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Patriots Owner Comment on Brady Penalty; Lawyer Accuses Donald Trump of Meltdown Over Breast Pump; $2 Gas Expected to Make a Comeback; Florida Man Accused in Bomb Plot; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 29, 2015 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:02] CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right. David McKenzie reporting live from South Africa this morning.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Any moment now, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick will face reporters. The big question, will he address Tom Brady's suspension. Yesterday the NFL accused Brady of trying to hide evidence from the NFL by destroying his cell phone. The iconic NFL quarterback already speaking out, slamming the NFL in a Facebook post this morning.

Brady writing in part, quote, "I did nothing wrong and no one in the Patriots organization did either. I have never written, texted, e- mailed to anybody at any time anything related to football air pressure before this issue was raised at the AFC championship game in January. To suggest that I destroyed a phone to avoid giving the NFL information it requested is completely wrong."

Brady's four-game suspension, though, was upheld after the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Brady had his assistant destroy that cell phone and SIM card, the very same phone Brady supposedly used to send those text messages during the now infamous deflategate.

Sports anchor Rachel Nichols is here along with sports attorney David Cornwell.

Thanks to both of you for being with me.

So, Rachel, Tom Brady wrote quite a lengthy response on his Facebook page this morning.

RACHEL NICHOLS, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes. Absolutely. And look, there's two battles going on right now. There is the battle of public opinion which the NFL really took the lead on yesterday with this cell phone issue because when they put it out there, hey, Tom Brady destroyed his cell phone on the day NFL investigators came to talk to him, no matter what the truth is behind it, no matter what anyone's intentions are, it doesn't look good. So there is that issue.

Then there's the issue of the actual battle that is about to happen in court. And that's not going to be on the merits of the cell phone or even on the merits of deflated footballs. That's all going to be about procedure. That's all the NFLPA and Brady can appeal on now. So we've got two completely separate tracks going on now. Depends on what you think is the most important. But Tom Brady's legacy, though, really at issue here because the public opinion route, even if the procedure route goes well for him in court, public opinion route, not going very well right now.

COSTELLO: There will always be an asterisk by his name.

So, David, you're the attorney. What's going to happen?

DAVID CORNWELL, SPORTS ATTORNEY: Well, I think Tom's going to lose both battles, both in the court of public opinion as well as in the judicial court. It's important to know that integrity of the game is probably the most important issue that a commissioner has authority to regulate. There are no hard-and-fast rules about what he should do or how he should do it. The only rule is that you cannot cheat. And if you -- there's suspicious of cheating, you have an obligation to cooperate.

The strong weight of the evidence is that somebody cheated. And when Tom destroyed that second phone, meaning there are three phones at issue, he only destroyed one of them. When he destroyed that second phone, as a matter of law, there is a presumption that he destroyed that phone because the information on it would have been harmful to him. So he will lose in the judicial court.

And his statement today, and I'm sure statements to come from others, will be an attempt to water down that axiomatic rule of law. That he -- if you destroyed evidence there is a presumption you did because you know that it would have hurt you. So I think he's going to lose in both courts.

COSTELLO: But, Rachel, am I right? Tom Brady said he went to great lengths to provide the NFL with the information it had requested.

NICHOLS: He did. And that's what the NFL Players Association is banking on. David's right. There will be statements from everyone. And the NFLPA is calling this phone issue a smoke screen. They say that this is, quote, "a new low," even for the NFL offices to be fixating on this phone when they say -- even the NFL acknowledges that Brady after not being able to come up with the physical phone went to the phone company. Got his own phone records and gave them to the NFL which Tom Brady, by the way, isn't required to do.

The NFL has no subpoena power. So that's another big mystery for all of us watching here. Why destroy the phone at all? Because all you would have had to say is, I'm not giving it to you because he didn't have to give it to them. So the idea that they destroyed it first of all is a real mystery. And then the second idea that they told the NFL they destroyed it is also a bit of a mystery.

The only people at that point I would assume who knew he destroyed the phone were himself, his wife Gisele, his attorneys, his assistant, who I guess is the phone destroyer person. Who knows? Maybe they felt they couldn't keep it quiet but it seems like an odd chain of events. COSTELLO: So both of you stick around, I hope you can, because we're

awaiting Bill Belichick to get behind the podium to see if he says about this and when we do, we'll take you back to that news conference.

Richard Nichols, David Cornwell, thanks.

[10:05:02] Unprofessional and a lack of self-control, that's how lawyer Elizabeth Beck describes what she calls a meltdown by presidential candidate Donald Trump when she asked to take a break so she could pump breastmilk during a deposition in 2011. The allegations which were first reported by the "New York Times" date back to a lawsuit over a failed real estate project.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH BECK, LAWYER WHO DEPOSED DONALD TRUMP: He had an absolute meltdown when I said that I needed the break and it was for breast pumping purposes, he got up. His face got red. He shook his finger at me and he screamed, you're disgusting, you're disgusting, and he ran out of there. And we were not able to conclude his deposition that day.

What kind of a -- of a leader of the United States would that be? Is he going to behave that way when he's negotiating treaties with China or Russia?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Trump is already firing back, tweeting this, quote, "CNN did not say that lawyer Beck lost the case and I got legal fees. Also, she wanted to breast pump in front of me at the deposition."

Of course, the lawyer Beck denies that. By the way -- as I said, the lawyer denies that. So let's bring in CNN political reporter Sara Murray.

Good morning, Sara. So will this make any difference at all?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Good morning, Carol. It's difficult to say if this is going to make a difference. People sort of know that Donald Trump can be a little bit brash, a little bit brazen. And so I don't necessarily think they would be that surprised to see him say this. Now we do have a comment from his lawyer who was in the room with him -- Donald Trump's lawyer in the room with him at the time. And he said the comment was in no way a statement about her decision to breastfeed or pump, it was solely the fact that she was appearing to do it in the middle of a deposition.

Now we have the transcript of what was happening leading up to this sort of disgusting comment. And during the transcript she says, look, can we take a break? And Donald Trump says no. And then they go off the record and apparently that's when this heated exchange happened. So it does seems like nobody -- you know, it does seem like in the middle of this deposition, there were some heated comments flying back and forth. Difficult to say whether this will ultimately end up hurting Donald

Trump, although I'm sure it might give a couple of women sort of a second thought about casting their vote in support for him.

COSTELLO: This is the second strange controversy to come out about Donald Trump. Of course we all remember controversy after that "Daily Beast" article pointed out that years ago during a divorce proceeding, Ivana Trump supposedly accused Donald Trump of rape and then she backed away from that. And then his -- I have to pause on this Donald Trump conversation to go back to Bill Belichick because he's approached, actually Robert Kraft, Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots organization, is approaching the podium. Let's listen.

ROBERT KRAFT, OWNER, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: In light of yesterday's league ruling, I felt it was important to make a statement today prior to the start of training camp. After this, I will not be talking about this matter until after the legal process plays it out -- plays itself out. And I would advise everyone in the organization to do the same. And just concentrate on preparation for the 2015 season.

The decision handed down by the league yesterday is unfathomable to me. It is routine for discipline in the NFL to be reduced upon appeal. In the vast majority of these cases, there's tangible and hard evidence of the infraction for which the discipline is being imposed. And still the initial penalty gets reduced.

Six months removed from the AFC Championship Game, the league still has no hard evidence of anybody doing anything to tamper with the PSI levels of footballs. I continue to believe and unequivocally support Tom Brady. I, first and foremost, need to apologize to our fans because I truly believe what I did in May, given the actual evidence of the situation and the league's history on discipline matters, would make it much easier for the league to exonerate Tom Brady. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The league's handling of this entire process has been extremely frustrating and disconcerting. I will never understand why an initial erroneous report regarding the PSI level of footballs was leaked by a source from the NFL a few days after the AFC Championship Game was never corrected by those who have the correct information.

[10:10:15] For four months, that report cast aspersions and shaped public opinion. Yesterday's decision by Commissioner Goodell was released in a similar manner under an erroneous headline that read, "Tom Brady Destroyed His Cell Phone." This headline was designed to capture headlines across the country and obscure evidence regarding the tampering of air pressure in footballs.

It intentionally implied nefarious behavior and minimized the acknowledgment that Tom provided the history of every number he texted during that relevant time frame. And we had already provided the league with every cell phone of every NFL -- non-NFLPA employee that they requested, including head coach Bill Belichick.

Tom Brady is a person of great integrity and is a great ambassador of the game, both on and off the field. Yet for reasons that I cannot comprehend, there are those in the league office who are more determined to prove that they were right rather than admit any culpability of their own or take any responsibility for the initiation of a process and ensuing investigation that was flawed.

I've come to the conclusion that this was never about doing what was fair and just. Back in May, I had to make a difficult decision that I now regret. I tried to do what I thought was right. I chose not to take legal action. I wanted to return the focus to football. I have been negotiating agreements on a global basis my entire life. I know there are times when you have to give up important points of principle to achieve a greater good.

I acted in good faith and was optimistic that by taking the actions I took, the league would have what they wanted. I was willing to accept the harshest penalty in the history of the NFL for an alleged ball violation because I believed it would help exonerate Tom. I have often said, if you want to get a deal done, sometimes you have to get the lawyers out of the room.

I had hopes that Tom Brady's appeal to the league would provide Roger Goodell the necessary explanation to overturn his suspension. Now the league has taken the matter to court, which is a tactic that only a lawyer would recommend.

Once again, I want to apologize to the fans of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. I was wrong to put my faith in the league. Given the facts, evidence and laws of science that underscore this entire situation, it is completely incomprehensible to me that the league continues to take steps to disparage one of its all-time greatest players and a man for whom I have the utmost respect. Personally, this is very sad and disappointing to me.

Now I know the real reason you came here was to hear Coach Belichick. So I'll turn the podium over to him.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Bob, will you change anything?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you do anything different? Can you change anything?

BILL BELICHIK, HEAD COACH, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: Well, it's good to see everyone back here. Got all the players back today for the start of training camp. And, you know, right now we're in a long step-by- step process as we head into the beginning of the 2015 season. So we're just going to take it one day at a time.

So we've got some preparation work to do in terms of conditioning and going through some policies and things like that, trying to get everybody on the same page like we normally do. We'll try to have a good day today and then try to have another one tomorrow and just string them along day by day. So that's really where we're at.

[10:15:04] I think Robert took care of the other situation. Tom's just had a statement. So there's nothing really to talk about there. Won't be dealing with that at all. Just try to get the team ready and prepare for the regular season as we always do and as we did all spring. So there's really -- there's no change for us on the football team.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)?

BELICHIK: So we're going to take it day-to-day, just like we always do.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you believe as Tom Brady says that he believes neither he nor anyone in the organization did anything wrong?

BELICHIK: We'll start training camp today, we'll get ready for the 2015 season starting today.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Coach, is there something wrong about a system where these (INAUDIBLE) cheating controversies (INAUDIBLE)?

BELICHIK: It's already been addressed.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can you elaborate a little?

BELICHIK: No.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why not?

BELICHIK: Because it's already been addressed.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: People have a lot of questions, you know, the public demand --

BELICHIK: You heard what Robert just said. It's already been addressed. Maybe you ought to go back and look at your notes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)?

BELICHIK: It's already been addressed.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Were you surprised by Roger's decision?

BELICHIK: We're going to continue to get the team ready for the 2015 season. That's what we're going to do.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How difficult is getting ready when you may not know who your quarterback will be for the first four games?

COSTELLO: All right. Vintage Bill Belichick. Right? He says he's not going to talk about it. He ain't going to talk about it. I am glad that he's still wearing his sweatshirt even though it's almost August.

(LAUGHTER)

All right. Let's talk about this because Robert Kraft, with passionate remarks.

Rachel Nichols, he is angry.

NICHOLS: He is. I just want to note Bill Belichick, it is August, and he doesn't even have the sleeves cut off that sweatshirt. That is dedication.

COSTELLO: No.

NICHOLS: So you've got to just point that out. Robert Kraft taking -- make no mistake, he has been Roger Goodell's biggest supporter for years and he is one of the most powerful owners in the NFL. The level of the shot that he just walked out on that podium moments ago and took at Roger Goodell and the NFL is enormous and could have serious reverberations.

Look, he basically is saying that he was duped. He said that he agreed -- when he kept referring to the decision he made in May, what he's talking about is his decision after the initial round of punishments came out to as a team, quote, "accept the NFL's decision." Now the entire time they did it kicking and screaming.

They -- remember published that whole Web site saying how the Ted Wells report was wrong, but they said that despite -- they felt that they were being railroaded, they thought they would be the good soldiers, they would take the largest fine in NFL history and they would also accept punishment so that they could move on as one of the 32 as they like to say in the NFL.

And he said explicitly today, what he never said explicitly before was that he hoped in taking the deal it would, as he said, exonerate Tom Brady or at least make things easier on Tom Brady or reduce suspension of Tom Brady. A little quid pro quo. And just a couple of weeks ago, we saw Robert Kraft palling around Sun Valley, Idaho, at the Billionaire's Conference that happens every summer there with Roger Goodell.

And again, you had to assume that settlement talks were in the works and sort of hey, I did this for you, will you do this for me? That certainly seemed the road it was going down. And Robert Kraft clearly felt that was the road it was going down. So for this to come out yesterday, not only does Tom Brady still get four games, not only does Roger Goodell and the NFL specifically create this whole cell phone issue where previously that really hadn't been what we were talking about, Robert Kraft is very angry.

And I don't think he's going to come down from this because he was angry in the first place and he got talked down from that ledge. I think he's way out now. And I don't think Roger Goodell is getting Bob Kraft back on his side.

COSTELLO: Yes. I want to bring back in David Cornwell, he's an attorney. And I just want to know, David -- is David there? There you are.

CORNWELL: Yes. Yes, ma'am.

COSTELLO: What do you make of this? Because Robert Kraft is angry and he says, there seems to be some sort of weird thing by the NFL to tarnish Tom Brady.

CORNWELL: It's unfortunate. You know, I was a lawyer in the NFL Office for Commissioner Pete Rozel and Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, and during that period I worked with Commissioner Roger Goodell. This is unprecedented, the attack that Mr. Kraft just lodged at the NFL office because more than the words and more than the facts, what he just did was question the integrity of the people that run the league.

And that's troublesome to me because I don't think he's right. You have two employees that go into a bathroom -- an employee that takes balls into the bathroom. You have the balls tested at halftime and there's a significant difference between the Patriots' balls and the Colts' balls. You have Tom refusing to cooperate with the investigation and destroying evidence. And he says there's no hard evidence.

[10:20:13] Well, you don't -- it's rare that you have a smoking gun in a case. It is what's more likely than not. And it is more likely than not in this case based on the facts that somebody cheated. And whether it's a ball, steroids or fixing games, you can't cheat in professional sports. That's why the NFL has hundreds of millions of fans worldwide. You can't cheat. And when you find cheaters, you've got to come down on them hard as -- for two reasons, one, to deter cheating by anybody and, two, to protect all the guys that play the game and don't cheat.

This was wrong by Robert Kraft. I don't agree that the basis for this is that somebody in the league office has no integrity. It's because they have a dispute over the facts. And it's just that simple.

COSTELLO: Well, I'm sure it's bound to get uglier as time passes on.

Rachel Nichols, David Cornwell, thanks to both of you. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:20] COSTELLO: A Florida man is behind bars this morning accused in a chilling ISIS-inspired homegrown terror plot. According to the FBI, a young man named Harlem Suarez wanted to build a bomb out of a backpack full of nails and then detonate it by using a cell phone on a beach in Key West during Fourth of July celebrations.

So let's talk about this -- let's talk about the accused. I'm joined by Steve Bucci. He spent three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and is now the director of Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation.

Welcome, sir.

STEVEN BUCCI, DIRECTOR, FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Thanks for having me.

COSTELLO: What do you make of this kid?

BUCCI: Well, he's kind of the classic example of a remotely radicalized young man. He was approached online. He got the ideas. He started to display some of the intentions. And fortunately for us, unfortunately for him, the people he reached out to, to try and accomplish this, were the good guys and they caught him.

COSTELLO: Well, yes, his last name is Suarez. His parents are Cuban immigrants. Supposedly he was inspired by ISIS. That's just strange because it wasn't religion, at least we don't know what exactly it was. But it doesn't appear to be religion that inspired him.

BUCCI: Well, it is religion that inspired him. Some of these folks that they are now reaching out to are not presently Muslims. They're from other faiths. They're from other backgrounds. But the effect of ISIS' propaganda campaign is even touching disaffected individuals who are outside the group that we would normally think that they would be able to reach.

COSTELLO: Well, his attorney says he's a troubled young man. He wanted to feel powerful and he's not -- I don't know. He didn't say this young man was mentally ill but he did say he was troubled and ISIS seems to inspire those kinds of young people.

BUCCI: They do. And you know, with almost every one of these kids that have been involved in this stuff, the males and the females, there's some issue there that is a place where this propaganda can put a hook into them and draw them in and get them involved in this stuff. It's going to happen more and more. ISIS is very good at this. The only way we can stop it is to remove the motivation that ISIS is a winning team. And that has to happen over in Iraq and Syria. But it needs to be done soon.

COSTELLO: Steven Bucci, thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.

Drivers, some good news is on the horizon for your wallet. By the end of this year, you could be paying two bucks or even less for gas.

CNN business correspondent Alison Kosik is here with me. Really?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Really. A $2 gallon coming to a gas station near you. Actually the thousands of gas stations, the prediction is, by December.

Tom Kloza, an analyst with the Oil Information Service, says that as soon as we clear Labor Day, his expectation is you'll see gas prices be cut by anywhere from 10 to 15 cents a gallon. And that's how we'll get to that $2 a gallon.

Why is that happening? Well, it's simple supply and demand. Right now there is an oversupply or a glut of oil not just here in the U.S. but also globally. And you've got less demand as you see economies showing down in Europe and in China.

So what happens? You see oil prices drop like a rock. Did you know that oil prices have fallen almost 20 percent just this month? Of course, this price now of oil around $47 a barrel, getting very close to the lows that we saw in March.

This is the second time around we've seen oil really get hit. We saw prices fall $100 over a series of a couple of months last summer. This is sort of round two. And you can expect to see gas prices really get to that $2 level on average by December.

COSTELLO: What if it hits $1.99?

KOSIK: Imagine that.

COSTELLO: I know. It would be like going back in time.

KOSIK: Yes. Right. 1970s maybe?

COSTELLO: Yes.

KOSIK: Yes? Yes.

COSTELLO: Maybe. I can't remember that far back.

KOSIK: I know. Age. I'm the same way.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Alison Kosik, many thanks.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Hillary Clinton sidesteps a question about the Keystone Pipeline again. Why she's not giving a straight answer, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)