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NEW DAY

Budget Vote Coming; Man Dead In Mall Shooting; Amnesty For Snowden?; Saudi Prince Blasts Obama Administration; Deadly Bus Crash; All You Need Is iTunes; "Sister Wives" Ruling; Peter O'Toole Dies

Aired December 16, 2013 - 07:30   ET

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


JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- leading negotiators, she had conversations with the president and his team and they said, what can we do, and she said, "Back off. That's what you can do. Let me do this. You are not trusted up here. I am. I can get this done."

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And she did so they got it done. We see what happens once they all hopefully have a very merry holiday season after the vote.

KING: We will see if anything more comes from it. I am skeptical of that.

BOLDUAN: I think there is a good reason to be sceptical, John. It's called history and your many years of reporting.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You have to be hopeful though. You have to encourage them. My wife is telling me about what to do with the kids. Accentuate the positive, accentuate the positive.

BOLDUAN: They say you need to treat lawmakers like they were children.

CUOMO: If they were my kids, some red fannies.

BOLDUAN: John, would you like to weigh in on that?

KING: Santa Cuomo, I like this a lot. It's a healthy holiday spirit.

CUOMO: Santa is Italian, everybody knows that.

BOLDUAN: Here we go! Great to see you, John.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: I think the same thing is turn to me for the latest before we get ourselves into any trouble here. Let's bring you up to date on the latest news. Amnesty could be on the table for NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The man looking into the leaks tells "60 Minutes," it's worth having a conversation about. Authorities would need to be certain everything Snowden took would be returned.

A violent end to Christmas shopping at the high end New Jersey mall, an apparent carjacking has left a man dead after being shot in the head. His wife was not injured. Police say the pair were walking back to their car in a parking deck when two men confronted them, open fire and stole their Range Rover. Police are now looking for shooters and that stolen vehicle.

A Saudi prince blasting the Obama administration calling indecisive saying it has lost credibility with its allies in the Middle East. Prince Turki Al Faisal is Saudi Arabia's former head of intelligence. The government there is upset with Washington's lack of intervention in Syria and in dealings with Iran. The prince made his comments at a world policy conference in Monaco.

A frightening bus crash in the Philippines, that bus plunging off a freeway and on to a van below, at least 15 people were killed. There with is no word on a cause yet. It was apparently raining at the time and there was heavy, heavy traffic on the highway. Some of the injured are said to be in serious condition. That bus company has now been temporarily suspended from operating.

Get ready for another round of Beatle mania. The BBC is reporting 59 rare and largely unheard of Beatle's tracks should be on iTunes tomorrow. The digital compilation includes BBC's sessions for ultimate takes of "She Loves You" and five takes of "A Taste of Honey." The release is meant to stop the song's copyright protection from expiring. I know, Beatle fans will be kind of snapping those up.

CUOMO: Coming up on NEW DAY, a big win for TLC's "Sister Wise," a federal judge sides with them, strikes down part of Utah's polygamy laws. Are the floodgates now open? We are going to speak with their attorney.

BOLDUAN: And remembering a true great of the silver screen, Peter O'Toole takes his final curtain call leaving behind some of the best movies ever made.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Sweet emotion, I'm not sure what that has to do with the snowstorm. You figure it out for us, Indra. What do we know? What's going on with the weather?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I literally have nothing. Good news, we are transitioning between two systems. We are still talking about lots of lake effect snow. Tiny pieces of energy through the Ohio Valley so maybe an inch or so there, but for now, we are kind of just transitioning. You can see behind you, there is another system on the way. This is what we going to be talking about as we go through tonight and tomorrow.

We are going to see a low form off to the coast. This is up with of those guys you have to watch where it forms. If it's closer to that coastline, we get more moisture, where it forms, it talks about how much snow we are going to get. We are going to monitor this closely, overnight, mid-Atlantic, north east. You will have snow as far as amounts again. We will get there.

It does move off shore by Wednesday or so. First estimates, this is what we're looking at, one to three inches in New York or Boston. Jersey could get some as well. We will monitor that farther inland. Erie, 4 to 8 inches is possible, kind of two systems the first one today that, second one kicking through.

Otherwise, we are talking cold air. Jet stream dug down. It feels good, it is staying cold. You don't believe me. New York City goes from 28 to 31. So a hint better. Either way, we should be in the 40s and Boston, below average, adding a little snow into that flare as well.

BOLDUAN: All right, I don't know how you concentrate with all that going on behind you.

PETERSONS: That was the flare I was talking about.

BOLDUAN: There is a lot of flare. You didn't get to see that, though.

All right, let's take a turn now. The stars of the hit reality TV show "Sister Wives" are celebrating this morning. A federal judge in Utah has struck down key parts of the state's polygamy law. Does this make their lifestyle legal? CNN's Pamela Brown is here taking a look at this. What did you learn?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the bottom line here is this could set an important precedent. Kate and Chris, you talk court ruling, basically does not legalize polygamy, but it allows polygamous in the heavily Mormon state to legally live together

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Love should multiply, not divide.

BROWN (voice-over): Kody Brown star of the hit reality show, "Sister Wives" gained a victory for polygamy after parts of the longstanding ban on multiple marriages in Utah was ruled unconstitutional late Friday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are moving to Las Vegas in a few days.

BROWN: In 2011, Brown fled from Utah to Nevada along with his four wives and 17 children. Days after their controversial television debut triggered a police investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wouldn't be here altogether if we weren't committed. We know the commitment is there.

BROWN: Brown sued the state two years ago claiming their privacy rights were being violated by the decades old law. Now he has a whopping 21 reasons to celebrate after a Utah judge threw out the section prohibiting cohabitation saying it violates constitutional guarantees of due process and religious freedom. But the ruling does not make it is legal. It means families of multiple husbands or wives who live together, but don't seek more than one marriage license cannot be prosecuted.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a huge deal and there is work to be done.

BROWN: Darger family, friends of the Browns and fellow Utah polygamists shared an overjoyed phone call with Brown minutes after the ruling.

JOE DARGER, POLYGAMIST, MCI UTAH PRESIDENT: Kody was like, Joe, we won. I can't believe it. We won and I said, really? He says, we got everything we worked for.

BROWN: But not everyone is jumping for joy over the ruling. Russell Moore, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention said polygamy was outlawed in this country because it was demonstrated again and again to hurt women and children.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And Kody Brown released a statement that reads in part, we hope that in time all of our neighbors and fellow citizens will come to respect our own choices as part of this wonderful country of different faiths and beliefs. Meantime, Utah's attorney general tells CNN, quote, "We will carefully review the ruling and decide whether or not we will appeal" -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, let's bring in Jonathan Turley here. He is a law professor at George Washington University and more importantly he is the attorney for Kody Brown and his four wives, joining us from Washington as I said. Professor, thank you for joining us this morning.

JONATHAN TURLEY, BROWN FAMILY ATTORNEY: Good morning, Chris.

CUOMO: Let's deal with the law first. Then we'll get to the practice. OK, this ruling unpack it for us, it kind of skirts around the bigamy aspect of this and goes to the living aspect. Tell us about it.

TURLEY: Well, what it does is it does in fact make a lifestyle of polygamists legal in the sense that it is no longer a crime. So plural families can now go out into public and be what they are and represent themselves for what they believe their faith demands. They will not be subject to prosecution. They will not be subject to threats that their children will be taken away from them.

The court did what we suggested. The judge said that the only way you could be prosecuted in Utah is if you have more than one marriage license. That's the conventional bigamy statute. Most polygamists do not have multiple marriage licenses. Most polygamist families have a single marriage license with the state and the rest of their marriages are called spiritual marriages. And these are agreement between consenting adults. They want to have a plural family. As of this decision, that is now legal.

CUOMO: Well, you know, interesting, on one level, this was an interesting move for the judge because he kind of gave credence to what laid the ground for same-sex marriage saying that this was functionally about the law as opposed to our religion or how you feel about it. Then you get to what the broader implications are of this particular policy. A lot of these polygamist marriages, the concern is that there is exploitation involved. So what's the concern going forward here?

TURLEY: Well, Chris, the judge talked about that and the important thing to remember here is that the Brown family was under investigation for two years. The state found no abuses, no crimes at all. They are a family with obviously a plural structure. But they have none of these violations. And you could band monogamy if you start to point to other abuse of marriages and say, well, those are bad. Therefore, we should outlaw monogamy. We don't that.

That's why this opinion was a real profile of courage for the judge. He said, look, it would have been easy for me to turn them down like other judges, but he said it wouldn't be the moral or legal thing to do. It would be wrong. They have a right to privacy. They have a right to follow their religion and the rest of society can't say we're going to declare you criminals because we don't like your choices.

CUOMO: But because marriage is a legal construct fundamentally, why can't they define it as we only define it as between two people. You can't have multiple parties to a marriage. We won't license it. If you do so, it becomes again about a fraudulent license. You can define it. That's what I'm saying.

TURLEY: Now that's a valid question. The important distinction we have in this case is the Browns never asked for recognition of these marriages. They never asked for the court to issue multiple licenses. Most polygamist families have not asked for that. They don't desire that. They just want to be according to Justice Brandeis of the Supreme Court to have the right to be left alone, to make their own choices.

Whether a state recognizes this or other forms of marriages is an entirely different question. Most people in this country can't imagine what it's like to have their government declare their entire family criminal enterprise.

CUOMO: Right.

TURLEY: Simply because they are living in a plural structure. The other thing to remember, Chris, is this affects beyond polygamists. It's privacy.

CUOMO: That's true. We will have to live that another day in terms of what it means for people who live together, but aren't formally recognized. But advocate the other side for a second here. What does this mean in terms of protecting young women from being exploited and put into situations that they shouldn't be in? What does this leave us in terms of rights and remedies to pursue those situations?

TURLEY: That's an important question. In fact, I should note that the Browns have always been publicly opposed to people like Warren Jeffs and others that are guilty of these abuses. I actually think this decision will help a big deal. One of the reasons polygamists have been to compounds and live off the radar is because you criminalize their families.

By allowing them to integrate into communities to be opened, we will be able to detect those abuses more. We will be able to respond better as we do when those abuses occur in monogamous families. I think this will be a great step forward in that sense.

CUOMO: Right. However, as you well know, Professor, the dynamic of polygamy does allow an invitation to abuse the monogamy may not. I mean, you know the areas we are talking about. You know the situations we are talking about. I have been there, I have reported on them as well. There is a legitimate risk, fair point?

TURLEY: There is. There is also that risk in monogamy. You need to remember there is a great variety in plural relationships. I think people going to be surprised as this becomes decriminalized, how many different types of families and relations we have in this country. It's a part of the fact that we live in a pluralistic nation with people of different values and different life styles.

CUOMO: We will have to see how it plays out. Certainly we know the states reviewing it with an eye toward appeal may not be easy. We will follow up on it, thank you very much, Professor. Appreciate it this morning.

TURLEY: Thank you, Chris.

BOLDUAN: All right, coming up next on NEW DAY, he had kind of a life that many dream of. From a quiet start, he became one of the world's most recognizable actors. We are going to look back at the life of Peter O'Toole coming up next.

CUOMO: We are also hearing what a Montana newlywed told police after her husband was first found dead at the bottom of a cliff. How they unwound her story, the interrogation tapes coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: One of the giants of film and theatre has passed, actor, Peter O'Toole has 81 years old when he died. O'Toole's career spanned over 50 years with unforgettable performances including 1962's "Lawrence Of Arabia." Nischelle Turner is here with more on the life and spectacular career.

NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: I was looking for the press photo for "Lawrence of Arabia," this morning, those eyes, really blue, blue eyes, remember that, that's what drew you in, exactly, five decades of a career and right after leaving school Peter O'Toole decided he would start his career as a journalist and photographer at the "Yorkshire Evening Post."

But after five years his editor told him try something else, you'll never make it as a reporter. He did, as acting, a screen legend was born.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) TURNER (voice-over): He's considered one of the greats, Peter O'Toole, an extraordinary talent who captivated audiences with his screen presence.

RICHARD FITZWILLIAMS, BRITISH FILM CRITIC: If their function is to reflect the human condition than O'Toole did it brilliantly with his highs and lows and his remarkable ability to convey emotion.

TURNER: Born in Ireland and raised in England, O'Toole made his professional debut on the London stage in 1955, before moving to the silver screen. His biggest triumph was 1962's "Lawrence of Arabia" catapulting him to worldwide stardom and earning him his first Oscar nominations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why don't you take a picture.

TURNER: Lawrence sparked a spectacular string of successful films in the 1960s, including two Oscar nominated performances as King Henry II, one in "Beckett" and the other in "Lion in Winter."

O'Toole's battle with alcohol addiction during the 1970s nearly ended his career, after giving it up. He made his comeback as a crazed director in "The Stuntman" his sixth Oscar nominations.

In my favourite year, O'Toole mocked his own image as an alcoholic over-the-hill matinee idol, a performance that earned him his seventh Oscar nod. No statuettes. At the 2003 Academy Awards, the 71-year- old actor received an Oscar for lifetime achievement.

O'Toole returned to the desert sands where his career began with 2004's "Troy" and in 2006's "Venus," his portrayal of an out of work actor who becomes obsessed with a younger woman earned him his eighth best actor nominations and cemented his status as a legendary performer.

PETER O'TOOLE: In terms of people who have gone, I've lost a few, and I miss them dreadfully, but they're not here.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TURNER: We often talk about Hollywood friendships and here's one for you. He said in an interview in 2007, the actor he most enjoyed working within Hollywood, Katherine Hepburn and they became lifelong friends.

PEREIRA: Imagine being at a cocktail party with those two, the stories they could tell.

BOLDUAN: You made a point looking back at his career, the choices, the paths that careers take, started off as a journalist, that's what he wanted to do and told him maybe try something else and this career happened after that.

TURNER: There's hope for us all, right? Second chance at life, and he certainly made the most of it. CUOMO: A guy who made it not just because of his looks. He did have those eyes, but so many today it's about their look and they basically play themselves or the same character, him, diversity over time, true craftsman.

TURNER: "Lawrence of Arabia" was so early on and he just sustained and he battled a lot of demons in his life but still sustained.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Nischelle.

TURNER: Sure.

CUOMO: Coming up on NEW DAY, for the first time baseball was called into question for causing the kind of brain injuries associated with football. Were they behind one player's suicide, this as a late NFL player is being exhumed, did his head injuries lead to murder?

BOLDUAN: Also ahead, were lane closures at the world's busiest bridge political payback, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie responds to claims that he was getting back at a Democratic mayor who didn't support him? We'll talk about it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was screaming. We heard someone yelling "help me, help me, we need help!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Critical condition, the sole victim of that Colorado school shooting fighting for her life. This morning, new details about her condition and the background of the deranged shooter. We also hear audio of those frantic moments inside the school.

BOLDUAN: Major League Baseball under fire this morning, the family of a former player says the effects of hard hits drove him to suicide, the first claim of its kind for that support. Will there be more?

PEREIRA: Caught on tape, the interrogation tapes of the Montana newlywed who pled guilty to pushing her husband off a cliff, they're released. What do they show about her changing story?

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira.

BOLDUAN: Good morning and welcome back to NEW DAY, everyone. It's 8:00 in the east. Hope you had a good weekend. This morning we are learning more about the 80 seconds of terror inside a Colorado high school. The teen gunman well armed with weapons and a grudge critically wounding another student before taking his own life. But thanks to some quick thinking, Arapahoe High School did not become another Columbine. CNN's Casey Wian is in Centennial, Colorado, with much more this morning. Good morning, Casey.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kate. The 17-year-old Claire Davis' family released a statement overnight saying that she is actually in a coma, remaining in critical condition at a local hospital. Meanwhile, investigators have been looking in --