blame? Do you blame the DOD for actually paying? Or do you blame the NFL for accepting payment? Or do you blame both?

CUOMO: Blame is always easy to throw around. That's for sure. Donte Stallworth, thank you very much.

Jim Daopoulos, good to have your perspective on the show.

That's the problem with the standard, Mick. If you're going to set one, you've got to hold to it all the way through the line.

PEREIRA: Yes, absolutely. Otherwise that standard starts to slip around. Right? That's not good.

All right, Chris, thank you.

The Obama administration dismissing claims by journalist Seymour Hersh that that raid on Osama bin Laden's compound was staged. A White House official insisting there are just too many accuracies [SIC] to fact-check in the Pulitzer-Prize-winning blockbuster report.

Let's bring in CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski for the latest -- Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Michaela. It may have taken a minute or two for the White House to respond to this, but when they did, they came out swinging, first putting out this statement that said that any notion that this operation to kill Osama bin Laden was anything but a unilateral U.S. mission is patently false. And the press secretary said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I can tell you that the Obama White House is not the only one to observe that the story is riddled with inaccuracies and outright falsehoods. the former deputy director of the CIA, Mike Morell, has said that every sentence was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:10:02] KOSINSKI: I mean, are there elements of this story that could be true? Sure, in a broader sense. The idea that maybe somebody within Pakistani intelligence could have known where Osama bin Laden was. The former CIA director and secretary of state have long said that that could be true.

But CNN sources are disputing that it was one day, one person who walked into the U.S. embassy and tipped everyone off -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, Michelle, we're going to talk about this with Mike Rogers who was on the intelligence committee during the raid coming up.

Meanwhile, a possible big hit against ISIS. Several reports suggest the group's leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, is badly injured after an airstrike. U.S. officials are pushing back against that claim. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has the latest.

What do we know, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON STARR: Good morning, Alisyn.

Well, these reports got our attention. We've seen a number of news reports. We've seen reports on social media. So we started poking around.

Now, U.S. officials are telling me that the latest intelligence shows them that Abu Bakr, al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, is still very much in charge, in charge of day-to-day operations, running ISIS, issuing orders, that he is very much still the commander. The intelligence is showing them that. They say they have no

intelligence that shows them he's been injured. The allegation: injured in an air strike in early March. They are saying they simply have no intelligence showing that he has been injured.

But nonetheless, there's a lot developing on potential successors if it came to that. There are four pictures I want to show you. These are top ISIS leaders and commanders. The U.S. has just put a bounty on their head of millions of dollars in rewards being offered for information leading to the capture of any four of these men. There's a lot of thinking that this is the new rogue's gallery. These are the men that could succeed Baghdadi as the leader of ISIS, if it ever came to that -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Barbara.

We have another layer here in this situation, as well. NSA director says the terror group's online efforts are increasing, and that more Americans are getting on board. CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has this part of the story. This is sounding the alarm on ISIS recruiting. Admiral Mike Rogers says the terror group's online efforts are increasing and that more Americans are getting onboard.

CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has this part of the story. And this is becoming the biggest weapon for this brand of ISIS, is just telling people, "Do whatever you want. Just do it in our name."

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And very specifically put out by their spokesperson, al-Adnani, saying, you know, "You don't have to seek our advice."

The idea is this ideology can spread in social media. You can talk to people who you've never met, never spoken to ISIS leadership and then commit an act, an atrocity as a lone-wolf, inspired or trained by manuals online.

Here is what Admiral Rogers had to say about that specific threat to the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADMIRAL MIKE ROGERS, DIRECTOR, NSA: This concern about individuals within the United States increasingly resonated, if you will, with the ideology of ISIL and the idea of just acting violently, indiscriminately, is clearly of grave concern. It's a trend that things would suggest is increasing, not decreasing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Now, he's speaking in two climates here. After the Garland, Texas, attack in which it was clear there was pledge to allegiance by the attackers to ISIS leadership head. And then afterwards ISIS respectively said they're working on their behalf. Still unclear if they were operationally running each other. And then, too, at the same time, Admiral Rogers engaged in a lengthy debate in which he's trying to retain all those capabilities for mass surveillance the NSA have had that Edward Snowden exposed or partially exposed.

A key time for him, and this ISIS threat obviously part of the case they want to make to try and get their side of the balance between privacy and surveillance taken up by Congress.

A key time for them, but also just yesterday, Chris, we saw ISIS- affiliated hackers putting out a message on the Internet saying they would be targeting the U.S. at some point down the line. Unclear how capable they are, but now threat online so pervasive and so hard to stop.

Back to you.

PEREIRA: All right, I'll take it here, Nick. Thank you so much for that.

U.S. and Saudi Arabian officials are trying to tamp down suggestions of tensions between the two allies, with President Obama and Saudi King Salman speaking on the phone Monday. Camp David perceived as a snub over the president's overtures to Iran.

But a top Saudi official tells CNN that circumstances changed in the Saudi's ongoing conflict with Yemen forcing that last-minute cancellation.

CAMEROTA: Crews working furiously to find victims after more than 70 tornadoes tore through the nation's midsection. At least five people killed in hard-hit Texas and Arkansas, including this couple who died shielding their baby girl in their mobile home. The infant, along with three others, were miraculously found alive.

CUOMO: How about this one? A United Express flight on its way to Monterey was forced to make a belly landing at Los Angeles International Airport. It happened when the plane experienced mechanical issues, and the left main landing gear failed. That's what you're watching, a belly landing.

PEREIRA: Wow.

CUOMO: Passengers on the plane told to assume the crash position, and then they just skidded on home. No one hurt. Forty-three people on board.

PEREIRA: I tried to wave Alisyn off, because -- given her, you know, anxiety about flying. I tried to tell her to cover her eyes.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. She was like...

PEREIRA: Don't look, don't listen.

CAMEROTA: I'm OK with that one.

CUOMO: Really?

CAMEROTA: I'm sure the people on board the plane are now, "Oh, really?"

CUOMO: I'm always interested in the ups and downs of Camerota world.

CAMEROTA: Because I'm happy plane can do that.

PEREIRA: Yes, they can.

CAMEROTA: That's great they can make a belly landing if the gear doesn't come down.

CAMEROTA: I would say that that plane did it that time, and I would leave it at that.

PEREIRA: Shall we carry on?

CAMEROTA: Just when I was feeling...

CUOMO: Full-on tarmac landing, last time I checked. Also known as a fireball in some cases.

CAMEROTA: Thank you for that, Chris.

All right. Meanwhile, there's a new warning to tell you about, about ISIS and its ability to reach young people in the U.S. through social media. Who is most vulnerable? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[07:19:36] SEYMOUR HERSH, JOURNALIST: The president -- our president did authorize the raid. The SEALs carried it out. They did kill bin Laden. They got in and out successfully, and the rest of it is sort of hogwash.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, claiming the Obama administration's account of the bin Laden raid was a lie.

Let's bring in Mike Rogers. He's our CNN national security commentator and former chair of the House Intelligence Committee during the bin Laden raid.

Mike, great to see you.

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Great to see you, Alisyn. Good morning.

CAMEROTA: If anyone knows if this was hogwash, the administration's story, it would be you. You were on the House Intelligence Committee. Is it hogwash or even parts of it? M. ROGERS, CNN: The only hogwash I think, is the story. The -- I was

brought in in January when I became chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and had full visibility of all the intelligence, all the operational decisions that needed to be made as far as what their options were. And they weren't really good ones. And I just don't find any credibility in Hersh's article.

CAMEROTA: But Mike, I mean, is it a stretch? Let's talk about some -- let's break it down, some of the details of his article. Is it a stretch to think that Pakistan knew where bin Laden was before the raid?

M. ROGERS, CNN: Well, I mean, that is probably the million-dollar question. In everything that we saw you could never clearly say that they knew about it. I will tell you, I met with Pasha, who is the ISI, the intelligence director, immediately thereafter. I met with him prior to that in my role as chairman.

There was never any indication that they knew about it. The speculation at the time was could lower-level intelligence officials loyal to the Taliban loyal to the ideas of al Qaeda have protected bin Laden in that particular facility. That's never been ruled out.

CAMEROTA: Huh.

M. ROGERS, CNN: But there's no -- there's no clear evidence that they knew that he was there, at least that I saw during my time as chairman.

CAMEROTA: It's interesting that you say that you met with Pasha, because that's one of the top-level military officials that Seymour Hersh cites as having known about the raid and tacitly greenlighting it.

M. ROGERS, CNN: Well, I have to tell you my counterpart, Dutch Ruppersberger, who is the ranking member at the time. And I went to see Pasha right after the raid, because we had some issues to work through on intelligence cooperation.

And I can tell you he did not know about the raid. And he was not all that amused by the raid. And it caused us real and significant problems in our intelligence operations for months after that raid, because he was not made aware of it and believed that was a slight to their national pride.

So I don't know where he gets that story. I found no credibility in it. And there's just no substantive facts that support his story.

CAMEROTA: Are you certain there was a fire fight that happened at the raid, with the Navy SEALs?

M. ROGERS, CNN: Absolutely. I'm absolutely convinced that there was a firefight. We lost a helicopter there. Really very quick actions on behalf of the SEALs.

We know that there was a fire fight before the three SEALs got to the building that housed bin Laden. There was another small compound away from that, where they think it was a security team that had to be -- that engaged in a fire fight. There was a fire fight at the building that housed bin Laden.

So, I mean, that clearly happened. There was no -- nobody walked into that facility. I can tell you that.

And by the way, the part that he doesn't talk about is afterward, the flood of people who rushed to the scene and mainly, not in a great way, certainly would have caused us lots of concern. So this notion that there was -- this was all pre-planned and they walked in just doesn't hold water to the facts that I saw and dealt with as chairman.

CAMEROTA: OK, Mike. Let's talk about a developing story here at home. This weekend military bases across the country increased their threat level to bravo, meaning that they believe there was an increased threat of terrorism. What's going on on military bases? What do they know?

M. ROGERS, CNN: Well, you have to think about what ISIS is trying to accomplish. So they're using social media in a way we've never seen before. And unfortunately, they're very good at it. And they are marketing this notion. They have kind of turned a page that says, "We don't have to actually talk with you. We don't have to work with you. We don't have to tell you exactly what to do. We don't have to pick your targets. What we want you to do is, we're going to inspire you to do an act of violence, and we'll take credit for it and you can say that we are part of it. Everything is good."

That's a twist. It's a change. And it's dangerous. And so we knew that one of the targets that these folks were interested in, and they know this over the 90-some thousand Twitter accounts that are related to ISIS, 90,000.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

M. ROGERS, CNN: And thousands of Americans who are, in some way, interested and connected to their ideology, that military bases, police officers, other things, they've talked a lot about that in these forums, in these communications.

CAMEROTA: Are you comfortable that military bases today are secure enough?

M. ROGERS, CNN: Well, somebody's -- listen, if they want to cause some harm and kill some people, they're likely to have some degree of success. You saw it happen in Texas.

You know, but for some quick action of the local police, that was shut down pretty quickly. But had that not happened, you can imagine what consequences there would have been.

So the hardened part of a military post is they can ramp up that security very, very quickly. Lots of soft targets around a military installation. you have to worry about that and what that means for police and police resources and how they do it. And again, the problem with this is that they're inspiring someone to

do it. So there might not be a chain of facts you can follow that says, "Oops, this guy in this town is starting to get motivated to do this particular act." Very difficult to detect. That's what I think they're worried about.

CAMEROTA: Mike Rogers, we always appreciate getting your expertise on NEW DAY.

M. ROGERS, CNN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you so much.

Let's get over to Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alisyn, does it seem to you wherever George Zimmerman goes, trouble seems to follow? But this time he's on the other side of the gun. We're going to tell you what happened and talk about why this keeps happening, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:29:30] CUOMO: Following breaking news. At least 29 people killed and more than 1,000 injured after another earthquake. This time a 7.3 magnitude rocks Nepal near the border with China and Mt. Everest.

We have new video here showing people obviously running for their lives as the ground starts to shake underneath them. This comes just weeks after that last earthquake, a 7.8 that has killed so far more than 8,000 people.

PEREIRA: The New England Patriots are standing by their star quarterback, Tom Brady. Brady suspended by the NFL for the first four games of the upcoming season over Deflategate. Owner Robert Kraft, though, says Brady has the team's unconditional support.