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Nepal Suffers Another Earthquake; Tom Brady and Patriots Punished for Game Ball Deflation; Report of Staged Bin Laden Raid Criticized by White House. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired May 12, 2015 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00] IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- boom, another powerful earthquake, 7.3 magnitude, hits these people already traumatized and still struggling to overcome the damage from the initial earthquake. So the Nepalese government is already saying just five hours since this earthquake that the death toll has risen to 29 dead and more than 1,000 injured. Next door in India, India says at least three people have been killed by a falling wall, and the earthquake went across borders to India, to China as well.

If there's a silver lining here, it's that there was a lot of emergency assistance and search and rescue crews and aid workers who flooded into Nepal after the April 25th earthquake, and they're hard at work trying to rescue people. So the Indian air force already has helicopters in the air rescuing dozens of wounded people. The Nepalese military is already at work trying to collect wounded people from out in the countryside. You've got police digging through the rubble of buildings in downtown Nepal, buildings that were damaged two-and-a-half weeks ago that then were brought down by this latest round of tremors. So there is a positive thing, and that's that there is already help on the ground mobilized to help after this most recent incident.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Meanwhile, Ivan, as we watch the video here, we see all of these people streaming out into the street, and you have talked about how people already sleeping in the street because their homes have been destroyed. What's happening with these people? Where are they getting food and water and where will they be housed?

WATSON: Well, it's the same thing that they had two weeks ago when I was in Nepal is that the entire population was sleeping out in whatever kind of makeshift shelter they could set up outdoors. A city like Katmandu sandwiched between hills, there's not a lot of open space. So people were sleeping under tarps in traffic islands, any bit of open ground they can find because they don't want to be under any kind of structure that could come tumbling down.

So my prediction is that most of that population will be out in the open again tonight. This is a population traumatized by the earthquake of two-and-a-half weeks ago. Imagine, Alisyn, that your house, your place of shelter, the place where your kids go, where you sleep at night, all of a sudden you don't trust it anymore because it could become your coffin. The shaking earth could bring it down on top of you. And that is the situation that most of the population that Nepal is in right now, and as the rainy season, the monsoon season approaches, it's devastating. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: It's just terrible, Ivan. Thank you so much for the reporting and explaining exactly what it looks like there. Let's get to Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Big story breaking today. Tom Brady's agent says he's going to appeal the four-game suspension handed down by the league over deflate-gate. The punishment for Brady and for the Patriots is unprecedented in its toughness. CNN's John Berman is here with the painful details.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, hits them in the wallet right away, $1 million, hits them on the field next season, Tom Brady suspended, and for years to come with the loss of draft picks. This goes way beyond the normal guidelines for this type of infraction, all three footballs, normally the guidelines there for a $25,000 fine. But the league said what Tom Brady did, his general awareness that these footballs were probably deflated, so egregious that it threatens the integrity of the game.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: The unprecedented penalties, including a four games suspension for Tom Brady, came less than a week after the bombshell 243-page report on deflate-gate.

TOM BRADY, NFL QUARTERBACK: I don't have really any reaction. I have not had much time to digest it fully.

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

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

ELI MANNING, QUARTERBACK, NEW YORK GIANTS: Someone is breaking rules, I understand you are going to get punished for it.

BERMAN: The report led the league to not only bench the 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 its 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 have 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. It has no legitimate basis." New England fans are showing their supports online and beyond. There is a hash-tag, "No Brady, no banner," pressing the NFL to wait to raise the championship banner until Brady is back on the field.

[08:05:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want to see a banner with no Brady. He's been the franchise.

BERMAN: The Patriot's 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, the unprecedented nature of this punishment, unprecedented, some might call it inconsistent, might largely be due to history here. The league made clear it issued such a stiff punishment because of the Patriot's past of bending or breaking the rules. Remember 2007 the spy-gate controversy. That's why they went so hard this time. Michaela?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, to dig into it, Dan Shaughnessy is a columnist for "The Boston Globe." It's a tough day for a Boston guy like you, and I want to read back your own words that you wrote in your article. Your latest piece says "This is bad, folks. Your football dynasty is no longer credible." You go on to say that this is going to stick with the Patriots forever. Why do you feel so strongly that way?

DAN SHAUGHNESSY, SPORTS COLUMNIST, "BOSTON GLOBE": Well, you don't want to have these kind of words attached to your franchise, your institution. And the Patriots have had a lot of success, four Super Bowl champions, more appearance. They win their division every year. It's been a sustained success, a dynasty almost. And to have a scandal where the words "cheating" are involved, and these kinds of punitive, these kinds of sanctions, that does stick. As they move forward, they have assembled a lot of enemies, and those enemies now have a weapon to use against them.

PEREIRA: John was telling us that a normal discipline is a $25,000 fine for altering a ball. Do you think that anybody inside the Patriot's locker room or the organization anticipated such a stiff penalty and fine?

SHAUGHNESSY: I do not think they anticipated this. Bob Kraft last week when the report was released, he said the Patriots would go along with whatever the league ruled. His statement yesterday was a little bit different. He is now saying this is way worse than we thought it was going to be, which makes me wonder if they are going to appeal and contest as well. We already know that Brady is appealing. That makes sense. The Players Association usually do that on his behalf. But at this point it looks like the Patriots may also try to fight this.

PEREIRA: It's so interesting because you look at the Wells report, and I think we can pull up a graphic of what they put in that report. "We do not believe that there was any wrongdoing or knowledge of wrongdoing by Patriots ownership, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, or any other Patriots coach in the matters investigated." So why would the NFL come down so harshly?

SHAUGHNESSY: Well, it is harsh, and it does seem excessive, and I think that they answer to your question is, one, there is a prior, the spy-gate scandal in 2007, and that is cited in the report as used against them. Also they don't feel the Patriots were compliant or fully forthcoming. They would not let them back to this ball deflator, McNally guy, once the texts were discovered. Patriots legal counsel barred him from the investigators, they took that away. There's also the notion that Tom Brady did not supply his cell phone, texts --

PEREIRA: Right, the defiance, right.

SHAUGHNESSY: The league doesn't like that. The league doesn't like it when you stiff-arm them and say we're not going to cooperate with you. So those things compiled with the prior, I think they really would have felt better if the Patriots had said, yes, you got us, we won't do that anymore. The Patriots have chose to go the other way, play themselves as victims and deny this and accuse and point fingers, and that's not playing well with the league right now.

PEREIRA: One of the issues that many are wondering is if there is such inconsistency in the NFL. We look at the trouble the NFL has had at late, the domestic violence issues, and then you also look, I think last year the Carolina Panthers, the Minnesota Vikings used sideline heaters to heat up balls on a cold day, which we know is not legal to do. They were caught, they were warned. Where is the consistency?

SHAUGHNESSY: Well, there is never consistency, I agree with that, and this is where the Patriots are so up in arms about this, that you have Ray Rice assaulting his girlfriend in an elevator and it's a two-game suspension. You deflate footballs and it's four? No one can get their head around that.

What the league is trying to do is not continue to make mistakes.

PEREIRA: So you think this is the new NFL?

SHAUGHNESSY: I think there is that. I think the Patriots are paying the price for the other mistakes that were made, so you have that. And competitive violations, rules violations, the commission is very strong on this. This goes to the integrity of the game. They take those very seriously, not that they don't with personal contact with other people, but the competitive things they take seriously. And the other instances you mentioned, those teams fessed up and said, yes, you got us, they did that right away, which tends to placate the judge here.

PEREIRA: That softens the blow a little bit.

OK, so here's a question then, legacy. Let's talk legacy about Tom Brady. Is he going to be an asterisk guy for time in memoriam?

SHAUGHNESSY: This is the saddest part of this for me. I mean, Tom Brady is a top shelf, standup guy, this wonderful story, for everyone to look up to and really has never done anything. There's no priors with Tom Brady. He has been nothing but the best and a great winner, clutch player, teammates love him, the whole ball -- PEREIRA: Does this change that narrative, though? Does this

make people who are maybe Brady haters look and say, well, maybe he was not such an all-American guy?

[08:10:05] SHAUGHNESSY: It does, it does. And a lot of them are just jealous of course, and they are able to now say this because this is attached to his name. And they're going to fight this. I am not sure about the attack on this, and Tom's agent has been going off the rails yelling at everybody. We haven't heard much from Tom yet, but if you look at his interviews the week after the investigation was raised and his interview maybe with Bob Costas during the Super Bowl week, some of things make it look as if he is totally clueless about this. And the report indicates otherwise, and he has to decide which way he wants to go now.

PEREIRA: Dan Shaughnessy, so good to have your voice with us on NEW DAY. Thanks so much for joining us today. We will be watching this to be sure. Alright, Alisyn?

SHAUGHNESSY: Thanks, Michaela.

CAMEROTA: Thank you, Michaela.

Well, the White House insists it does not stage the 2011 raid that killed Usama bin Laden and they're slamming a report by journalist Seymour Hersh. Herse claims the terrorist was already in Pakistan custody when he was killed and accuses the Obama administration of concocting a web of lies. Let's bring in CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski. Michelle, what are they saying there?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, the White House didn't mince words in blasting this report, calling it patently false that the U.S. worked with the Pakistani government and this assertion on the raid last night, and then of course crafted together this year's long rouse. Here's what the press secretary said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: It might be hard for some analysts to mine out what they would consider to be any grains of truth here, but conceivably there are some. I think this idea that somebody in Pakistani intelligence could have known where Osama bin Laden has been hiding all these years, sure, that's something that has been talked about even by the former CIA director and secretary of state.

And what about this assertion that it was somebody who one day walked into the U.S. embassy and tipped everybody off? CNN sources aren't ruling out that at some point somebody may have walked in and given some information, but they are disputing that it was any one person who really blew the case wide open. Chris?

CUOMO: Alright, Michelle, thank you very much.

The head of the NSA says online recruiting may be the most dangerous aspect of ISIS. The fact more and more Americans are being caught in the net. CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has more on this. Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Chris, a stark warning from director of the NSA. We know of course after the Garland, Texas, attacks, that the attackers pledge allegiance to ISIS, and also the fact that ISIS said they were acting on their behalf. We don't at this stage according to investigators know there were clear operational links, but Admiral Rogers saying the ideal of ISIS is spreading within the U.S.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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 a great concern. It's a trend that things would suggest is increasing, not decreasing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALSH: Of course, there is key context with the statements he is making, the NSA are busy trying to renew the surveillance capabilities they had after criticism of revelations made by Edward Snowden. But increasingly this threat is hard to define. It doesn't seem to necessary have links back to ISIS leadership. In fact just yesterday a video emerging with ISIS affiliated computer experts or hackers suggested they had hacking plans ahead to attack the U.S., a complex, serious, as, too, is the need for the NSA to respect individual privacy in the America. Back to you, Chris.

CUOMO: Nick Paton Walsh, thank you. Michaela?

PEREIRA: A five-day ceasefire set to begin later today in Yemen. As the deadline nears war places from a Saudi led coalition have stepped up airstrikes on Houthi rebel targets. The ceasefire is meant to allow humanitarian aid to reach thousands of Yemeni citizens who have enduring power outages and shortages of food, water, and medicine. Over 1,400 civilians have been killed so far in the conflict.

CAMEROTA: Tension building in Madison, Wisconsin. Later today the family of Tony Robinson will find out if the officer who shot and killed the unarmed teenager will be charged. The D.A. set to announce a decision after a two-month long independent investigation. CNN's national reporter, Ryan Young, is live from Madison for us this morning. Tell us the mood there.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, people are bracing for this because they want to know what will happen next. Tony Robinson was shot just about the outside of that apartment right there. The reports that night were that somebody was running between cars, hitting cars, and actually assaulting people.

When the officer arrived here, he said he heard a noise, went on the inside, and there was a struggle, but also reports that he suffered a concussion after an encounter.

[08:15:02] He pulled his gun and started firing shots. Tony Robinson was shot and killed here. Now of course, some people in the community wanted to know, why wasn't a Taser used? In Madison if an officer is by themselves, they can't use a Taser. So he used his gone, he did suffer a concussion. Now people in this community want to know exactly what is going to happen. They want to know from the DA, will charges be filed? It's something that we are waiting to hear later this afternoon.

Chris.

CUOMO: Alright, Ryan. Thank you for staying on that for us. You know that screening equipment that all of us go through at the airports, (INAUDIBLE)? Well, it turns out a bunch of it doesn't work. The Inspector General of Homeland Security says the TSA is mismanaging maintenance on all of its gear, to the point where they don't even know which equipment needs repairs. The report concludes the traveling public was left vulnerable to terrorist attacks because of it.

PEREIRA: Technology needs maintenance. I mean, it does. It just does. That has to be infuriating to taxpayers.

CUOMO: And no hedge in that report.

CAMEROTA: Right. And everybody who waits in those lines, you know, everybody suspects that all the things you're doing, taking off your shoes, you hope it's working.

CUOMO: Have you had that experience where, when you go through -- I know some of them, you're going to say, oh, don't give any tips to terrorists. Please. Sometimes you go through one of these and you go, oh, I have this thing in my pocket --

CAMEROTA: Right.

PEREIRA: A gigantic bottle of cologne.

CUOMO: -- and nothing happens. Yes.

CAMEROTA: That Chris carries all the time.

CUOMO: Aramis and Old Spice. Everybody loves it. They've got to maintain these things, and the question is why don't you? And that will be the next part.

PEREIRA: Money. CAMEROTA: Alright. Meanwhile, we do have more for you on that new

warning about ISIS. A growing number of Americans reportedly vulnerable to these social media recruitment tactics. Why? And who is most likely to be sucked into this web?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:24] CUOMO: The Obama administration firing back at veteran investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, denying his claims that the raid that killed Osama bin Laden was staged. A White House official calling Hersh's article "baseless," insisting there are too many inaccuracies to fact-check them all.

Let's bring in Ahmed Rashid. He is a leading Pakistani journalist who has published multiple books about extremist in South and Central Asia.

Ahmed, thank you very much for joining us. What has been the reaction among your sources and people on the ground where you are in Lahore, Pakistan, to this story?

AHMED RASHID, PAKISTANI JOURNALIST: Well, it has received a lot of publicity, as you can imagine. There's a lot of division. I think a lot of the right-wing, which has traditionally been anti-American, the Islamic Party and other such groups have taken -- have adopted the story and said it's absolutely true, Obama was lying about bin Laden. They tend to forget about the fact that the story also implicates the Pakistan army as being involved in hiding bin Laden.

But I think by and large, most of the liberal urban middle class has shrugged this off as just one more story. Remember that in Pakistan, we have had no proper inquiry as to what actually happened and whether bin Laden was being kept under somebody's orders and all the demands in the newspapers today point to a demand for transparency and a proper Pakistani investigation.

CUOMO: With your experience and your sources in this space of reporting, what pieces of Hersh's article make sense to you? Because nothing is ever all true or all false, or rarely is that the case. What do you see here worth talking about?

RASHID: I am a great admirer of Seymour Hersh and I've followed him religiously for the last 40 years and he - you know, the problem with his stories are that either you accept the whole story or you reject it. Unfortunately, compared to other investigative journalists, you can't take bits and pieces and say yes.

But I think the story doesn't make sense because the central premise is that the Pakistan army colluded with the Americans in handing over bin Laden to the Americans. Now if that was the case, why go through all this charade of having an American SEAL raid on Abbottabad, killing so many people, killing bin Laden, etc. Surely if there was collusion and the two sides were in cahoots with one another, then it would have made sense for the Pakistanis just quietly handed bin Laden over to the Americans or assassinated him. CUOMO: You know, Hersh's theory is that - according to his source

- is that the Pakistanis couldn't outwardly be complying because of the right-wing faction, as you know very well, their tendencies and sympathies. But NBC has given him a little bit of support on what is construed in his piece as a walk-in, meaning literally someone going into the Islamabad Embassy. NBC News says they do believe that an independently developed intelligence source by U.S. military did start giving them information that led them to the courier, so Hersh could have that part right.

RASHID: I agree with you. By the way, this talk about a walk-in into the U.S. Embassy has been around for at least two years. This is not something new. I think a lot of people do believe in him. And of course, what the walk-in does, is it contradicts not what has Hersh upset so much. What it contradicts is the fact that the American story about tracking down the Kuwaiti brothers who were looking after bin Laden in this house, tracking them down through all this, you know, the CIA and all the surveillance, etc., was actually not the true story. The location of the house was given to them by this walk-in. And that's quite possible. But it doesn't really then go on to justify the rest of what Hersh is talking about, which is that there was collusion with the Pakistan army and the Americans.

CUOMO: Ahmed, thank you so much for your take on this. I'm sure this conversation is going to continue.

RASHID: Thank you very much.

[08:25:01] CUOMO: Alright. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay, Chris. Well, a Cleveland police officer charged in the deaths of two suspects shot and killed after a long chase. But if 13 officers fired shots, why is only Mike Brelo the officer facing a lengthy prison term? We'll take a look at this case as the verdict looms.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: We are following breaking news for you out of Nepal. The death toll keeps rising, by at this hour at least 29 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured after an earthquake hits Nepal again. The new earthquake coming just weeks after that other massive earthquake hit the region, killing more than 8,000 people.

Let's get right to CNN's senior international correspondent Ivan Watson. He is live in Hong Kong. Ivan, what's the latest?

[08:29:40] WATSON: You have a real effort underway to try to rescue people hurt in this most recent disaster hitting Nepal. The Nepalese search and rescue teams, the military and the police are out digging through the rubble of buildings that collapsed in this most recent earthquake, trying to get out to some of the villages in the mountains, in the countryside, to evacuate some of the -- more than 1,000 people that the government says have been wounded.