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CNN NEWSROOM

Obama Spoke In Berlin; Classified Document Sent To Capitol Hill; AMA Declares Obesity A Disease; New Film Examines TWA Flight 800 Crash; House OKs 20-Week Abortion Ban; Michael Jackson's Family Chef Testifies; Los Angeles Bans Plastic Bags; Heat Force Game 7 Of NBA Finals; Twister Lands At Denver Airport; Woman, Daughter Held In Ohio; Investors Waiting For Bernanke's Remarks

Aired June 19, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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


JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: -- foreign policy priority from the day that he first came into the Senate. He said that that was going to be a priority for him in the "State of the Union" address earlier this year and he has made good on it here in the speech even if it's unlikely to come to pass.

But the big theme here, Carol, is President Obama speaking finally at the Brandenburg Gate where he wanted to speak five years ago, but Angela Merkel said no, that's for sitting presidents, I'm not wading into presidential politics, and laying out his vision and his values for the next five years -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: But you just can't help it because then candidate Obama did speak in Germany not far from the Brandenburg Gate and we have pictures so you can see the difference in the crowd size. Screen left, going to go screen left, see the crowds today in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate, couple of thousands people.

But you can see in 2008, how many people in Germany turned out to see this fresh, new politician from America, speak to the masses. It is 10:00 Eastern. I just want to tell our viewers just joining us where we are. I'm Carol Costello. Welcome to NEWSROOM.

President Obama just gave a, what he hopes will be, a historical speech at the Brandenburg Gate, the place where that wall came down, separating East and West Germany and uniting the country. As you know, President Reagan gave that famous speech where he said, Mr. Gorbachev tear down the wall. President Kennedy gave a historic speech before him.

President Obama took the stage to the delight of the crowd. It's very hot in Berlin right now. The first thing he did is he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and he invited the crowd to do the same thing. The crowd be loved that, gave him a huge round of applause.

He also talked about Michele Obama and his daughters. They're also in Germany. He said they didn't come to the speech because they're enjoying the beauty of your country. The crowd also loved that. But the bulk of his speech was made up -- he was talking about the nuclear arsenal. And I'm talking about the nuclear arsenal all over the world and how he wants to cut deployed nuclear weapons by up to one third. He also said the United States wants to host a 2016 summit on securing atomic material and he also called on Russia to move beyond cold war postures.

He touched on other topics as well, and I would like to go to Gloria Borger to talk about that. Gloria, the president did touch on Gitmo and, you know, the state of perpetual war the world seems to be in right now. He touched on those topics and then he moved on.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's interesting to me that the president of the United States has to go to Berlin, which is a place of great history, as you point out, at the Brandenburg Gate, to give a speech with such a sweep that -- of his overall goals, as president of the United States in a perfect world.

I mean, he spent a lot of his time reminding us where we have been in this world and how far we still need to go. This is a president who he adopted the rubric of overall he spoke frequently in the speech about something he called peace with justice and over and over again, whether it was the nuclear weapons reduction, whether it was energy policy, climate change, trade, human rights, the importance of freedom all over the globe.

This is a president who kind of stood back from the issues that he has to deal with every single day in the United States, whether it's the economy, immigration reform, everything else, and said, this is what we need to think about as a world. In a way to me, it was oddly similar what we did five years ago not at the Brandenburg Gate, but down the road, because he spoke about a world in which he would like to live and how it should change.

He also talked about and he's spoken about this in America is how we have to move beyond the mindset of perpetual war. That's when he spoke about closing down Guantanamo, when he spoke about balancing liberty and security. So those are the real world issues that he kind of brought into this. The problems that he's had to deal with.

But mostly I think it was a president who wanted to kind of put down a stake and say, like JFK, like Ronald Reagan, I share their values as an American president and these are the things I feel like I need to talk to you about today as an American president.

COSTELLO: Interesting. I thought he would get into -- a little more into the privacy issue. I want to ask Dana Bash about this topic because if you read the German newspapers, Dana, German people are really upset about the NSA controversy going on in the United States and the collection of this internet data. Because they feel that they're targets and, you know, East Germany was once a communist state, they had secret police there. They collected information, they spied on people. This is disturbing to the German people.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It absolutely is, and the president did address it earlier in the day when he had a press conference with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he was very defensive of the program, insisted it would continue and tried to explain to the German people just like he's been doing here in the United States why he thinks it's critical to have these programs continue, to keep people safe, and that their privacy isn't really intruded on that much.

But I think just to pick up what Gloria said, what was so striking to me from my perch now on Capitol Hill, and watching the president have these skirmishes every day with important legislative issues he wants to have for his legacy, this is taking it up to 10,000, 20,000 feet. This is a legacy speech with regard to his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations, never mind the realities that he has to deal with here on Capitol Hill and down the street at the White House every single day.

I mean, this is what presidents do when they're abroad, especially when they're trying to sort of give a message to a continent like Europe, a country like germ my, about where America stands and when somebody like Barack Obama, who knows that the idealistic politician who wanted to be president, who got people to come in droves, hundreds of thousands of people, is still that same guy despite his difficulties in translating that campaign rhetoric to governing.

COSTELLO: All right, Dana Bash, Gloria Borger, Jessica Yellin, thanks so much. Dana talked about the realities back home. Well, let's talk about one of the realities. Let's turn our attention to Capitol Hill where the outgoing head of the FBI is in the hot seat. FBI Director Robert Mueller just began testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and this is an oversight hearing into his agency. He will likely be grilled on the FBI's involvement into the government's sweeping surveillance activities. We're monitoring his testimony and we'll bring you any developments that come out of this hearing.

Mueller's visit comes as lawmakers get a chance to see if classified documents -- to see a classified document in private that details more of the terrorist plots claimed to be stopped by those secret surveillance programs. That document will include information on a 2009 plot to bomb the New York City subway system. Najibullah Zazi later confessed to that failed attack.

Also part of that surveillance program, a foiled bombing plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange and a foiled plot in 2008 to bomb a Danish newspaper for publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. It's also led to reopening of a case by the NSA because of what analysts say they uncovered. The U.S. was then able to disrupt some sort of terrorist activity.

Karen Greenberg is the director for the Center of National Security at Fordham University. Karen, welcome.

KAREN GREENBERG, DIRECTOR, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY AND CENTER ON NATIONAL SECURITY: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. So today the NSA will turn over secret documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee and they'll look at these documents and hopefully they'll discover 50 thwarted terror plots because of this NSA program. Will the public ever get to see these documents? GREENBERG: Unlikely that the public will get to see these documents. They may get to see parts of them, but I think the larger question is, will Congress know how to interpret those documents? Meaning that there are a lot of facts and trails that go into creating an investigation of an alleged terrorist and to connect the dots and to know what actually led to discovery, arrest, indictment, et cetera is very difficult.

And to say that the NSA surveillance program is what actually led to detecting and arresting these individuals may prove hard in some of the cases. It may not prove hard in two of the cases you mentioned, the David Headley case or the Najibullah Zazi case. There has to be some degree of skepticism about just what they uncover.

And it may be that they uncover what many have suspected for a long time that follow terrorism trials, which is that there is sometimes very scant involvement on the part of the individual targeted and the individual surveilled about the specifics and in particular, we might find out in the New York Stock Exchange case.

COSTELLO: Well, I was going to ask you that. So the NSA can't exactly come out and say this is just one tool we use. They need to make this program very important to their investigations in order to keep it going?

GREENBERG: Right. I think that's right and it can be one of their tools. The problem with this program as we're finding out about it is that it is so much broader. It covers such a wide swath. It is not really about targeting individuals. It's about trying to find a need until a haystack.

You have to ask yourselves too questions, one the constitutional issues and are people protected in this kind of surveillance program? And two, the issue of is this really the best way to go about finding terrorists. Is more information and what we could call clutter you have to sift through, really the way to go about finding those people who threaten to harm us.

COSTELLO: Karen Greenberg, I'm sure we'll be talking to you again on this topic. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.

GREENBERG: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: Also this morning, America's tireless fight over fat, obesity. The American Medical Association now says obesity is a disease, a disease. That means a lot of Americans are sick. More than one third of U.S. adults are obese and 17 percent of children between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese. That's nearly triple the rate of childhood obesity since 1980. Obesity-related health care costs are estimated between $147 billion and $210 billion per year.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to talk about the AMA's decision. So, Sanjay, the AMA says obesity is a disease like heart disease or cancer or something like that?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, you know, when something is called a disease like this, I think it is more than just semantics, which I guess you're alluding to, Carol. You can think of it like cancer or diabetes. I think what it means for the medical community, potentially, is that they can now spend more time, perhaps counseling patients.

So they may get more reimbursements, for example, for that sort of thing and that may drive some more treatments for obesity, but it also could increase research in funding toward obesity. Look, this is no secret, you know, this has been a problem for some time, although those numbers that you just shared are still startling to look at.

One way to look at this is maybe they'll think of it more like how we should think about smoking and even driving safety several years ago. When you started thinking about smoking in this way then it led into all these interventions towards smoking, led to public smoking bans, things like that, driver safety led to air bags and seat belts.

You may think obesity more in that category, but clearly the strong the signal. The AMA can't say it's a disease specifically, they don't have that authority, but it's a strong signal to the medical community.

COSTELLO: Some people say it might have the opposite effect. It might, you know, if you're -- it's difficult to lose weight. It really is. So let's say you are obese and now you know you have a disease, does that mean maybe that you won't exercise or eat right because you have this disease? It's not your fault.

GUPTA: Yes. I think that is certainly possible and frankly that happens now, Carol. I mean, there's certainly a lot of interest and will continue to be a lot of interests in all sorts of tactics for medications to operations to quick fixes to try to address obesity. But Carol, I think your point is a good one. This whole notion of how much of this is personal responsibility and how much of this is a disease, as you said, like cancer that, you know, is completely out of your control?

I don't think the AMA is answering that question, but clearly by saying that we're going to think of obesity as a disease, it seems more toward -- less of the personal responsibility, more of the renal fat cells in the body behave differently. We know it's difficult to lose weight. We know once you have a tremendous amount of fat cells in your body it's not just the extra weight but they secrete inflammatory cells and other problems.

So obesity is related to every chronic disease almost you can imagine, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis. This is the root cause they're trying to label as a disease so the root cause can be addressed.

COSTELLO: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

GUPTA: You got it.

COSTELLO: Don't miss Sanjay's show "SGMD" Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Eastern and Sunday mornings at 7:30 Eastern. It's been almost 17 years since TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island killing all 230 people on board. Now the producers of a new documentary say they have solid proof that the cause is not what federal investigators have been telling us all these years.

CNN's Rene Marsh has been looking into these claims. She's live in Washington. Good morning.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know, there is a twist this morning in this case, one of the deadliest plane crashes in U.S. history, and now some of the former investigators who handled the evidence at the scene say they have proof this was not an accident.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH (voice-over): It was a crash as horrific as it was mysterious. TWA Flight 800 explodes in mid-air 1996 off the coast of Long Island.

UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: It blew up in the air and then we saw two fireballs around it.

MARSH: All 230 on board the 747 dead. The cause after a 4-year 17,000-page NTSB investigation a spark from faulty wiring leading to the center fuel tank, but now six retired members of the original investigation team are breaking their silence. In a new documentary, they are challenging the NTSB's findings and calling for the investigation to be reopened.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was convinced that the part had been damaged by a high explosion because of the entrance hole and the exit hole.

MARSH: These former investigators whose credentials range from the NTSB, TWA, Airline Pilots Union, and forensic experts now claim that radar and forensic evidence shows the wiring was not the cause of the crash.

(on camera): What would your analysis have been?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The primary conclusion was the explosive forces came from outside the airplane, not the center fuel tank.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would that statement have been in your analysis?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If I got the right one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The agenda was that this is an accident. Make it so.

MARSH: These investigators say that the evidence they examined proves that one or more explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash. However, they don't speculate about the source of the explosions. Among the theories considered and rejected by the NTSB at the time was that a missile was responsible.

The filmmakers plan to petition the NTSB to reopen the investigation. In a statement the NTSB left that possibility open if new evidence is uncovered saying investigators and staff spent an enormous amount of time reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data, while the NTSB rarely re-investigates issues that have already been examined, our investigations are never closed and we can review any new information not previously considered by the board.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARSH: Now, Carol, I spoke with one of the documentary producers today and he admits victim family react on to the film has been mixed. It premiers next month on the 17th anniversary of the crash -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Rene Marsh, reporting live from Washington this morning.

Coming up next in the NEWSROOM, imagine you're on a plane and there's a report of a tornado on the runway. It happened in Denver. Wait until you see where passengers had to go.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking our top stories, it's 20 minutes past the hour. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has passed a far- reaching bill limiting a woman's ability to have an abortion after 20 weeks. House Speaker John Boehner says the bill is in response to news of the horrific procedures performed by Dr. Kermit Gossnel.

The White House called it, quote, "An assault on a woman's right to choose." Of course, that bill has little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate and even if it did, President Obama would likely veto it.

Testimony continues in the wrongful death trial of Michael Jackson. His family is suing concert promoter AEG Live. Jackson's personal chef told jurors that Jackson's children still feel the pain of his death. In fact, Paris Jackson no longer wants to celebrate birthdays and younger son Blanket wears a t-shirt with his father's image on it every Friday.

The court also heard moving testimony from Paris Jackson. A lawyer for AEG played video from her deposition last March, Jackson was asked about her father's relationship with their nanny.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did your father say why he didn't like her?

PARIS JACKSON, MICHAEL JACKSON'S DAUGHTER: Yes. He said she was sneaky. She wasn't an honest person and she lied a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The Jackson family lawyers have hinted the nanny was fired by AEG and not Jackson.

Los Angeles shoppers don't forget to bring your own bags. The city of Los Angeles is now the largest American city to banning plastic bags. The new rules could take effect next year and would apply for all stores like Wal-Mart and Target to smaller mom and pop stores. It you forget your reusable bags at home, you can expect to pay a 10 cent fee for each paper one you'll need.

In sports, the Miami Heat survived and forced a game seven in the NBA finals. Ray Allen's three-point shot at last night's game with San Antonio into overtime. The Heat held on to win 103-100. Game seven is tomorrow night in Miami.

In Colorado some terrifying moments, thousands of travelers had to run for cover when a tornado touched down between two of the airport's runways. The twister packed winds close to 100 miles per hour, but incredibly no injuries and no serious damage was reported and if you're wondering where the passengers had to go, they had to go into the rest rooms for cover.

It's hard to imagine but for the second time in six weeks a story of an Ohio woman and her daughter now free after accusations they were held captive in a home for more than a year. Pamela Brown is live in Ashland, Ohio, with more. Good morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. So many disturbing details in this case. According to federal authorities, a mother and child were held against their will, forced to endure unspeakable horrors. We spoke to a defense attorney for one of the suspects moments ago and he says this is not an open and shut case.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Inside this house, an Ohio woman and her child deprived of their freedom, dignity and basic needs for a year and a half according to federal authorities.

ERIC SMITH, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: These individuals deprived this woman and her child of the most fundamental of American rights, freedom.

STEVE DETTELBACH, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO: This case is nothing less than a case of modern day slavery.

BROWN: The 26-year-old Jordie Callahan, his girlfriend, 31-year-old Jessica Hunt and their friend, Daniel Brown, all charged with imprisoning a mentally disabled woman only identified as Essie and her child. Prosecutors say Essie was forced to do household chores and threatened with a pit bull and a python, and according to a law enforcement source, she and her daughter were sometimes forced to eat dog food.

DETTELBACH: Talking about people who were locked in rooms, forced to work all the time, people who were threatened and beaten and injured.

BROWN: According to court documents, Essie was also questioned as gunpoint and one of her alleged captors took out his knife and threatened to cut her finger off. Medical records show Essie visited the emergency room at least three times between 2011 and 2012 with a variety of injuries.

Ashland police say they were tipped off after Essie was arrested for trying to steal a candy bar. When police showed up at the home, Callahan allegedly showed them a video of Essie beating her daughter, but Essie says she was forced to do so by Callahan and Hunt. On "PIERS MORGAN" show Callahan's mother denies the allegations.

BECKY (via telephone): The victim went where she wanted to go, whenever she wanted to go.

BROWN: This comes on the heels of another disturbing kidnapping case in nearby Cleveland, the shocking rescue of three women held for a decade by Ariel Castro, both of these cases of alleged abuse stunning their neighbors, left wondering how this could be happening in their backyards.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And a law enforcement source that we spoke with says the victims knew the suspects before they were held captive. According to the defense attorney, Edward Brian, who represents Hunt, his -- he says that his client was simply helping the victim, giving her a stable place to live so she could regain custody of her child. He says that his client unequivocally denies the allegations. Still a lot to learn in this story, but authorities are saying more charges could be on the way soon. We have to see what happens.

COSTELLO: Pamela Brown, reporting live from Ashland, Ohio.

The clock is ticking. We'll tell you why Wall Street is waiting for word from the fed chief and why that means you better refinance like now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Right now Wall Street has its eyes trained on Washington where later today, the Fed Chief Ben Bernanke, could announce a decision about whether the Central Bank will scale back its stimulus program. Why should I care? Well, this is the program that keeps interest rates on mortgages low. Christine Romans is in New York to tell us more. Good morning.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And it keeps the unemployment rate from rising too much. That's what many economists say, Carol. Look, what Ben Bernanke and the fed do about what -- about their stimulus is incredibly important to everyone's 401(k), to interest rates, to mortgage rates and to the health of the American economy.

I want you to imagine Ben Bernanke, Carol, as a fireman, a firefighter, with this huge, huge, wide hose and he is spraying money into the economy, $85 billion worth of money gushing into the economy every month. That's essentially what the stimulus is doing, $85 billion a month. That can't go on forever.

Every time the economy shows a little bit more strength, a little bit more stability, the questions arise is, will Ben Bernanke and crew slow down the trickle of money coming into the economy and what will happen? So what they will be doing today is weighing things that are going right in the economy.

Housing is recovering, the job market, we're adding about 190,000 jobs a month on average this year, inflation is under control, consumer spending is rising, but we still have high long-term unemployment. We still have slow economic growth.