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NEW DAY
Ceasefire Deal Reached in Ukraine Peace Talks; Chris Kyle Murder Trial Underway; NBC Pulls Williams from "Nightly News" Brand; "60 Minutes" Correspondent Bob Simon Dies
Aired February 12, 2015 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: What struck you about that?
DR. QANTA AHMED, AUTHOR, "IN THE LAND OF INVISIBLE WOMEN": What was so touching about that is I'm also an older sister with two younger brothers. So, I identified with her.
But in her grief and sorrow, she identified all of us as Americans. And I think that was so heartening. That even in her suffering, where her family may indeed have been targeted for their Muslim identity, which let's say was more overtly visible than somebody might think my Muslim identity is. That she is still referred to being part of the United States and her community is responding similarly.
I also think, I have confidence as a product of American academia, in Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina, where this terrible suffering will be best placed to try and be healed, because of the freedom of ideas and exchange that the United States offers.
CAMEROTA: We hope so.
Dr. Qanta Ahmed, thanks so much for sharing your perspective. Nice to have you on NEW DAY.
We want to know what you think about all this. Was this merely a parking dispute? Or was it a hate crime? You can tweet us @newday, or go to Facebook.com/NewDay. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Let's go to Michaela.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn. Great conversation there.
An emotional start to the Chris Kyle murder trial. Did Eddie Ray Routh intentionally murder him and his friend? Did his post-traumatic stress lead him to kill?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: After all night talks, a peace deal in Eastern Ukraine this morning. According to Russia President Vladimir Putin, the cease-fire begins Sunday. The Ukrainian president confirming the effort to end the battle between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian government. The deal reportedly covers the withdrawal of heavy weapons and the creation of a demilitarized zone.
PEREIRA: President Obama making the case for Congress to authorize military force in the battle against ISIS. His plan all but rules out boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria, but does leave some flexibility if the threat evolves.
The president making it clear the operation would rely mostly on air strikes. That is prompting bipartisan skepticism. Republicans want stronger measures, including the use of ground forces, war-weary Democrats are upset the president opened the door to ground troop deployment at all.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, lottery officials, say not one, not two, but three Powerball players did it. All six, baby in last night's $564 million drawing. The winning tickets were sold in Texas, yay, North Carolina, yay, Puerto Rico, yay. No New York, ooh.
The winning Powerball numbers, here they are: 25, 11, 54, 13, 39 and the Powerball was -- 19. There they are on your screen. No word yet on just who the lucky winners are. But I know who they ain't.
PEREIRA: So, I'm going to make a quick call, we're going to have to cancel the luxury yacht you and I were going to go in on. We have it.
(CROSSTALK)
CAMEROTA: You know what? Not so fast. Not so fast. The guy on our staff, one of our studio guys, Phil, who collected all our money absconded with it we haven't seen him for two days.
PEREIRA: He could be in Puerto Rico.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: I know you like the word absconded, but when you hear the states where they were sold.
PEREIRA: He could have gotten there.
CAMEROTA: He could have gotten there.
PEREIRA: He's fast on his feet.
CUOMO: I'm with you, Philly. Although he's one of yours, Jersey.
Day one of the so-called "American Sniper" murder trial is in the books. There were some surprising strategy out there. We're going to tell you. Which side came off stronger? Early on? We have a close look at what happened, ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: All right. Welcome back. I hope your NEW DAY is off to a good start.
We now know the defense strategy and it's a little surprising and the prosecution plan as well, in the Chris Kyle murder trial, which people are calling the "American Sniper" trial.
Let's bring in Joey Jackson, HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, and Paul Callan, CNN legal analyst and counsel at Callan, Koster, Brady and Nagler, LLC.
Did I get that right?
PAUL CALLAN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You got that right.
CUOMO: All right. Good.
You will take the posture of the prosecution, please, Paul, in this. Joey, you know your role.
All right. So, we get to this -- today, we're going to start with the defense, because really it's about sizing up what is going on there, what's going to happen.
So, we have here the defendant, Mr. Routh. Here's what we now know. Oh, go from that one, come over there. Good. Good enough.
Here's the defense, Chris Kyle's own texts show Routh was legally insane. Now, Joey, the text is -- Chris Kyle going back and forth with his friend about how this guy is straight-up crazy, whatever the words were.
Why is that useful to the defense?
JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: It's useful, Chris, because it goes to the critical issue in the case which is state of mind. Now you'll hear expert testimony, throughout the case, understand it's the defense's burden to prove that he was insane. But what else are you going to hear besides experts? What else besides his own family? That is Routh to speak to the issues of his mental illness? You hear what the perceptions were of the person he killed.
CUOMO: OK, so, Joey --
JACKSON: The people he killed. And that was, that he was not right.
CUOMO: Joey, you come up in your opening and you say, look at this text that proves it, I say objection, what is this text? It's coming from a man who is no longer alive, and can't be cross-examined.
How is this admissible in court, Paul Callan?
CALLAN: Well, if I were on the bench, it's inadmissible. It's classic hearsay. It's the deceased, Chris Kyle diagnosing the guy who killed him. Chris Kyle obviously is not here to be cross-examined on whether it was accurate and he's not a psychiatrist.
So, I'm very, very surprised it got into evidence. Maybe by the way, this was just a shot by the defense attorneys -- remember, it hasn't been offered in evidence. They opened on it.
CUOMO: Right. CALLAN: So, I don't know if it was a surprise to the other side.
JACKSON: If they opened on it, you have to believe that a motion in limine was done to the judge to determine whether it was admissible. There's hearsay, but there's hearsay exception. State of mind is one of them.
CALLAN: And can we say finally on this, on the texting? In the end, it's not going to mean a whole lot, because nobody is going do deny that the defendant in this case has mental illness and he might strike other people as being somewhat deranged. But that's different from legal insanity.
CUOMO: But it was a little bit surprising and it's interesting to hear Chris Kyle's own words being used to help the defense. Remember, that's part of the confusion of this case to begin with, is that Chris Kyle believed in the illness, that the defense counsel is putting forward for the defendant in this. He believed these people needed help. He believed that they were suffering.
All right. Then there's another surprise, which is this -- it's not just insanity, they're using the word "delusion", the defense. They were saying he's under a delusion, and that's a loaded word in the law.
The prosecution gets up and says, hmm, delusion, that's interesting. Does he know what right and wrong was? And if he did, I don't care what he was suffering from, he doesn't fit the legal definition of insane.
Delusion works for and against the defense. Paul, how could it hurt them?
CALLAN: Here's why I think it hurts them. With the insanity defense, you got to prove two things, one, that you did not understand the nature and consequences of your act. That's when I point a gun and pull the trigger, that it's going to kill somebody.
CUOMO: It's going to free my spirit to a better world.
CALLAN: OK. Number two, that it's wrong to kill.
All right. So they put on the board, a defense in which they say, well, he had a delusion. He thought that the men in the front seat were going to attack him. And he killed them in self-defense. Well, that indicates he understands that when he pulled the trigger, he was killing them.
And number two, he understands that self-defense can be used in certain situations, it's right but there are other situations when it's wrong. That defense actually defeats the insanity defense because --
JACKSON: Here's why I disagree.
CUOMO: Go ahead. JACKSON: A delusion takes him out of reality. And if you have a delusion, that match with what else is the defense saying? He was in a grip, Chris, of psychosis, he was suffering from paranoia. He had schizophrenia. He had post-traumatic stress disorder.
So, I believe that the delusion that they're alluding to takes him out of the realm of reality, takes him from a point where he cannot understand right from wrong and I think it's a very effective defense strategy.
CUOMO: But it was another surprise because it was bringing into something -- oops, it was bringing into something we didn't really expect there. You show the mastery of the wall I just showed. I didn't know what that was going to do.
All right. Now we get to the kind of context that's going on in this trial as well. It's going to make it very tough on this jury -- ten women sitting on the jury, they're often going to have having emotional intelligence. So, that's going to play into trial strategy as well. We see it two different ways.
Defense bringing up the V.A. hospital system. They failed, you know they failed, Drew Griffin told you that they failed. This man was a proof was a proof of their failure, he was sick, he was in the hospital twice, they didn't admit him, they knew he was a problem and they wound up basically striking the match and lit the fuse on a bomb.
It did seem to resonate in court yesterday, Joey. How far can they take it?
JACKSON: I think they can take it as far as the judge -- excuse me -- will allow them to take it and here's what the point is the point is that this is not someone coming to court and faking an attempting to justify, will say the defense that their insane. This is a person who needed treatment this is a person who was in fact in the care of the V.A. hospital, and the family asked him to remain in the care and the V.A. hospital took it upon themselves to release him while saying he was dangerous and giving him the medication.
It's the V.A. system failing him. It's insanity.
CUOMO: Right, but I want to go to the counter of it because the V.A. is not on trial here, they can try and make it.
JACKSON: Exactly, right.
CUOMO: And here was the other side, the other side was this -- the prosecution says, we're going to tell you what this is about. There's a wife, there is a mother, their kids are gone. You want to talk about the price of the situation was? It wasn't about the accountability of the V.A. system. It's about this. This is what matters.
Surprisingly, Paul, they're put on very early in the case. You usually want to hold this type of ammunition as a prosecutor until you really need it. Texas, this judge, said that witnesses can't be in the -- can't be in court if they're going to hear other testimony because it will color their own. That's why they had to come on this early -- another kind of surprise.
The impact of these two women?
CALLAN: I think it will have a great impact, and the reason that jurors are hostile to the insanity defense is because the prisons are filled with people who have mental illness of various sorts, you can't get a get-out-of-jail-free card because you have some sort of mental illness. It has to be very severe, very specific and really only 1 percent of these cases win. Well, why is that? Because in most cases people do understand what they're doing is wrong and the nature and consequences of their acts, it's hard to prove.
JACKSON: There's no question that putting the wife on is compelling. There's no question that a tragic loss was suffered here. That there are children that don't have parents anymore, that the mother of Mr. Littlefield, it makes for a compelling case.
But understand, this is not a whodunit case. It's what motivated you to do it. And if the defense can establish notwithstanding the emotion that he did not know right from wrong because of the psychosis, it neutralizes their testimony.
CALLAN: Can I say one thing before you hit the gavel there?
CUOMO: You know, prosecutor, I'm going to the gavel, here's why -- I'm getting yelled at by the judge, the people in the control room. We're going to be doing this every day because it's very complex. This was just the first day.
And still, I'm going to tilt the scales towards the prosecution, because insanity defense, 1 percent of the cases, there's a lot going on, and there was a lot offered yesterday that showed, as Paul said, this man knew what was going on in the moment, he was just wrong about the reality and the defense has a lot of work to do.
But you've helped us understand things that are not easy to understand, especially for this jury.
JACKSON: If I had to tip the scale, it would be for the defense based upon the psychosis of the defendant.
CUOMO: You may be the best looking, but you're not in control of the board, my friend.
JACKSON: That's you!
CUOMO: Joey Jackson, Paul Callan, thank you very much.
Mick?
JACKSON: Thank you.
PEREIRA: A lot of charm over there. My goodness. All right. So, what is going on behind the scenes at NBC in the wake of the Brian Williams saga? We know the changes are already visible on the air. We're going to take a look.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: Welcome back to NEW DAY.
The latest now on the Brian Williams saga. If you happened to tune in last night for the edition of NBC's "Nightly News." You might have noticed a subtle change right off the top of the show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: "Nightly News" begins now.
ANNOUNCER: From NBC News world headquarters in New York, this is "NBC Nightly News". Reporting tonight, Lester Holt.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PEREIRA: Didn't take long for NBC to remove Brian Williams' name from the open and the show's branding. The network reportedly scrutinizing every aspect now of Williams' career right down to even his expense reports.
CNN senior media analyst Brian Stelter joins us now with more.
It might seem like a little bit of inside baseball, but the subtle change speaks volumes.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I don't think it's subtle to the people inside NBC. This is a story that has captivated the television world for the past week, and I think the word you use is perfect -- saga. It's what it feels. It's such a personal drama going on, such a sad drama for Brian Williams, but there are so many people disappointed by the exaggerations that have been exposed.
On the other hand, there's a lot of people disappointed that he's off the air, that his name has been taken off the show. It was taken off their Twitter and Facebook feeds for the show last night.
So, there's this sort of divide going on I think between people that want to see Brian Williams given a second chance and people including some at NBC who feel he's too scarred to return.
CAMEROTA: So, now, the rumor mill is churning and there's all sorts of gossip about whether or not there might be other infractions. And I can't tell what's real, what's a fishing expedition.
Do you have any sense if there are other things that are real that NBC is looking into?
STELTER: I don't think there's been anything found as explicit and as approvable and as damning as this Iraq war mission story, which we all saw change over time. We've laid it out in the past, laid it out online. You can see him change his story and exaggerate overtime.
There are other curious details and stories that don't always seem to add up. But nothing as explicit as that. Now, what we don't know is whether NBC has found things that are more explicit.
You know, I have not in my pursuits -- I haven't seen anybody else cover anything that seems as explicit, maybe NBC has. They've certainly implied that in their statements. But let's be honest -- this might be NBC executives trying to make them look like the good guys, trying to make Brian Williams look like the bad guy.
CUOMO: Be careful not to be hoisted by your own petard, which is where a bomb blows up on you, because the big mystery to me -- is not what Brian Williams did. We know what he did. And now, if you're going to look through his expense reports, you're losing me as a critic. Now, you're starting to create a bar no one else is living by.
But what about their bar? The weird thing -- how did he get to keep telling a story -- think about it, if I -- if one of us made up a story, you would get a call saying, don't say that again. That wasn't you, it was the other one. Where was that here?
STELTER: Yes, even if it's not a negative thing, it's good to have those conversations and those kind of conversations should be happening between employees and bosses all the time. I'm sure they're happening with our viewers all the time with their bosses. Where were the NBC executives in this case? I think that's where the story is going now. People are asking those questions.
And they're also asking, why is there not an external investigation being done? If this is being taken so seriously by NBC, why isn't there a review by a third party? And why won't viewers or readers be shown the results?
PEREIRA: All right. I want to pivot to something that many people are waking up to try to come to terms with. We've lost a giant of a newsman, a tragic accident taking the life of Bob Simon last night. Repercussions are going to be felt for sometime. We were looking back on his career.
I was curious about your thoughts, too, because you've been watching for a long time as well.
STELTER: The head of "60 Minutes", Jeff Fager, called him the reporter's reporter. That was the perfect phrase for Bob Simon. He went where the story was -- all around the world: 90 percent of his stories were from international locations, including the Middle East for many years. He was even held captive in Iraq in 1991, for 40 days, and then wrote a book about it and went back and continued reporting.
We've been talking about credibility in journalism a lot this past week, and he had so much credibility, he had so much trust and he really show what is television journalism can be. I think the key for Bob Simon, the key to his success, and the reason why his stories resonated was that he was a writer at heart and a storyteller at heart. Those kind of values are everlasting, even in this digital age where so much is up in the air. That is going to last forever.
CAMEROTA: And 73 years old and still working, just working on a story about Ebola for "60 Minutes," and trying to find a cure for it. He worked with his daughter, Tanya Simon, all the time, who was a producer and a colleague of his, and a collaborator, I should say. Just so sad.
STELTER: I suspect we will see that story this weekend on the program.
CUOMO: He lived through too much to die so young. But at least it will serve as an example for everybody that the craft is still about the right things when it's done the right way.
STELTER: Absolutely.
PEREIRA: Brian, thank you.
STELTER: Thanks.
CUOMO: That is one story for you this morning. But there's a lot of news. So, let's get to it.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to NEW DAY.
We have breaking news this morning on the crisis in Eastern Ukraine. After late-night talks between the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, a cease-fire agreement finally reached.
CUOMO: What happens next? We don't know. But here are the facts so far: a deal calls for an end of the bloody battle between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian government. The fighting is expected to stop by Sunday.
But let's bring in senior initial correspondent Nic Robertson. He's joining us from Minsk. That's where the negotiations are going on with the very latest.
The rebels weren't at the table, Nic and on the ground we're hearing this they say they're going to keep fighting. So, how do we make words into action?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it calls for a cease-fire to come into immediate effect, but full effect by Saturday night into Sunday morning. There will be a pull-back of heavy weapons. There will be a demilitarized zone. The rebels, separatists will have to pull back from their advanced position, the positions they've advanced to over the past couple of months, since the last time they went to an agreement like this.
There will be elections, after the cease-fire agreement is implemented. We're told local elections. There will be a level of autonomy recognized for the separatist movement in southeast of Ukraine, constitutional reform. There will be the issue of who controls the border between Russia and the separatist groups.
That's something that Ukraine has said is very important. It does appear that over time the Ukrainian government will get control of that border.
But a lot of this is really -- in the detail, so this is a lot of it. That detail we have yet to hear about.
And really words of caution, because what we heard from the German foreign ministry today saying that not everything was agreed, the fact that this took 17 hours to get to this point. An indication that perhaps this agreement, as good as it looks on paper right now, is really yet to stick on the battlefield, Chris.
