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Severe Weather Hits Parts of U.S.; Two Mississippi Police Officers Killed in Line of Duty; Saudi King Possibly Snubs President Obama; Report Accuses White House of Lying About Bin Laden. Aired 8- 8:30a ET
Aired May 11, 2015 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00] JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we are seeing widespread destruction, Alisyn. And then with that news as you just mentioned, the news here getting worse as the Van Zandt County fire marshal said 10 people are unaccounted for using K9s today to search for them.
We are standing a little ways from the school. We are pushed back because of all the downed power lines. Crews need to get out there and restore those. But they are still using that brick building behind me as a gym. And I walked up there a few homes ago, and it suffered major damage, the roof completely gone. You can see insulation hanging from the inside. Most of the windows are completely blown out, and what was once inside of that building, a lot of it is just spread all over the lawn in front of it.
We have trees behind me that are completely snapped in half, tin and metal just wrapped around those. And so the destruction is widespread here. We hear that several homes are a total loss. We were talking to folks here that grew up here, they actually went to school, the school behind me, and they said that it feels like their entire childhood has just been destroyed. So people here really taking it hard, as you can expect.
Of course, Red Cross is here. We do have a shelter set up here at the First Baptist Church. But the community is definitely coming together, Alisyn. Folks have been bringing in water by the truckloads. They are helping their neighbors, going door to door to make sure everybody is OK. But as you can see from behind me, the cleanup is definitely going to take some time.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely. That community will really have to rely on each other during all of this. Jennifer, thanks so much for that.
So, remnants of the first tropical storm of the year expected to dump rain on the Carolina coastline today. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers joins us now with the forecast. What are we expecting, Chad?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: More rain on top of places that already had six inches of rainfall, including Myrtle Beach. Not much of a beach vacation this weekend. The rain continues across eastern Carolina and it will continue all day long. We'll get rain up towards Hampton Roads, but the big story is how much rainfall. Six to 10 inches of rain came down.
And here's what the water looked like when this storm came onshore. I understand it's only a tropical storm. It's 45 to 50 miles per hour, but you can't be in that kind of water because that type of surf can rip you back out to the ocean in those rip currents that we always talk about. A beach vacation in Myrtle Beach didn't look so good this week. The greens were soft, safe to say, six to eight inches of rainfall in that community over the weekend, and it continues to move to the north, not northeast, eventually offshore, bring some showers to Philadelphia, to D.C., maybe Baltimore, but just showers.
Chris, I know it's early in the season, last time we had a really big Ana early in the season, 12 years ago. It was not retired, so the name is still there. They recycle them every six years. We had 16 named storms that year. We'll have to watch and see what this makes.
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm going the other way on you, though, because of that El Nino. I'm only using what you told me. You said El Nino will make it less numerous this storm season, so I'm using your own words against you in the interest of less bad weather.
MYERS: Fair enough. We'll talk in October.
CUOMO: It's doesn't get better than that, you beating you, Chad. You still win on some weird level.
(LAUGHTER)
CUOMO: All right, so there are four suspects being held in connection with the killing of two Mississippi policemen and they are due in court today. Two of them are facing capital murder charges, meaning they could get the death penalty. The officers, Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate, they were gunned down Saturday night during a traffic stop. We have CNN's Alina Machado in Hattiesburg. Alina, what do we know now?
ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris, those court appearances will take place at some point today here in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. And there's also going to be a vigil to honor and remember those two fallen officers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MACHADO: Asserting his innocence while being hauled into the police station, 26-year-old Curtis Banks, one of the now four suspects in custody this morning, two of them facing capital murder charges in connection with a shooting death of two police officers in southern Mississippi.
MAYOR JOHNNY DUPREE, HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI: You never want this to happen. The men and women who go out every day to protect us, the men and women who go out to make sure that we're safe.
MACHADO: Thirty-four-year-old officer Benjamin Deen and 24-year- old Liquori Tate were shot and killed after a traffic stop ended in a hail of gunfire Saturday night. Police say Curtis and his brother Marvin fled the crime scene, allegedly stealing a police cruiser and using it as a getaway car. Authorities have divulged little else about the timeline of events and any suspected motive, only saying Officer Deen initiated the traffic stop, called for backup, and that officer Tate responded to the call. Deen was a seasoned officer who won officer of the year in 2012 for his department. The other, a rookie who joined the force in June of last year.
RONALD TATE, FATHER OF LIQUORI TATE: This is my baby.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know.
TATE: This is my baby. And that's all I see is my baby.
[08:05:00] MACHADO: In an emotional interview with CNN, Tate's father Ronald said his son, quote, "loved everyone and had a passion for policing."
TATE: He was a guy who was willing to put the risk out there, put his life on that risk. And he really knew the risk, but he thought -- I think my son just thought, you know, people are genuinely good. And that's just the way he was. He thought people are genuinely good people, so let's treat them all with dignity.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACHADO: The mayor of Hattiesburg tells CNN that Officer Deen was married and leaves behind two children. Meanwhile, this is the first time that an officer is killed in the line of duty in 30 years, Chris and Alisyn?
CAMEROTA: I'll take it Alina. Thanks so much for all of that background.
Well, Officer Tate's mother and stepfather, Youlander and Lonnie Ross, join us along with his sister, Alonte' Tate. They join us from their home in Jackson, Mississippi. This is their first interview since Officer Tate's death. I want to thank all of you for being on NEW DAY. We are so, so sorry for your loss.
BERNELL "LONNIE" ROSS, STEPFATHER OF OFFICER LIQUORI TATE: Thank you.
YOULANDER ROSS, MOTHER OF OFFICER LIQUORI TATE: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Youlander, I want to start with you and what happened Saturday night. Can you tell us what happened? We understand that when you got the phone call, that something had gone terribly wrong with this traffic stop, you raced to the hospital in Hattiesburg, and how did you get the news there?
YOULANDER ROSS: Actually, it was my daughter who received a phone call from one of her friends who knew my son. And from that point, you know, we all gathered and rushed to the hospital. On the way we got a phone call from the mayor, and he told us he'd meet us there at the hospital. CAMEROTA: So, the mayor called you and told you what had
happened. And Lonnie, when you got to the hospital, I know that there were just scores of other police officers there in the waiting room. What was their reaction when they saw you?
LONNIE ROSS: It was -- I mean, it was overwhelming, the emotion. Actually, when we got to the hospital, we still did not know he was dead, and the mayor waited until we actually got into the hospital. I was surrounded by police. The city of Hattiesburg staff was there also in abundance and they took us in the room. And when we got the news, of course, we fell out in grief. It was amazing, the police officers, as well as staff and the mayor, they fell out with us in grief and grieved with us. It was really very emotional. We walked through and saw the family of the other officer whose life was taken, as well, and we knew this was something much more serious than we could have imagined before we walked in to the hospital.
CAMEROTA: There's something so wrenching about hearing how you got the news and fell down to the ground in grief and the officers went down to the floor with you and everyone was together in their grief. That really paints such an emotional picture for all of us.
Alonte', you and your brother were just 11 months apart. You were almost considered twins, and I understand that you were the last person to talk to him just 45 minutes before his death. Can you tell us about that conversation?
ALONTE' TATE, SISTER OF OFFICER LIQUORI TATE: Well, I have this security alert on my phone where if I press the power button three times it will send a message to him for him to call me right away. And I accidentally pressed it while in the store looking for a Mother's Day gift with my younger siblings and my grandmother. And he called me at 6:59, just saying that I was just checking on you, because I got the alert. And that's how he's always been. He's -- I've done it accidentally several times in the past, and he would always call to make sure I was all right.
CAMEROTA: And I know that --
TATE: I didn't know that would be the last time I'd hear his voice.
CAMEROTA: Yes. I know that you considered him your protector. He wasn't just a police officer in the community. He was your protector in the family. What made him like that?
TATE: It was just his personality. I was the oldest, but he was more like a big brother to me, you know? He would constantly come by in his patrol car around my apartment, just to check on me. He would call, send me a text message, just making sure I was all right.
[08:10:12] He's just always been that protector over me, cautious, trying to tell me how to watch my back and don't be out late at night, look around, be aware of my surroundings before I get out of my car, keep my doors locked. You know, at times when I was naive about those kind of things, he would be the one to, you know, get me on track with that and to remember that to be safe.
CAMEROTA: Youlander, we understand that he really was excited about becoming a police officer. In fact, we had his Facebook post from June 11th, 2014, where he wrote, "I graduated the police academy today. I am now a police officer. I would like to thank God, the police academy, the police department, my family, friends, and loved ones." Tell us why that was so important to him.
YOULANDER ROSS: He always wanted to be a police officer since he was young. Playing with police cars and Xbox games and just having that protective spirit that has always been one of his dreams.
CAMEROTA: Lonnie, tell us what you want us all to know about Liquori.
LONNIE ROSS: Well, we called him Coco. His mother nicknamed him that. And most people who know him know him as Coco. He will always be remembered as a very respectful young man, very balanced. You know, he loved life. He was fun, he was a fun guy, he was a jokester. He knew how to enjoy life. He loved his mama's cooking, loved to eat.
And the thing I'll remember the most, of course, is every time he came here to Jackson with us, he has three younger siblings here, and it's like a rock star walks in the house. They just go crazy -- Coco, Coco! I'm going to remember that and miss that tremendously, how much he was loved and how much he loved and what a balanced young man that he was, a great example and a very humane police officer. He knew how to treat people with dignity and with great humanity.
CAMEROTA: Well, you all do Liquori's memory so proud. Thank you for joining us to share your personal feelings about him. It helps us understand what we've lost. Thank you so much to all of you.
LONNIE ROSS: Thank you.
YOULANDER ROSS: Thank you.
CAMEROTA: Let's get over to Michaela.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: The country grieves with the families of Officer Tate and Officer Deen.
In other news, President Obama apparently snubbed by Saudi Arabia's King Salman. The pair were supposed to meet at a summit with other leaders at the White House and Camp David this week, but that all changed abruptly just ahead of the trip. Why? CNN's White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski has been doing digging. What did you find out, Michelle?
MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, Michaela. Yes, this seemed kind of weird. It happened at the last minute. On Friday the White House was announcing that the new Saudi King Salman was going to meet with President Obama for this big one on one before the Gulf state summit this week, but at the same night the Saudis were announcing that, no, that's not going to happen and, in fact, the king isn't going to travel at all. So what this means is that now there are very few actual leaders
who are going to show up for this big event that the president invited them to at the White House and Camp David. The question, of course, is, is this a snub or is it not a snub? As you might imagine both the White House and the Saudis are insisting it is not a snub. The Saudis are calling it a scheduling issue.
The White House keeps emphasizing how important these regional partners are in fighting ISIS, dealing with Syria, with Yemen, for regional stability while the U.S. is negotiating this nuclear deal with Iran. It's no secret, of course, that many of these gulf states are very concerned about what's going on with Iran, so the question is, does this very high profile series of no shows mean they are less happy than expected how things are going with Iran, or possibly are they liking for more security and military reassurance from the U.S. than the U.S. is willing to give? Back to you guys.
CAMEROTA: OK, Michelle, thanks so much for that.
Well, eight wire members in China on the mend this morning after a stage fell beneath their feet, the terrifying ordeal caught on camera this weekend. The 80-member group was performing at a contest when this collapse happened. Oh, my -- gosh. We're happy to say, sounds like none of the victims were seriously hurt.
CUOMO: They all fell at once, too, did you see that? That was wild.
Alright, so the king delivers. LeBron James' buzzer beater lifts the Cleveland Cavaliers over the Chicago Bulls, evening up the series at two apiece.
[08:15:00] Your Clippers?
PEREIRA: Yes?
CUOMO: One win away from reaching their first ever Conference Final. First ever!
PEREIRA: Go Clips.
CUOMO: They beat the Rockets 128-95. Tonight's a big night. Memphis Grizzlies look to take a commanding 3-1 lead over Steph Curry. This was a shocker for a lot of people and Golden State Warriors. They had the best record in the league this season and he's been en fuego as the MVP of the league.
PEREIRA: It's so hard to be a sports fan out East. I don't know how you all do it.
CUOMO: This is the Mecca of sports.
PEREIRA: I know. But how do you stay up late? We got to go to bed so early.
CUOMO: Oh, you mean for you? PEREIRA: Yes. 7:00 bedtime, you miss all the good games. It's
really a problem.
CUOMO: The internet.
CAMEROTA: If it weren't for that, I would be a huge sports fan. It's the bedtime thing.
CUOMO: That and all the stuff flying around and the people hitting each other.
CAMEROTA: And the lack of knowledge also gets in my way.
Is everything we know about the bin Laden raid a lie? Were officials in Pakistan in on this plan all along? And did the U.S. pay $25 million for help? A new article raising all of these questions and more. We have the reporter behind that new article defending his findings coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian causalities. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:20:06] CUOMO: Taking out Osama bin Laden. Just a huge moment for the American War on Terror. Question now is, was President Obama's account of the raid that killed bin Laden a lie? That is the claim in a stunning new article by noted investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. He joins us now to defend the reporting. Mr. Hersh, thank you for joining us on NEW DAY.
SEYMOUR HERSH, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Okay.
CUOMO: The basic headline here is, Pakistan knew where he was, they were keeping him there, and one of their own turned him over, essentially, to the U.S. Why do you believe that story, especially leaning so heavily on just one anonymous source?
HERSH: Well, I don't think that's correct to say one anonymous source. The story says clearly that I was able to vet and verify information with others in the community. It's very tough for guys still inside to get quoted extensively. There are other people who America uses an awful lot of retired CIA people, military people, in the War on Terror and there are other people who have retired with great information, so it's much easier to quote some of them than somebody on active duty.
But the story makes it clear I vetted most and verified. You know, I've been around a long time, long of tooth in this business, and I understand the consequences of saying what I'm saying.
CUOMO: But a lot of the detail that you have in the piece, some 10,000 words, does come from this unnamed source and that's why it's drawing some fire. But, you know, if you just get in the particulars of it, what is the main reason why this would be a lie? Why would it be covered up if it was really just a cooperative agreement with Pakistan? Where's the motive?
HERSH: Well, no, the motive is very simple. The idea, of course, was that we did have a walk-in, that's what the CIA calls somebody who comes in and sort of, you can argue, betrays his company or his country for money. He took most of the $25 million, at least 20 of it. That was the offer we had on the table for information leading to the whereabouts of bin Laden that had been going on. We had that offer outstanding since 2002. So some guy walks in, he's basically involved in the protection of bin Laden on behalf of the Pakistani intelligence service and we start from there.
CUOMO: How do you think a guy walks into the Islamabad Embassy and you know how, and certainly this person would know, how closely watched it is by Pakistani authorities. How would someone just walk in and give this kind of information?
HERSH: Well, I don't know the details of how he walked in.
CUOMO: It matters.
HERSH: Of course, it does, but it's not very -- I can tell you right now, he talked to the station chief, a man named Jonathan Bank, a very confident officer, and the CIA and the government did what you do in a case like this. You make sure you give this guy a polygraph test, a team came out from Washington to do so. You know, I always worry about a walk-in. A lot of them have a lot of reasons that aren't particularly reliable or very tasteful, so they worked him to the bone, and then we began to do the issue and we realized the president was asking a lot of very good questions, how do we know it's really bin Laden, et cetera.
And we realized we had to go and talk to the Pakistanis who were keeping him and the head of the Pakistani military, a guy named General Kayani and a guy named General Pasha, eventually agreed to cooperate us. They didn't have much choice. We could cut off our supply of arms and money under the table to the generals and we did so. We put a lot of pressure on them and they worked with us. Of course, they worked with us.
The alternative is, you want to believe what I call a Lewis Carroll fairytale, that bin Laden, the most hunted man since 2002 in the world, decided the one safe place to live is in a compound 40 miles from the main capital of Pakistan.
CUOMO: That's the point of intrigue that's always been a point of skepticism, is that we all thought he was hiding in some honeycomb cave somewhere and it turns out that he was right down the street from the equivalent of their West Point. With that as a starting point --
HERSH: That's a pretty good starting point.
CUOMO: The idea though - Obviously, look, I don't mean to tell you the trade, you've been doing it at such a high level for such a long time, but the idea that we were working with them and then after, as soon as it comes out, the Pakistani government condemns us unconditionally for doing it. I mean, it just doesn't seem that they were owning their own narrative. Why wouldn't Pakistan come out and say we gave you this guy, we helped you?
HERSH: Well, the idea was, the understanding was -- First of all, bin Laden's very popular inside Pakistan. The majority of the unwashed of the people there, most of the public, really respected and liked bin Laden, especially for sticking it in the eye of America. We're not very popular in Pakistan. Things are a little better now, but for many years we were very, very low, low on the totem pole in terms of respect.
The idea was that we were going to go in -- you know, if you have to -- Think about this. A team of SEALs, and our SEALs are the best there is, there is no question - 24, 25 guys go into the middle of Pakistan, take out a guy with no air cover, no protection, no security, no trouble. Are you kidding me? What happened was, the deal was we weren't going to announce it. They were going to take him out. They had to kill him, that was the agreement. There was no question this was an assassination from the get-go, despite what the White House says.
[08:25:11] They had to kill him, and they had to bring him out, the body out, then we were going to announce that the initial plan was, the plan that everybody agreed to, it would be announced seven to ten days later as the result that we did a drone hit in the Hindu Kush mountains that separate Pakistan and Afghanistan and my god, we took a look, there was a tall guy, and it turned out to be bin Laden, we did a DNA test, and the president was going to announce it a week later. Everybody in Pakistan is protected. The generals --
CUOMO: So what happened?
HERSH: What happened is the president decided that night to go public.
CUOMO: But look, then so he just double crosses the people who had handed him something, especially this president, who's bent over backwards to be nice to Pakistan? On the SEALS side, you have that they were training for a raid that you say they didn't need to do. Why were they training so hard? You have it in Utah, but it was supposedly in Nevada.
Then you have the SEALs telling such a different account. They would all have to be lying for what you're saying to be true, and we had our Peter Bergen, as you probably know, who went to the compound in Abbottabad before they destroyed it and he said the place was riddled with bullets and was, obviously, the scene of a firefight, not to mention that we lost a bird in this and the helicopter going down. All of that would have to be untrue, other than the helicopter going down, for your account to be true. Why put so much stock in it? HERSH: Because I did an awful lot of work, I talked to a lot of
Pakistanis, I quote by name, one of the things that made the story doable now, where before it wouldn't have been, was the fact that a former retired head of the Pakistani Intelligence Service, General Asad Durrani, basically said to me, look, you got the story. We all know this is true. We've all known this is true for a long time. He's talking about the insiders.
CUOMO: But he didn't say that to Bergen. When Bergen contact him, he said, look, I don't know the facts, but it is plausible. That's not exactly endorsement.
HERSH: That's not what he said in the magazine article.
CUOMO: We have a graphic. Put up what we're saying that the reporting is there so we can have it. "When I e-mailed Durrani," this is from Peter Bergen, obviously, "after the Hersh piece appeared, Durrani said there was no evidence of any kind that the ISI knew that bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad but he could still 'make an assessment that this could be plausible'." That's exactly what I said it was. So that --
HERSH: That's not what he said in the article and that's not what he said in many, many exchanges by phone, by e-mail. The sentences that appeared in the article are very definitive. He understood there was a walk-in. Of course, everybody knew that's what happened in the Pakistani side. I also quoted somebody I could not name in the Pakistani who's very knowledgeable about Pakistan saying the same thing.
Look, I'm sorry it goes against the grain. I've been doing this all my life. All I can tell you is, I understand the consequences, I've been a reporter, as you know, for 50 years in this town. Had a lot of good stories and a lot of stories --
CUOMO: But not everything turns out the way you think it's going to turn out also, even in your own career. That's part of the vagaries of the business. But something --
HERSH: I would argue that a lot of the stories I wrote were pretty much on mark. I'm not going to -- nobody's perfect, of course. I mean, everybody's done bad stories.
CUOMO: But it's about which stories you decide to go out on a limb for and on this one --
HERSH: I'm not out on a limb, that's just your definition. I'm sorry that Durrani was under pressure, maybe I had no idea what he said. But it's very clear, we were back and forth in e-mails.
CUOMO: But if he doesn't say the same to Peter Bergen by Bergen's reporting, if Bergen sees that it was the scene of the firefight, if the SEALs say it happened that way, we know they were training - not where you said, but somewhere -- the Saudis putting this guy up in Pakistan when the Saudis hate him and revoked his citizenship. Why would the Saudis be paying for the keep of Osama bin Laden? you didn't find that hard to believe?
HERSH: Not if you think about the fact that the last thing the Saudis wanted the Pakistanis to do was to give us access to bin Laden because then bin Laden might tell us just who was financing him in those years in 2001, 2002, when he did the damage he did.
CUOMO: The Pakistanis, as you know, have handed people over quietly before, like KSM. Why wouldn't they have done it that way? Why this elaborate rouse this way?
HERSH: It wasn't a rouse - I told you, it was an understanding it wouldn't be announced, it would be announced by the president seven to ten days later. I'm waiting for the White House to deny the story. They haven't done anything public yet.
CUOMO: There are no commenting it right now, but I don't think --
HERSH: Why not?
CUOMO: -- I think it's a safe bet that they don't buy it. I think they don't want to give too much fuel to the fire. I think they'd rather it just go away as something that should be dismissed. Why aren't the Pakistanis owning it? Why aren't they coming out and saying, yes, Hersh has it right?
HERSH: Why? Because if the two generals involved admitted publicly that they knew all about the invasion and the attack in advance, they would have a hard time being safe. They'd need an awful lot of security. The option for them, once the president made public, made that surprise announcement, believe me, to the Pakistanis, the option for them was to say, yes, you're right, we didn't know a thing about it and take the heat that way.
[08:29:59] And, in fact, the Pakistani military, the military, is a very proud institution, it was a big blow to their whole image and the country. It was a very unhappy time for the Pakistanis.
CUOMO: It would have to be -- but one of two things has to be true.
