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CNN NEWSROOM

All United Flights Grounded by Computer Problem; Showdown Brewing Ahead of House Flag Debate; Reactions to Cosby Admission; Hillary Clinton Pushes Back on Media Criticism. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 8, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:01] JIMMIE WALKER, FORMER BILL COSBY CO-STAR: And you cannot be the guy if they pull back the covers and this kind of thing is found. He is the greatest comedian of all times. I don't understand why the Quaaludes were in there. The urban comics from Hannibal Burress to Cat Williams and Michael Epps had just run out of gas with Cosby telling them pull up your pants, learn how to speak English.

I think everybody gives Cosby the credit for being the greatest of all times. But they're saying, let me do my thing. And all those urban comics use a lot of language. And you can hear it in the Eddie Murphy special "Raw," let me do my thing, you do your thing. Let's respect each other. And I think a lot of the urban comics found that Cosby didn't respect what they did.

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Jimmie Walker, we really appreciate your time. Wish we had more. Thanks so much for joining us.

WALKER: Thank you, Ana. Good luck.

CABRERA: We want to let everybody know, if they tune in -- thank you. If you tune it at 9:00, there is a CNN special report, "NO LAUGHING MATTER, INSIDE THE COSBY ALLEGATIONS."

The next hour of NEWSROOM begins right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

CABRERA: Good morning. I'm Ana Cabrera. Thanks for rolling with me into the 10:00 hour Eastern Time. We do begin with breaking news.

United Airlines has grounded all flights in the U.S. because of this system-wide computer problem, we're learning. It's still unclear at this point whether flights outside of the country have been impacted. But the delays are expected to impact thousands of passengers right here in the U.S.

We're covering the story from all of our angles with a team of reporters and experts. CNN aviation correspondent Rene Marsh is joining us in Washington. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is in Atlanta, looking at the big picture, watching where flights are still flying into, and CNN's Kyung Lah is in Burbank, California, standing by, trying to get on a flight there.

Rene, I want to start with you. Fill us in on what we know so far.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, we're starting to get indications that perhaps the computer systems with United Airlines may slowly be coming back online and passengers will be boarding their flights soon. We did see at Reagan National Airport here outside of Washington, D.C. passengers were starting to get their boarding passes printed out electronically. So that's a good sign.

What we don't know is what percent of the problem does the airline currently have resolved. That we don't know. We know this is a nationwide issue. And we know it looks like that it is slowly -- their computers are slowly coming back on board. We do know from the airline and they reached out to us acknowledging the situation, saying in a statement, quote, "We experienced a network connectivity issue this morning. We are working to resolve this and apologize to our customers for any inconvenience."

That's a statement there. Of course, many passengers taking to social media complaining about flight delays because when you have a system or a situation, I should say, where you have nationwide, all of the flights grounded, you have to believe that this is going to be a situation that passengers are going to be dealing with for several hours to come. It's going to take some time for everything to get back to normal.

But the headline at least at this hour is there's some indication that some of these computers are slowly getting back online -- Ana.

CABRERA: All right, Rene.

Chad Myers has been tracking what flights are already in the air prior to all of this happening.

Chad, are you seeing any flights now leaving or are we still just seeing flights that are arriving?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We are now beginning to see dots turn on the map. That means that the pilots turning on the transponders. The flight explorer now picking it up. Here's United Airlines flight from YYZ, that's Calgary to Denver, now just in the air, at least on the ground I guess probably still. Only doing 20 miles per hour but at least taxiing.

I have another dot right here that just turned on in Boston. This is a flight from Boston, the United Airlines Flight 1078, that's going to go to Newark. Not off the ground yet but at least the transponder is on.

Now here, this one here, this is a Chicago flight. This is from Chicago to Orlando so get to the other one, Dave, slide down a little bit the other way. Go down a little bit the other way. Keep going. Right there. There's your dot right there. And that's going to go -- no, you're still not on it. There, it's hard to read. But this is going to from Orlando to Chicago, and it is doing 250 miles per hour. That means at least it is now off the ground. That's its air speed at least the lower altitude. So beginning to come back, the FAA Web site now has the ground stop

off. We'll have to see if it continues to be off. But planes are still landing. If you have loved ones in the air, there never was an issue of landing. There never was an issue of getting more planes on the ground.

The issue truly is now, there are too many planes on the ground, probably not enough gates in some of these airports. Some of the pilots may have run out of time which means that they won't be able to take you on your flight. Will have to get a new pilot or a new flight crew depending on how long they've stayed on the ground. And so this snowball effect that Rene was talking about is now well in effect.

[10:05:12] This is going to go on for many, many hours to get all of these people back on the planes that they hoped to be on even if the computer system is back up. We don't know that for a fact. But I got that confirmed from United but at least the ground stop off the FAA site was just deleted. We'll see if that continues to be deleted or not -- Ana.

CABRERA: Chad, you're giving people a glimmer of hope that they may be moving soon.

MYERS: A little bit.

CABRERA: But as you mentioned, there could be now other airlines even affected because on the ground, there will be a bit of this traffic jam as these flights try to get into the air and a plethora of them at the same time trying to move.

Chad Myers and Rene Marsh, stand by. Kyung Lah is one of those passengers trying to board a flight. And she's in Los Angeles, actually Burbank.

I know, Kyung, you have been filling us in along the way of how you're situation has unfolded. Are you about to board now hopefully?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I've had to abandon ship. I'm switching to another airline. I'm walking through the airport trying to catch another flight because my United flight was already supposed to be in the air. I can tell you it is still on the ground. The lines are long.

Chad was talking about that snowball effect? Well, we're at the bottom of the hill. The United passengers are getting buried today. The lines are long. The computers -- maybe they're talking to each other now, but all the boards here are saying all the United flights are on time and I can tell you they're not on time. So this is a small airport. If you are going to a larger airport, it is going to be a mess.

Now there's another passenger I was talking to, she was -- she was thinking about driving down to LAX and she heard from a friend there at LAX that it was even worse. So you know, you hear that cliche, pack your patience. If you're flying United, you're going to want to call ahead and definitely pack a couple of bags of patience. CABRERA: And Kyung, you tweeted out that picture of passengers having

these handwritten tickets. Are they still issuing tickets by hand in the United terminal there, do you know?

LAH: When I left a few minutes ago, they were still issuing by hand. It was the most -- you know, it's something I've never seen. Really going old school. Ticket agents going through, getting IDs, writing people's names. It was -- it was strange. I haven't seen anything like that in a very, very long time. So, yes, people are handing over their IDs and they were still writing it out by pen when I last left.

But you know what, one thing I should add is that even though the lines are long, even though no one is really moving, people have been very, very patient. You know, a lot of people are used to these hiccups happening. So, you know, travelers are just shrugging their shoulders and saying, try to switch airlines or wait it out.

CABRERA: All right. Kyung Lah reporting along with Rene Marsh and Chad Myers, our thanks to all of you.

Kyung, safe travels as you try to get on your next flight.

We just are getting word that the ground stop is indeed over and this is just coming in through the FAA telling us United Airlines now saying it's all over due to this computer problem. Again, no more information than that. But we do hope to learn the root cause of this problem and the good news is people should be moving pretty soon. We'll continue to follow this story and bring you any updates as soon as we get them. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:12:53] CABRERA: A quick update on the breaking news we're following. This is in L.A. A United flight now taking off from LAX. Great news obviously for those passengers who have been waiting the last couple of hours during that ground stop that was nationwide involving a computer system failure of some sort with all United planes. And so, again, live pictures of one of those planes now taking off. The ground stop is over and we're continuing to follow that situation.

Now I want to take you to South Carolina, debate on whether to take down the Confederate battle flag is heating up and any minute now, House lawmakers are expected to reconvene. They did vote to skip the committee process. And so they're bringing this bill to remove the flag directly to the floor. Supporters of the flag are expected to make one last-ditch effort to keep it raised outside of the state's capitol.

This measure already passed the Senate with overwhelming support. It requires two-thirds majority, however, in both chambers before it can reach the governor's desk. And some have said there could be a little bit more opposition in the House.

So let's bring in CNN's Nick Valencia. He is on the ground in South Carolina for us -- Nick. NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Ana. The

House of Representatives here in the state of South Carolina expected to take up the second reading of a controversial bill that would permanently remove the Confederate flag from state grounds. Yesterday the Senate here in the state had their vote, 36-3, overwhelmingly in favor of removing the flag. Today it's the House's turn.

I've been speaking to House lawmakers. And they tell me there's a possibility for amendments to be introduced into this bill that they're taking up. One of the things mentioned is removing the Confederate flag and perhaps replacing it with another flag from the confederacy history, though nothing official has been proposed.

There are some nerves, we should mention. The House Democrats I've spoken to, some of them anyway concerned that there may not be enough votes to push this through with a two-thirds majority. Others a little bit more optimistic. Some saying that this could all end by Thursday or Friday with a final vote eventually getting to the governor, Nikki Haley, who has five days to sign this.

[10:15:01] We should mention that this conversation to remove the Confederate flag was accelerated by last month's shooting in Charleston at the historic Emanuel AME Church. New developments in that, 21-year-old shooter Dylann Roof is facing nine attempted -- nine murder chargers. And now three additional charges we're being told for attempted murder. Those three survivors.

So a lot of attention being focused there on the families affected and here outside. You can see gathered behind me are take-it-down supporters, people that want to see the flag taken down. We've also seen a lot of people here who say that they want to see that flag stay up because it stands for southern heritage and pride -- Ana.

CABRERA: Nick Valencia in Columbia, South Carolina, thanks for staying on top of it.

Still to come, Hillary Clinton says her personal use of e-mail is being used for political gains by Republicans. Hear her thoughts on that and more in her exclusive CNN interview just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:20:09] CABRERA: Janice Dickinson says she feels, quote, "no vindication in Cosby's admission that he obtained drugs with the intent of giving them to women he wanted to have sex with."

The supermodel who claims Bill Cosby raped her in the early 1980s spoke with CNN's Erin Burnett about the new revelations and the stars who continue to support him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, OUTFRONT: Here's a little bit more of what Whoopi said.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CO-HOST, THE VIEW: In America, still, I know it's a shock, but you actually were innocent until proven guilty. He has not been proven a rapist.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Janice, when you hear that, what do you think? I mean, how does someone at this point prove something?

JANICE DICKINSON, COSBY ACCUSER: I can't -- I can't answer anything about Whoopi Goldberg. You know, I mean, she's a talk show host. You know. I don't know if she's ever been raped or drugged or bought off. I don't know. I can't -- I can't answer that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: We'll bring in Boris Sanchez, he's been following this story for us.

Boris, what are you -- what more can you tell us?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ana, it's so interesting to see that range of reactions from these alleged victims. Janice Dickinson obviously very distraught while Victoria Valentino, another alleged victim, said she was elated that the details in that 2005 deposition came out on Monday. That deposition, the strongest evidence so far. For more than two dozen women who say the 77-year-old comedian drugged and raped them.

Now while Cosby has steadfastly denied those claims, many are essentially walking away from him. Disney removing a statue of Cosby from their Hollywood Studios theme park. Not commenting on that decision. Also two networks, bounce TV and centric, removing reruns of "The Cosby show" from their air. Not everyone walking away from him, though. You saw Whoopi Goldberg defending him on "The View" yesterday. Also on that show, former "Cosby Show" co-star Raven- Symone said she needs more evidence before she can make a judgment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAVEN-SYMONE, CO-HOST, THE VIEW: I don't really like to talk about it that much because he's the reason I'm on this panel in the first place. He gave me my first job. But at the time, you know, you need the proof. And then I'll be able to give my judgment here or there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Cosby again has denied all the accusations against him. His attorney has said they will not be putting out a comment. His publicist also saying they don't plan on giving a statement.

CABRERA: All right. Boris Sanchez, reporting, thanks so much.

For more, I want to turn to Mel Robbins, who is CNN commentator, legal analyst.

Now I want to focus on possible charges because so many people are asking, when is he going to face his day in court? And, of course, the statute of limitations has expired in so many of these cases. Is it possible he could still face criminal charges?

MEL ROBBINS, CNN COMMENTATOR: Absolutely possible. In fact, let's just focus on New York and the state of California. In the state of New York if a victim comes forward and alleges that she was raped by Bill Cosby and has a story that the police and that the prosecutors feel that they can prosecute and move forward on, she has to allege that it happened from 2006 forward. If that happens and it's a good case and they can -- they think they can prove it, he will be charged.

In California, 2004, and here's something really interesting, there is a woman, Chloe Goins, who says that she was raped by Bill Cosby at the Playboy mansion. It's under investigation by the LAPD. It falls within the statute of limitations. And if you're interested in this, tune in at noon because her attorney is going to be on with Ashleigh Banfield talking about that case.

So he is by no means out of the woods. And I just want to address with those ladies set on "The View" because I'm disgusted. There is a difference between the burden of proof in a criminal case and the burden of proof with commonsense. When you have 24 women that come out and say the exact same thing over and over and over and have nothing to gain because they can't prosecute him, they can't bring a civil claim because the statute of limitations has run, they've got nothing, absolutely nothing to gain.

And so to say that you still need more proof when Bill Cosby actually corroborates that he had a plan with women, that he had drugs for women, it is absurd and it's offensive. I can't believe what I'm hearing.

CABRERA: Well, we do want to say Bill Cosby has denied all of these allegations and he has yet to face any criminal charges so --

ROBBINS: But he may.

CABRERA: He is, you know, not -- has not been proven guilty in a court of law at this point. But you say it's still possible --

ROBBINS: In the court of commonsense.

CABRERA: And it's still possible he could face charges moving forward because there are also a number of other states that have no statute of limitations. And if what some of these women are saying is true, that there are many more cases they know of, that hasn't been made public, you never know where those cases are. But there is another case that is still pending right now. The case of Judy Huff.

Now this is in California, which has stature of limitations. She claims when she was 15 years old, she was sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby at the Playboy mansion. This is back in the 1970s. But yet her case is pending. It just came forward in December. Why is her case not, I guess, limited by the statute of limitations?

ROBBINS: Well, so there's three different statute of limitations in the state of California. There's those that apply to rapes that are perpetrated against women who are 18 years or older. And that statute of limitations is 10 years. Then there is the statute of limitations for minors. That is up to your 40th birthday, you can bring a claim. Well, clearly since this happened in the '70s, she's certainly older than 40 years old.

There's a third. And the third is, if you have a triggering event when you're an adult that makes you remember an attack that happened when you were a child and you have a certified psychologist in the state of California that can testify to the fact and will sign an affidavit that says, she's been in therapy, she only just remembered it, that I will put my professional opinion on the line and sign an affidavit that says this is something that happened that she's now remembered, you have a new statute of limitations of, I believe, it's three years. But I'll have to check. But just a couple of years from the memory of it happening.

CABRERA: Of the trigger.

ROBBINS: And that's what happened. She's saying that when all of these women started coming forward, she went into therapy, she remembered that it happened to her as we hear the details about the blue pills and about the drugging and more and more people come forward, that's raising up these memories and validating it, and that's what she's basing her claim on.

And so I would frankly be surprised given the number of women that have come forward and given the fact that it's only 2006 moving forward in New York, 2004 moving forward in California, if we don't see somebody come forward making new claims.

CABRERA: All right. Mel Robbins, thanks for breaking it down for us. And it will be interesting. This is one to watch for sure. Tune in tonight at 9:00, CNN's special report "NO LAUGHING MATTER, INSIDE THE COSBY ALLEGATIONS".

Hillary Clinton under heavy scrutiny for shrugging off the media in the first few months of her presidential bid. But she did sit down in an exclusive interview with CNN's Brianna Keilar. And Clinton says the media just isn't her priority. It's the people who could put her in the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not running my campaign for the press. I'm running it for voters. I totally respect the press and what the press has to do. But I wanted and was determined to have the time that I needed to actually meet and listen to people.

You know, I had not been involved in domestic politics while I was secretary of state. And I just wanted to get my own feel, my own time face to face with people. And I learned a lot, Brianna.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Joining me now, CNN's senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny and CNN senior political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson. Nia, let's start with you. Clinton says she wanted to connect with

voters first. Fair enough. And she's saying she's going to start doing more interviews. Does this still provide fuel to critics who say she still isn't being transparent enough?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely. And you saw the Republicans with a flood of statements after this interview basically saying that she's still obfuscating on some of these issues, whether it was the e-mails. They were sort of complaining about her dodging certain answers that were very directly asked by Brianna there. So, yes, this doesn't put a lot of complaints about Hillary Clinton from Republicans to rest.

I think the question is, does it change any minds in terms of that Democratic constituency that she's going after in this primary race. She's obviously going to be out there more and more. Certainly donors have been pushing her to get out there more. I talked to a couple of those folks who didn't like this initial sort of strategy that she had. I think we'll see her more and more but the more she does this and I think obviously folks in her campaign know this, the more she does interviews, there are going to be more questions and more attacks and more ways in which Republicans will try to press her.

CABRERA: Jeff, Clinton also talked about the controversy around her use of personal e-mail while she was secretary of state. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: So can you tell me the story of how you decided to delete 33,000 e-mails and how that deletion was executed?

CLINTON: Well, let's start from the beginning. Everything I did was permitted. There was no law, there was no regulation, there was nothing that did not give me the full authority to decide how I was going to communicate. Previous secretaries of state have said they did the same thing. And people across the government knew that I used one device, maybe it was because I am not the most technically capable person, and wanted to make it as easy as possible.