Transcripts For CNNW Starting Point 20130516 : vimarsana.com

0 the independent state department review on the ben gghazi attack they demand a public hearing. plus, you still have a chance, the powerball still up for grabs and the jackpot perhaps will reach an eye-popping $475 million. good morning. i m john berman. i m christine romans, thursday, may 16th. starting point begins right now. we do begin with the dangerous deadly tornadoes. outbreak overnight killing at least six people, more than 100 others injured in north texas. right now this morning, 14 people are missing. terrifying funnel clouds bearing down on the hardest hit area. that would be granbury, texas. that is where these six people were killed in a habitat for humanity neighborhood. most of the homes were destroyed. 120. victor blackwell is in granbury for us. victor, what s the latest this morning. there s a rescue task force coming from dallas to search for those 14 missing persons. also here, look over here, the heavy machinery has just pulled up. bulldozers over here to start to clean up the mess left by what the sheriff calls a monster that created a war zone. take a look at this. video from a storm chaser in north texas wednesday night. and this. this is what a tornado looks like in the dark, lit up by lightning. it s just hug them and pray to god as loud as you can. reporter: that s what this man did when the storm hit. he rode out the storm with his family in his bathtub. the roof collapse and the twister there. it s horrible. reporter: they say it hop scotched through the area touching down and lifting up as it cut through north texas. as storm passed, reports of injuries and fatalities came in. i ve had information that people were found in homes, they were hard hit, those homes i ve been told were collapsed, destroyed, as they were probably hit by flying debris. made their way out of their homes while crews worked to free people trapped inside buildings. the top of the hill, you could tell where the tornado went through directly because it s just wiped out. trees gone, houses completely demolished. reporter: officials sent school buses to the hardest hit areas to help with evacuations as residents cope with losing everything in an instant. there s just nothing left, i m sorry. there s just nothing left. reporter: 250 people were taken out of the community that was hit hardest and coming into the community, volunteers. firefighters from other communities in other cities. and there are now donations of food and clothing and offers for people to stay with relatives and friends now that this tornado and these tornadoes will get a final number from the national weather service, have created so much destruction. back to you. victor, we re getting our first look at live pictures from the air of the damage there. it is still dark. we do see roofs ripped off of homes there. lots of damage on the ground. obviously as the sun does begin to come up there, we will get a much better sense of the scope of the damage there. we will come back to you because we want to stay with this all morning. thank you, victor blackwell. we also want to look at where the storms might be headed right now. meteorologist jennifer delgado is in the cnn center in atlanta. good morning. good morning, christine and john. we re looking at the radar. things have quieted down since yesterday. you can see just scattered showers well to the southern part of texas. for areas hit by these tornadoes, things are going to be quiet as we go through the next couple of days but let s take a look. from north texas down to central texas. this is where we re hearing the three reported tornadoes came down. those numbers could go up. now we re hearing possibly ten tornadoes moved through central as well as northern texas. this looks like the work of several supercells. now, as we examine this a bit more, granbury, texas, that s the area we re following, this tornado right here or this storm actually took a right turn and then moved into cleburn. typically for the month of may, you usually see about 322 tornadoes. right now we ve only had reports of three confirmed tornadoes. a lot of that is because it s been so cold. so we haven t had that severe weather. pointing out to you as we go through the next couple of days. it s going to be very hot. for people who don t have homes and sun rise comes today at 6:28. survey teams will be out there at 6:00 a.m. surveying the damage within four counties. these numbers continue to go up. jennifer gel gado, thank you. a first on cnn. attack on the u.s. consulate in bengha benghazi. the two men who headed up the state department s review of the events are demanding a public hearing to defend their reputation. in a letter obtained by cnn to congressman darrell issa, admiral michael mullen and general thomas pickering say it s not in the public interest for them to be questioned behind closed doors. they write, in our view, requiring a closed door proceeding before we testify publicly in an inappropriate condition. the letter concludes by saying, quote, what the committee is now proposing is highly unusual in the context of senior officials who are not fact witnesses but instead are reporting on their own independent review. meantime, one head had rolled but that s not likely to stop thehe irs irs targeting political groups. president obama is expected to face more questions today about the irs scandal during a joint appearance with turkey s prime minister. we re going to get more from dan lothian on white house control. reporter: trying to step out of a political sinkhole, president obama expressed anger at misconduct within the irs. it s inexcusable and americans have a right to be angry about it and i am angry about it. i will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency. reporter: the agency s acting commissioner steve miller was asked to resign and president obama bound to put in place new safeguards and work with congressional investigators. i will do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this happens again but this scandal threatens to run much deeper. the justice department has launched a criminal investigation, and attorney general eric holder was on the hot seat wednesday, pressed for answers by the house judiciary committee. i would strongly encourage this administration to get out front, get all the facts out, let the chips fall where they may. anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable. reporter: the irs scandal has drawn bipartisan outrage, but some top republicans already seem convinced laws were broken. my question isn t about who is going to resign. my question is, who is going to jail over this scandal? reporter: this is a white house under siege, from the irs case to the ap phone records probe to benghazi, all threatened to overshadow the president s second term agenda. on the defensive, the white house released 100 pages of e-mails wednesday as first reported by cnn jake tapper. it s part of an effort to prove politics played no role in crafting the so-called talking points that followed the deadly attacks in libya. but republicans are seizing on all these scandals, releasing this tough new video using the president s own words. the way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable. reporter: white house spokesman jay carney, battered in briefings all week, insisted the president has set a high standard and won t tolerate anything less. he wants and instructs everyone who works in the government, whether they work for him or our civil service, to hold themselves to that standard. and when he finds out that there have been failures, he acts on it. dan lothian, cnn, the white house. attorney general eric holder grilled over why the justice department secretly tapped into the phone records of the associated press. holder said, he would remove himself from the investigation. at times, the hearing which touched on other administration scandals became heated, especially during this exchange with congressman darrell issa. i m sure there must have been a good reason why only the to and from parts were yes, you didn t want us to see the details. mr. attorney general no, no. knowing the to and from that s what we typically do. i m not going to stop talking now. characterize something as something mr. chairman, would you inform the witness as to the rules of this committee. is too consistent with the way you conduct yourself as a member of congress. it s unacceptable and it s shameful. during the hearing holder was accused of not taking responsibility for what happens at the justice department. bring in cnn chief national correspondent john king. john, there was a whole lot of activity all at once last night. the president pushing out the head of the irs, the irs releasing 100 pages of e-mails on benghazi. it felt like the end of the godfather, taking care of all of the five families all at one time. maybe washington can learn some tips from the godfather. it was an abrupt, quick, pivot, you might say, about face in the white house. the night before the president released a statement saying jack lew was going to look into this. if there s wrong doing, we ll be mad about it. if, if, if. the president last night, bang, this guy is fired. i m going to do more. earlier throughout the week, we re not going to release these e-mails. part of a deliberative process. no administration releases these internal conversations about big policy decisions. bang, they release 100 pages of e-mail to try to put this down. why this happened, it is trademark classic obama. he pushes things away. he s a bit detached me says let s not rush to judgment unless and until they reach a conclusion, this is beginning to hurt them and him personally. and then they act quickly. duke that on benghazi they will act any differently than they have so far given they have been swift about the irs scandal at this point? you mentioned at the top, that admiral mullen, ambassador pickering want to go back and defend themselves and defend the finding of their investigation which essentially says the administration got some things wrong but there was no cover-up, there was no plot to mislead the american people. that s part of the administration s step. you also saw it was a question on another subject. but you saw the animosity between eric holdered and issa on the government overnight and reform committee. that what is driving this. legitimate questions. four americans died. there are some legitimate questions about what happened in benghazi, why security warnings were ignored and why the administration acted in those early hours and days. those are legitimate policy questions but at the same time there is a deep undercurrent of politics and animosity here. benghazi is not going anywhere. one other aspect of this sudden damage control, john, is it did seem like the white house was beginning to lose democrats. particularly on the issue of the irs and the scandal there. do you think the actions here might put democrats at ease and do you think now that there are more legs to this irs scandal. there are more legs to this irs scandal because they want to know what happened, how much was in the cincinnati, how much was in california, how much was here in washington. this one has legs because of the scope of it and because of the outrage. if part of the white house pivot was because democrats were starting to walk away, in a second term when you already know the opposition party, the republicans are standing up to you on just about everything, if you are starting to lose your own party in the second term, ask bush, it s over. that s when katrina happened and he could get nothing done in his final few years. that was part of the administration s urgency. the question now, john, do they turn the democrat volume down enough to get the democrats to get the answers to the irs but let s not beat up our president and pummel the white house. if you re going to watch one thing today in washington, watch the democrats on the irs issue. that could be the canary in the coal mine. o.j. simpson on the stand. long shot bid for a new trial. jodi arias back in court has the jury offered the convicted killer another blow. nancy grace breaks down the legal case and only nancy grace can. the video today that you have to see to believe. a deer crashing through the windshield of a bus. find out how it ended. i m talking for the deer. you re watching starting point. how do you get your bou? i just stick the bar in the dryer like this, and it freshens my laundry for me so i don t have to think. wait. what was the question? 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