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Storm Winds Expected Near Hurricane Strengths; Epic Blizzard Snarls Air Travel; Drone Found on White House Lawn; ISIS Demands Release of Female Terrorist

Aired January 26, 2015 - 07:00   ET

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


CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Let begin with CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

Take a look at the areas that will get hit and why, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This is a storm that will be called a bomb off the coast of New York. It is going to turn into a winter hurricane, if you will. Winds are going to be 60 or 70 miles per hour. We are talking about how much snow will be on the ground, 24 hour inches, possibly, a lot less here in New York City, probably 12 to 15. But it's going to be the wind that will make a six-foot drift and next to that drift, you are going to see the ground.

So you are never really going to know how much snow you have, because of how the wind is. My favorite snack as a child was a Ho-Ho. I'll tell you why that matters. This storm is going to turn into a Ho Ho. If you are on the cream side, you are pounded in the snow, if are you in the cake part, the snow stops. So, it's going to be on and off and on and off for hours.

And even tonight, we could certainly see thunder snow as the storm rolls up, wraps up. This is the biggest part of this storm, between 10:00 tonight and 8:00 tomorrow morning, we could have two-to-three inches of snow coming down per hour. That doesn't take long to add up to significant snow.

And with the blowing snow, that's how it's going to be just be drifting down the street.

The models are different. This is the European model, saying a lot of snow for New York, maybe a little less for Boston. Another model here for the United States -- here's what we call this the GFS, very dry, only 12 inches of snow for New York City, and Boston gets pounded with over 2-feet.

A model that I like to use, the RPM, has about six to ten inches in New York. But still over that two feet in Boston. So you see how this Ho-Ho effect can really change if you're under the white part, which is snow, or you're under the cake, which is just wrapped in dry air for a while.

And it's going to be here and there, and you could be ten miles from one side of a 25-inch snowfall, and then down the river, down the Hudson, could be ten inches of snow, instead only ten miles away. That's how this storm is going to shape up. It's going to be so violent out there with even thunder snow coming down tonight.

CAMEROTA: Finally, Chad puts it into terms we can understand.

PEREIRA: The Ho-Ho.

CAMEROTA: The Ho-Ho.

PEREIRA: Thunder snow is, though, what I heard.

CAMEROTA: Of course, the scary part. Not the delicious part.

CUOMO: The only part I didn't buy is that it was only when he was a kid he ate the Ho-Hos.

MYERS: Yes. Now I just eat Little Debbies, because they're cheaper.

CUOMO: You can come up with something for us on the next hitch.

On the cake side.

All right. Let's get to CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray. She's live in Boston. That would be the cream side of the Ho-Ho. Some of the worst conditions are expected there. I'm sure you had to hear what Chad said, so you don't have to extend the metaphor. But what is going to happen up there? Why and how are people seeming to take it? Are they taking it seriously?

JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you know the mayor's office has urged people to take this one seriously. They are comparing it to that President's Day blizzard of '03. May not get quite as much, you know, but it could be as bad. You can see behind me, cars on the road. We have joggers out there. It looks like business as usual.

In fact, kids, public schools are going to be in session for today. They're going to make that decision later today whether to close school for tomorrow. But the mayor's office says they feel like they are ready. They have 700 trucks ready to go, 35,000 tons of salt, which they really haven't had to use so far this season.

Look at all the snow already on the ground, though. We have several inches of snow and where we've seen plows already come through from the snow just a couple of days ago. It is piled up thick on some of these sidewalks. We're expected to see snow come down, like Chad said, two-to-four inches an hour by the time we get through tonight. So expect to see snow up to my waist, possibly by Wednesday and then, because of the blowing snow and those blizzard conditions, we're going to see snow drifts six and seven feet high.

That's going to be above my head. And it is going to make for dangerous conditions. They are urging people to stay off the roads. The preparations should have already been made. Hopefully, you've already been to the store, fueled up your car, your generator, things like that. Because the possibility of power outages will also be a major concern, Michaela, as we go through the next 24 or 48 hours.

As we mentioned before, most of the flights have already been cancelled for tomorrow.

PEREIRA: Yes.

GRAY: And most likely Wednesday, as well. It's going to be a nightmare across not only the northeast, but much of the country.

PEREIRA: Yes, because it has that trickle-down effect. Thanks so much, Jennifer.

Let's talk more about the travel, because it will be, as Jennifer mentioned, impacted big-time by this impending storm. Right now, as she mentioned, more than 1,800 flights are cancelled. More will be.

Let's get the very latest from Christine Alesci. She's at LaGuardia here in New York City. You're see a lot of "cancelleds" already on the board?

CHRISTINE ALESCI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Michaela. You mentioned that nearly 2,000 numbers of flights cancelled right here at LaGuardia, a major hub for New York City, 200 flights have been cancelled. And Delta saying 600 nationwide united outright canceled flights altogether. But tomorrow, we expect more announcements as the day goes on, but these airlines are really being proactive. They don't want the crowds at the airport. They want to manage the situation. They want -- don't want to have to book people at hotels, because that ends up being more expensive for them. And so far, that strategy has worked.

There are very few people online at ticket counters here today, talking to representatives about rebooking. Even the security line seems to be manageable at this point, Michaela. I've got to tell you the truth. I'm trying to find frustrated travelers today. And I can't really find a whole ton of them. Because the ones that are here have been rebooked. They're trying to get out before the weather starts. The weather hasn't started yet.

And as for the flights that are not cancelled, you can see on the board behind me, they're pretty much on time. One of the major issues for pilots during snow is visibility. So they can't use what's called visual flight rules. They have to use their equipment to take off and land. And that means more time between planes.

So that is what's going to cause the delays, in addition to ice and other things today, Michaela. So I would expect that board to be red pretty soon.

CUOMO: All right, Alesci. That's the problem with you media. You're looking for trouble even when it isn't there yet. Don't worry: there's going to be lots of stranded travelers coming your way. You don't have to rush it.

ALESCI: You know, Chris, trouble is my middle name, Chris.

CUOMO: Is it?

ALESCI: I got to be looking for it. CUOMO: I never met an Italian named "Trouble" before. Now I have.

We'll check back in with you in a little bit.

So look, we can't control the storm and what comes our way, but our elected leaders are responsible with how they can control the response. Natural disasters can be big tests of leadership. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was slammed last year for his response to a pretty moderate snowstorm. And this is the first major weather event for Boston's new mayor, Martin Walsh. So lots of people are depending on their planning and their choices.

Let discuss this part of the story. Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor at New York One News; and John Keller, political analyst for WBZ-TV News in Boston. Gentlemen, thank you very much.

We've got both the big cities covered here. I remember the blizzard of 1978. I don't know how much snow there was. Maybe a couple of feet. But I remember Mayor Ed Koch, Errol, coming to Queens. My father had lost an election to the guy, and he was still a hero for us, because he came and made sure we were OK. How big are the stakes?

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure. Well, the stakes are very big. In fact, in that case, everyone since has been sort of scarred or marked by what happened in 1969 when 15 inches fell unexpectedly on a Sunday. John Lindsay was the mayor at the time. Forty-five years later, they're still talking about how bad that response was, how for three days people were unable to get out of their driveways, out of their homes. And everybody since then has really sort of tried to work hard to at least be present, at least be on top of things. And even that doesn't always work.

CUOMO: That's right. And let's pick up on that part, because John, this is one of those situations where it doesn't matter if the criticism is unfair. If it feels bad, the politicians get blamed. The stakes are very high. How is it going to happen? How is it playing out there in terms of planning in Boston?

JOHN KELLER, POLITICAL ANALYST, WBZ-TV NEWS: Right. You're absolutely right, Chris. I mean, never forget the fate of poor Michael Bilandic, the mayor of Chicago back in the '70s who lost his primary to Jane Byrne primarily because of a weak response to the storms.

Marty Walsh, the new mayor, has been in office for years. It's interesting: even before he took office, he appointed the most experienced person he could find, a holdover from the previous administration, to oversee snow removal.

Now, right now, you know, it looks like it's shaping up to be a fairly easy haul, at least during the storm. It's going to come in at night. Everyone has warning. You don't have this nightmare of people getting snowed in, during a commute. For Walsh -- and I'm sure this is true of other big-city mayors -- the real test may come after the storm. How quickly and thoroughly do you get the snow out of there? And what happens with all the parking space savers? We're really big on that in Boston. You know, you put a pylon or a kitchen sink or a half of a department store mannequin in the parking space you shoveled out, claiming you own it. The city has banned that. And that could lead to some heavy duty conflict.

CUOMO: That's interesting. I haven't seen that here in New York, but it's not a bad idea, I guess, until they banned it.

Now, look, obviously, people watch the show know my brother is the governor of New York. He is obsessive about situations like this. And you ask him why. And he says this is a metaphor for people of government. Either it works or it doesn't work. Is that what the pressure is about?

KELLER: That's exactly what the pressure is about. And in fact, your brother, frankly, has the key to this whole thing. I mean, because his control of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- the buses the subways -- that's really what makes New York go. I mean, we're a city of islands, right? You take down the transit system, people can't get from one island to another. Everything gets frozen in place. That, in some cases, is the safe and wise thing to do, but that also sort of really is a very heavy burden for everybody to bear. And that's a very tough decision that somebody is going to have to make.

CUOMO: John, is there ever a price for going too far? Closing the schools too soon. You know, too much road salt. Too much money spent in preparation if the storm doesn't wind up being devastating?

KELLER: Oh, absolutely. You have to walk a fine line. Former Governor Deval Patrick here in Massachusetts got in big trouble early in his first term, because a storm was coming in, and he released all state workers to go home in the middle of the day.

It turned out everybody else was leaving their office at the same time. The entire metro area was gridlocked, and the air was thick with the taking of Governor Patrick's name in vain.

Fast forward a few years later, and he issued a ban on non-essential travel under penalty of law. Some people were upset about that. But he avoided the nightmare of cars being stuck, blocking the highways, people stranded out in the col. And he did better in that instance. It's a fine line to walk.

And you want to be careful about overdoing it with the nanny state business. After Mayor de Blasio's press conference yesterday, where he's telling everyone, "Do this, don't do that, do this." I saw someone tweeting, "Thank you, Mommy," which I think reflects the resistance at least Bostonians and New Yorkers have to being bossed around. We don't like that much.

CUOMO: Tough people. No question about it. John Keller, good luck to you up there. We'll check back in with you, make sure it was all OK.

Errol, I know you're a city guy. New Rochelle. You know how to deal with the snow. LOUIS: Sure.

CUOMO: You'll be all right. All right. We hope you do. Right.

We're going to talk with Boston's new mayor in our next hour. And we're going to continue to track this monster storm for you all morning so you can have the best information and do with it what you will -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: We sure are.

We also have another breaking story this morning. There's been another breach of White House security, except this time, it's not a person on the White House grounds.

Let's get right to Joe Johns, who is at the White House for us. What is it, Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, it's a drone, we're told by authorities. Apparently, landed here on the White House lawn early this morning. We're told it's not deemed to be a threat to anyone. Authorities really don't know what they have. There is an increased security presence here at the White House, and it started early this morning.

The president was not here. The first lady was not here. They were both traveling in India. And that also is where Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, is. He spoke to reporters about it just a little while ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: A device that has been recovered by the Secret Service at the White House. The early indications are that it does not pose any sort of ongoing threat right now to anybody at the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So the Secret Service is waiting until daylight comes in here to try to clear the grounds, in other words to search for any other pieces, or any other devices that might be present on the White House lawn. That could be complicated, of course, by the weather, which is pretty bad right now.

Michaela, back to you.

PEREIRA: All right, Joe Johns, thanks so much for that. We'll be watching that situation. We see the snow starting to fall behind you there in D.C.

To now a chilling new demand from ISIS this morning, after apparently beheading one of two Japanese hostages. We want to turn right to Will Ripley, tracking all the developments for us live from Tokyo -- Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michaela, this new ISIS video demands that Jordan hand over Sajida al-Rishawi, who is a convicted terrorist, responsible, partially responsible for an attack where 60 people died. They want her back in the fold, because she's facing the death penalty right now, and she has ties to the founders of ISIS. Her brother was a top leader in al Qaeda in Iraq. The group was formed in 2004, and in 2006, became -- it was rebranded as ISIS. She's Iraqi. A lot of the top ISIS leaders are Iraqi. And for -- getting her back into the fold for ISIS would be a major propaganda win.

But it's a very difficult deal for Japan to work out. They have a special envoy on the ground with Jordan right now. Jordan has its own hostage, a pilot, in the hands of ISIS, and they're not really going to be willing to give up a high-value prisoner without also getting something in return.

So a lot is happening, but the urging concern here in Tokyo is trying to negotiate the safe return of Kenji Goto, because people were shocked over the weekend when that video came out showing the brutal beheading or Haruna Yukawa -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Will. We'll check back with you in just a little bit. Let's get to some other news right now.

Malaysia Airlines' website has been tacked by a group claiming to support ISIS. Users who logged on earlier this morning saw things like, "404 plane not found." That's a reference to MH-370. And they also saw, "ISIS will prevail."

PEREIRA: Greece's left-wing Syriza party clinched Sunday's election. Alexis Tsipras, who could become Greece's next prime minister, is claiming the country has left behind the austerity that ruined it. Tsipras has pledged to get Greece out of the red and roll back unpopular austerity measures, even if it could jeopardize the country's place in the Euro Zone.

CAMEROTA: An enormous asteroid will fly past Earth this morning. NASA says it will come within 745,000 miles of Earth at 11:19.

PEREIRA: I have to worry about a blizzard and an asteroid?

CAMEROTA: Well, no, you actually don't have to worry about the asteroid, because the asteroid is a third of a mile long. Space officials say if you have a strong pair of binoculars or a decent backyard telescope, you might be able to see it.

PEREIRA: OK.

CAMEROTA: However, it's not going to hit Earth, Michaela, I'm happy to report.

CUOMO: A quarter of a mile long. That's good news.

CAMEROTA: It is. That would have been our top story, if it were going to hit Earth. But it is not expected -- another asteroid is not expected to come this close to Earth again until 2027, so make sure you see it now. And there's no need to take cover. This asteroid poses no threats. PEREIRA: So you saw my anxiety, taken it right down. Thank you very

much.

CAMEROTA: I'm happy to help you.

CUOMO: It comes in peace.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

Well, in the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, police are trying to rebuild trust in their commune. So how will they do that? We will talk with New York Police Commissioner William Bratton about his plans, next.

CUOMO: So why wasn't Mitt Romney in Iowa? And is it true that he's just days away from making his final decision about 2016? John King has the answers on "Inside Politics."

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CAMEROTA: All right. Here's a live shot for you of New York City. Hours away from a possibly history-making blizzard.

Joining us to discuss how the police are readying for the storm as well as all the recent challenges facing the NYPD is Police Commissioner Bill Bratton. He joins us now. Welcome.

WILLIAM BRATTON, NYPD POLICE COMMISSIONER: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: So you must be on tenterhooks right now. How is the city preparing for this blizzard?

BRATTON: The city is prepared for this event. A lot of meetings over the weekend. The police department, we have the capability of holding our tours of duty at the end of a tour if we need extra personnel.

CAMEROTA: And do you think you'll need extra personnel?

BRATTON: We may, depending on the severity of the storm. We have all the tow trucks that the city utilizes to help out; 911 centers are run by the police department. No, we're prepared that -- and we will have extra resources if necessary.

CAMEROTA: I've just always wondered, if there are two feet of snow, how will police get to the people who need help?

BRATTON: One of the things we've been transitioning to over the last several years is different types of vehicles. We have many more of the suburban-type vehicles to help move us around in these types of storms, versus our traditional police cars. We also have the ability to put chains on the police cars, if we're running into streets that are not cleared and not plowed.

But the sanitation department here in New York does a pretty good job of getting that snow off the streets very quickly. CAMEROTA: Let's move on to the overarching issue of the tension that

has developed recently between, it seems, the police officers and the mayor; and the police officers and some of the communities that they police.

Do -- I don't need to tell you how bad it appears to have gotten in New York. And you have written an op-ed for "The Washington Post" about what you think has caused some of this and what you think could solve it. What was your message in this op-ed?

BRATTON: The message was, really, that we need to be engaged in dialogue rather than rhetoric. There was an awful lot of rhetoric during the issues we were facing in New York over the last several months.

CAMEROTA: Heated rhetoric, you mean?

BRATTON: Heated rhetoric. And we really need to find common ground that we can come onto, that we engage in meaningful conversations, that we can find ways to collaborate better than we have in the past.

The good news is, here in New York, we're coming out of the tensions of the last several months. You've seen a significant tamping down of that. So it is giving us that ability to get onto a common ground to start talking with each other.

CAMEROTA: It also seems as though you blame, in large part, the stop- and-frisk policy of your predecessor and what the effect that has had on some of the troubled communities. Let me read an excerpt from your op-ed for our viewers.

You say, "People in these communities suffer most from the crime that persist in the city. But they are also the least satisfied with the police. In these neighborhoods, people feel over-policed and under- protected. In New York, this paradoxical feeling comes in large part from the use of stop, question and frisk."

You know, proponents of stop-and-frisk, as it's known in its vernacular, would say that it was stop-and-frisk that led to the plummeting of the crime rate, the high crime rate in New York that we saw in the 1980s. With stop-and-frisk, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor, would say that that allowed police to be proactive, to stop crime before it happened.

BRATTON: I think I know a little bit about that. I was the police commissioner in 1994 when we began the now-21-year crime decline. So I've got a little personal perspective on that.

Stop, question and frisk is an essential tool of policing. But like a doctor treating a patient, how much medicine do you give the patient? What happened here, I think, 2010, 2011, the dosage of stop, question and frisk, as the patient was getting better, was too high. We've now ramped it down to fewer than 50,000 a year. Last year was a record low crime year for the city of New York. So it is a matter of balancing. CAMEROTA: We have a graph that shows that dosage and the increasing dosage of stop-and-frisk, as you put it. Here is the graph. And it shows that it really ramped up, starting in 2003. And to your point, it peaks there at 2010 and 2010. And then you see the precipitous drop-off in the stop-and-frisk cases. And yet, the bottom line there, violent crimes, doesn't seem to tick up.

Are you confident that, even without the stop-and-frisk policy, that you will be able keep that red line there low of violent crimes?

BRATTON: We will be able to keep crime down in New York City. It will spike from time to time. We had a tough week this past week. But crime, you look at it over a period of time, not just on a week- to-week basis.

No, I'm very confident we can keep the crime rates low in the city. How low? Well, we still don't know. But we work very hard at keeping it down low.

CAMEROTA: There is another piece of your op-ed that I want to read because it's so interesting. You say this: "Here is the unspoken secret of the police community divide. The minority communities don't want us to back down. Despite that negative perception, they call us time and again; and time and again we answer the calls."

Is there -- do those communities bear some responsibility, as has been suggested, for policing their own neighborhoods and trying to bring crime down in their own neighborhoods?

BRATTON: It's a great question, because it is a shared responsibility. The police cannot be held accountable for all of what goes on in communities, whether minority or non-minority; that there is a -- in our democracy, the need for both the police and the public to obey the law, if you will, operate within the law.

So why are we there in those communities? Because we are needed there. They're calling us about the gangs on the corner. They're calling us about the prostitutes. We're not there on our own. We're there in response to their calls for assistance. We need to find balance as we're there assisting, that we're not abusing.

CAMEROTA: So, Commissioner, what's the answer?

BRATTON: The answer is exactly where we are at this time. We are recognizing that there is a problem. We are recognizing that it is not going to be resolved by just the community, political leadership, the police. It will require all of us to work very hard at it.

Here in New York, we are adopting a number of new strategies -- initiatives, training regimens -- that we feel very comfortable that will over time allow us to, if you will, reduce the tension that has been clearly there.

And this is not just a New York situation. This is a national situation.

CAMEROTA: So retraining of your police officers, is that underway?

BRATTON: We are constantly training our officers. We have expanded significantly the training regimen, from two days a year to five days a year mandated training. A lot of that training is on better tactics. A lot of it is on better ways to deal with the public. So we're constantly trying to find new ways that our officers can get into these troubled communities and interact in a way that we heal and don't divide.

CAMEROTA: Commissioner Bill Bratton, good luck with all that. Good luck in the next 48 hours.

BRATTON: Thank you. Appreciate that.

CAMEROTA: Thank you so much for being here on NEW DAY.

Let's go over to Michaela.

PEREIRA: Yes, these 48 hours are going to be very key. Hunker down, that's the word for millions of people in the path of a monster blizzard about to hit the northeast. Here are some live pictures right now outside our studios. It looks pretty mild and calm out there, here in New York. But we are just hours away from what is expected to be massive amounts of snow. We're going to watch the models for you and keep you up to date on just how much snow is on its way.

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