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Tornado Warnings, Watches in U.S.; ESPN: NFL Stops CTE Research Funds; Muslim Families Banned from Boarding Flight to L.A.; "The Real Black Santa" Visits Kids. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 23, 2015 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Quickly, you mentioned the daughter. She is distraught about seeing her daughter. What's happening with the daughter? Where is she? Who's taking care of her?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Our understanding is that she is in protective custody, that family members are looking to try to get in touch and see if they can take control of her welfare. But from this point, we understand she's a ward of the state at this point. And we'll see if we can reach out to the daughter's father.

LEMON: Sad story.

You guys, thanks. I appreciate it, Joey Jackson and Stephanie Elam.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: Up next, the NFL playing defense after ESPN reports the league backed out of paying for a research study of traumatic brain injuries.

Right now, tornado warnings and watches in effect as a system of severe storms moves across parts of the U.S. Oh, no. A full report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Right now, tornado warnings and watches in effect as a system of severe storms moves across parts of the U.S.

Let's get to Jennifer Gray in the CNN Severe Weather Center down in Hotlanta.

What's the situation now, Jennifer?

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Things are going from bad to worse especially across the south. The next couple of hours is when we're going to watch it closely. We have a very warm and humid air mass in place across the south, cold and dry in the West. Those two air masses are colliding and we're getting a lot of storms. What we're looking at, this red, bull's eye right here, portions of Arkansas, Mississippi, up through even Louisville, Nashville. Included in that, tornadoes, some strong, throughout the afternoon today. We've already seen damaging winds and even hail the size of golf balls and even tennis balls across portions of Arkansas. So this is what we're looking at. These are the tornado watches in

effect. These go on some of them until 5: 00, this one in particular until 8:00. And the storm prediction center has labeled this one as a particularly dangerous situation. That is basically the highest level that you can place on one of these watch boxes. It means we are going to be looking for the potential for very dangerous super cells to start firing up and also tornadoes.

Here are the thunderstorm warnings in place. We also had a couple of tornado warnings in place. I don't see them now. Most likely they've expired. But the forecast over the afternoon, you can see this line starting to develop, pushing through Nashville. We're going to see strong storms, Don, throughout the afternoon, not to mention the travel delays that are going do be in place across the eastern seaboard and the south.

[13:35:51] LEMON: Tomorrow is the big day for travel. Am I OK? I'm going to Baton Rouge?

GRAY: Let's hope.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I've got to go through Atlanta, too.

GRAY: Oh, no. It will be better than today. I'll say that.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Jennifer. Appreciate it.

The NFL is on the defense today again over head injuries. ESPN is reporting that the league pulled funding from a research study on brain disease. The study announced yesterday will focus on diagnosing a disease known as CTE. Right now, it can only be diagnosed after death. The disease has been found in the brains of dozens of deceased former NFL players.

Let's break down the story now with CNN's sports anchor, Rachel Nichols.

Thank you.

CTE, right? It can only be diagnosed in people once they have their brain -- after death.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN WORLD SPORT ANCHOR: This study would be a game changer. If you could diagnose it in people while they're alive, you could start treating it. If you don't know someone has something, you can't start treatment.

LEMON: What happened? ESPN says the NFL pulled the funding. NFL and NIH say that is not what happened. What happened?

NICHOLS: The NFL fired back almost immediately with a very strongly worded tweet from their public relations official. It says, "ESPN's story is not accurate. NFL did not pull any funding. NIH makes its own decisions." And we can actually just go over to the NIH statement. The NIH statement says, "The NFL funding commitment to their study remains intact. NFL is willing to contribute to this particular study. NIH made the decision to fund the study in its entirety."

Now, I just want to break both of those statements down a little bit. The NFL coming out and saying, ESPN reporting isn't true. I obviously was not privy to the ESPN source reporting, nor am I in the NFL offices, so none of us can tell you which version is true. I can tell you that the reporters on this ESPN story are the two most respected reporters in this field. They wrote a landmark book on the subject, a front line documentary on the subject. They are very well sourced. You have to take what they say into account.

The NIH coming out and saying, we're still funding the study, they still have $30 million coming from the NFL. So they're not going to rock the boat one way or the other, regardless of whether the money was pulled or whether it was just never committed, and some of that might be semantics. This is not a story the NFL needs coming out right before the movie "Concussion" comes out.

LEMON: I was going to say, you did a very lengthy interview with Will Smith. I commend Will Smith for bringing this story to life. We've been talking about it even before you were here on ESPN. We've been talking about it here. Sanjay Gupta at that has been talking about it. Now Will Smith doing that. But the timing, they don't want all of this coming out especially when the movie is coming out as well.

NICHOLS: Absolutely. Look, when you see this movie and people can see it on Christmas day, seeing it dramatized, it's so different than all of these more dry studies and funding and things we have been talking about.

And I asked Will Smith about that because, look, he's a football fan. He is a tie die-hard Eagles fan. His son played football for a long time. I asked him about that. Take a listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL SMITH, ACTOR: As a parent, I started to feel compelled to tell the story because I didn't know. While my son was playing I didn't know. I knew that if I didn't know, other parents didn't know. So it became important to me to be a part of the delivery of the information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NICHOLS: And what was so interesting, after I said, so knowing what you know now, would you let your son, Trey, play football? He said, well, you know, it's tough, that bond between a father and son. You don't want to be the one to tell them they can't play. I'd sit him down and say, Son, I really want you to play but your mother won't let you.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Good answer. In all seriousness, do you think the NFL is doing enough to get the

league to change when it comes to this?

[14:39:49] NICHOLS: That's the big question. And the question is, can the NFL do enough? Is it possible? Is this sport too dangerous? We still don't really know the answer to that. We have players who are now seeing the movie, a bunch of early screenings, the conversation is happening a lot more. And at least the NFL is donating some money to the research of this.

Now, people who are skeptics are saying they're just doing that to limit their liability. But either way, it is a lot different than it was even seven or eight years ago when they were pushing research that said there was no connection between football and brain injury. They were very aggressive in that. So this is a definite change. They've made 39 rule changes to try to make the game safer. And the question is, can it be safe enough? You watch this movie, you're not sure.

LEMON: Every time I see a story, whether it's fictionalized in a movie or it's a real-life story, it's just heartbreaking to hear what they're going through.

We'll be back on at 10:00 p.m. talking --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: -- with someone who has dealt with this.

Thank you very much, Rachel Nichols, always.

Next, a British family blocked from boarding a plane from London to Los Angeles. The family suspects it's because of their religion. We're getting more details on why this happened and we'll hear from the dad next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: A family's plans for a Disneyland vacation are on hold today. A Muslim family from the U.K. says they suspect they were stopped from boarding a plane heading to Los Angeles because of their religion. Two Muslim brothers planned to take their seven children to American tourist sites, including Disneyland and the Grand Canyon. The family's bags were loaded onto a plane last week at London's Gatwick Airport. One brother tells CNN officials did not explain why they canceled his family's travel plans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMAD TARIQ MAHMOOD, FAMILY BANNED FROM FLIGHT TO L.A.: They would not give us an explanation, and the kids were asking, what is the problem, why are we not going? And we asked, what shall we tell the kids what is going on. And we need to know a bit more than just a problem with ESTA because we have a copy of ESTA that says it is perfectly fine.

(END VIDEO CLIP) [14:45:05] LEMON: A source tells CNN U.S. Customs officials stopped the Muslim family. Norwegian air's statement, "We can confirm that a group of passengers were denied the right to board a flight from London Gatwick to Los Angeles on Tuesday, 15, December at the request of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

So let's bring in now our aviation correspondent, Mr. Richard quest. He is in London for us. Our justice correspondent, Evan Perez, is also joining us from Washington.

Richard, I'll go to you first.

What are your sources telling you about this particular incident?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: What actually happened here is that even though they had the electronic visa approval, a couple of weeks, six weeks or so, before, between check-in and boarding, with every U.S.-bound flight, the passenger manifest is sent to Washington. It's sent to the United States. And no plane can leave and depart for the U.S. until Washington has signed off on it and given the approval. There was something about these passengers that Washington didn't like, that hadn't been shown up in the database some weeks earlier. That's why they were refused. We are not told what that was.

They claim, of course, it's a personal privacy issue. The British government is now involved. And the airline has said they won't reimburse the family the best part of $15,000 to $16,000 for the 11 tickets.

LEMON: Wow, interesting.

Evan, they say it's privacy. But tell us about an e-mail address possibly linked to an 18-year-old family member.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is also altogether not clear, don. Let me stop for one minute to say that from the U.S. standpoint they believe that the fact that this family is Muslim or their background, apparently they are Pakistani background, played no role in this incident, at least that's what the Homeland Security Department is saying. Officials also tell me, Don, that not all of these people with were barred from travel. Some of them could have continued on the trip.

That said, there is a couple of things that apparently have been revealed more recently, including a Facebook posting that is associated with an e-mail that may or may not be related to one of the sons that's involved in this family. So it's not clear to me at least whether or not that played a role in this because, again, privacy reasons we don't know what the causes were for this.

We have a list of things, 60 or so reasons, the U.S. says people can be denied access to travel here. And that includes, for example, the paperwork not matching up documents not being exactly what the U.S. requires, failure to disclose previous travel, if there were any suspect countries, for instance. None of these things we know are related.

But we expect that this family can go to the U.S. Consulate there in London and perhaps get more of an explanation that we're not entitled to because, given the amount of attention this is getting, I think that's going to be demanded of the U.S. Consulate there.

LEMON: Go on, Richard. Before you go, tell us if you know anything about this Facebook post.

QUEST: The Facebook page, OK. There's a page with an e-mail address with a same or similar name with one of the passengers that has a reference to al Qaeda in some shape or form. And that is being raised as a potential. The only problem with the Facebook page is the father says it's not the son's, that the page comes from somebody living in Birmingham in London, which is the equivalent of saying somebody living in Pittsburgh versus somebody living in Boston. So that's a question of whether it's just mistaken identity in terms of the page.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Right. And we don't know -- we have no idea whether it's related to this at all.

QUEST: Absolutely not. And as for the idea of going to the embassy in London, there is a redress avenue that you can use when you're refused flight to the United States. Depends on if they're on the no- fly list. If they are on the no-fly list, then it's a whole different ball of wax. It's a much more complicated deal.

PEREZ: And they likely would not have gotten to this point if they were on the no-fly list.

LEMON: They clearly think, though, that it is because of American politics and what's playing out right now, correct? At least the dad does.

PEREZ: They do.

QUEST: I can see why they say that. And so far, there is only the circumstantial evidence of the refusal of them to fly that actually justifies it. They're pinning it on them. The U.S. says it's not.

[14:49:59] LEMON: Richard, Evan, thank you, sirs. Gentlemen, appreciate it. Up next, Senator Ted Cruz slamming "The Washington Post" for running a

political cartoon that features his children. He got very emotional today when he spoke to reporters. We'll have that for you.

Plus, for years he has visited children who think that Santa Claus doesn't look like them. Santa Dee, also known as "the real black Santa Claus" -- uh, oh, we're going to start a mess today, aren't we -- he joins me live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:55:13] LEMON: OK, everyone, I know everybody is at home watching TV. It's a spoiler alert for anyone with children in the room. We all know how busy Santa is this time of year and how many helpers he has all over the world so to make sure the details of every child's holiday wish gets to the north pole, he's very busy, so I'm giving you a warning.

My next guest is a special assistant to the big man in red. For more than a decade, he has spent the weeks leading up to Christmas visiting children who don't see a Santa who looks like them. He's been my Santa all my life.

Joining me from Atlanta is Santa Dee, known as the real black Santa.

SANTA DEE, "THE REAL BLACK SANTA": Good afternoon. How are you?

LEMON: Ho, ho, ho. How you doing, Black Santa?

SANTA DEE: I am doing great. Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: How did you become one of Santa's helpers? And more importantly, why is it important for you to represent this particular version of Santa?

SANTA DEE: Well, it happened about 14 years ago. I was actually doing an insurance sales class to renew my license, and the gentleman that was teaching the class was Santa Claus. His phone just kept ringing, constantly, during the training. I asked him, I said, is that a good, lucrative business? He said, yeah. Last year I made about $28,000. I was like, wow, my beard is gray. He said, well, black Santas are in demand. From May to November, I grew the beard out, started doing Santa Claus. At the time, my sister was my manager. She got us a couple of gigs and we did Santa Claus. And I fell in love with the job, not the money, but the job.

LEMON: Do you do it full time?

SANTA DEE: I do it full time. I'm the type of individual if I'm working in the yard and I'm filthy and dirty, before I go out to Home Depot to get a part, I'm going out to clean up so I look like Santa.

LEMON: Before you go get gifts for adults, right? I know that you read letters year round.

SANTA DEE: Oh, yeah.

LEMON: I was going to ask if you did it full time because Santa leads the letters full time and then decides if he's going to grant wishes. You already told me that my wish for this apartment I want in New York City is not coming true because of what I did on a Tuesday in July, I understand that. I get it.

(LAUGHTER)

So you say kids don't see black or white. They just see the red suit, correct? SANTA DEE: That's correct. I'm a true believer that until kids' get

to a certain age where parents and the community and the place they live bring color in into it, kids don't see color. When I started doing this job I was a mall Santa. I was in one specific mall, and the mom came through and she saw the Santa in the morning, who was white, and she saw him and came back in the afternoon, and when she came in the afternoon with the kids dressed to the "T," ready to see Santa, she saw me. Not the Santa she was looking for. She's like, no, that's not what we want. The kids were like, it's Santa, let's go, let's go. So I always said and I've been saying it for years that kids don't see color. They see the fat man in the red suit. He's the one bringing gifts. That's all they see.

LEMON: I think that's great. I think you're absolutely right because I always thought Santa looked just like you growing up because you were my Santa. You know that song "Santa Claus is a Black Man."

SANTA DEE: That's right.

(SINGING)

LEMON: James Brown says Santa Claus goes straight to the ghetto.

SANTA DEE: That's right.

LEMON: I understand you're more in demand than white Santas. Is that correct?

SANTA DEE: I won't say I'm more in demand than white Santas. I think the fact there's so few black Santas, it make it's a little harder for folks to find us. Right now, I am still -- I guess you would call me the premier black Santa in the country. I'm not saying I am or not. But I'm the one you can find on the web. I've had people call me from as far away as Ohio. I was supposed to be in Baltimore this season, but unfortunately we were already booked up for that time period.

LEMON: You know there's a storm system going through so be careful in your sleigh, Santa.

(LAUGHTER)

We don't want anything to happen to Santa.

SANTA DEE: I've got Rudolph and we're going to make it just fine.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Santa Dee, you're a great sport. Thank you and merry Christmas to you.

SANTA DEE: Merry Christmas. Thank you very much.

LEMON: Yes. And it's settled. There you go. Santa.

(LAUGHTER)

Oh, boy. It is the top of the hour. You're watching CNN. I'm Don Lemon. Brooke is off today.

We're beginning with Donald Trump. We've seen his unconventional. Now he's looking for untouchable than ever. A CNN poll just out today shows the presidential candidate with 39 percent of the Republican vote, at least the third poll to put him at or near 40 percent --