Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. That is it for this special report, fair, balanced and unafraid. Greta goes on the record right now. Special report online starts in seconds. This is a fox news alert. New evidence that the nfl received that horrific ray rice elevator video long before this week and even long before they suspended rice for two games. Of course, thats the Baltimore Ravens running back. And tonight the Associated Press reporting that a Law Enforcement official says he sent the video of rice punching his then fiancee to an nfl executive in april. Law enforcement official even played for the a. P. A voice mail from an nfl office number. The voice mail from april 9th confirming the video had had arrived. A female voice reportedly says, thanks. And you are right. Its terrible. Just last night you heard him right here nfl commissioner Roger Goodellhearing this. Did anyone in the nfl see the second videotape before monday . No. No one in the nfl . No one in the nfl, to my knowledge, and i have been asked that same question and the answer to that is. No. And minutes ago we got this statement from the nfl regarding the a. P. s report. We have no knowledge of this. We are not aware of anyone in our office who possessed or saw the video before it was made public on monday. We will look into it. After tmz posted the inside the elevator video monday, the ravens fired rice and the nfl banned him indefinitely. And joining us tmz executive producer harvey levin. Good evening, harvey. Hi, greta. What a difference 24 hours makes, right, harvey . Yeah, it certainly does. You know, the a. P. Story, to say the least, is interesting. I will say that one of our contacts at the nfl, and i dont want to say what this is yet because we are still
developing this. But we got a slight change in the way this was put to us and the change makes me feel like maybe there are words being parsed here in terms of what the nfl got and what the nfl knew. Now, im not in a position to say they definitely got this video because we dont know. But something happened in the last half hour with us where certain words changed, which i found curious. Were the words changed to the advantage of the nfl or to the disadvantage . When you talk about this parsing, does it make nfl look more credible or does it make the nfl look slippery . It opens more of the door for an actual tape to have been sent. Okay. And does it indicate how high up . Obviously Roger Goodell is the commissioner. He is the one who made the statement to his knowledge. Is there any connection to Roger Goodell to the tape . If Roger Goodell in any
way knew about this tape he is gone, gone, gone. Thats just we know that right now. If he lied and he knew about this tape, is he out. So, now the question is if the tape did come to the office, you know, how high up did it go and why didnt it get to goodell . What happened . And thats going to be a whole other issue. All right. Is the suspected source of the tape that went to the nfl, assuming that happened, is it from the casino or is it from Law Enforcement . Its from Law Enforcement. And they dont say whether its police or prosecutors. Typically in a case like, this if i had to guess it would be police, because generally when something is in the police department, more people handle it. Once it gets to the d. A. s office, usually, as you know, greta, you know, its usually sent to a deputy who handles the case. There might be an investigator. But its a closer circle of people. I will say this now that you mention the casino. You know that goodell said
yesterday, in fact today he came out with a statement in which he said they never bothered to go to the casino because they were, essentially told that the casino was prohibited from giving them the tape because there was a pending criminal investigation. That never made sense to me. We finally got in touch with somebody in the state Attorney Generals Office in new jersey who said to us there was nothing barring the casino from handing over that tape. There is no law that says because of some active criminal investigation a casino cant hand over a tape. And i dont know where have a lot of good lawyers there. And its shocking to me that they somehow reached a conclusion without doing basic research that would have allowed them go to the casino that would have allowed them get a tape. That would have allowed them to make the right decision. All right. I have patrol car particular
worn out my mouth clicking on t mtion in the last hours. Somewhere out there there is a rumor that there is a twap some audio. Can you confirm if the tape is with audio and are you in hot pursuit of it that there is a little audio on it. I have heard there is a little audio. And it goes to ray rice saying something about or somebody saying dont call the cops. But i dont think the audio is necessarily a smoking gun, certainly not like the video. Harvey, thank you. Tmz. Com. Always has it first. Thank you, harvicky. Okay. Greta. And as we said just last night, commissioner Roger Goodell going on tv and insisting the nfl had not seen that video before this week. We had not seen any videotape of what occurred in the elevator. Tmz is reporting Law Enforcement forces sent the nfl the video inside the elevator five months ago. We assumed there was a video. We asked for video. We are also told by people at the casino that had they done that they would have shown it to him. We were never granted that opportunity. He is doing somer sawlts to explain why he didnt go to the casino. Why do you even need the second video. The first video has him dragging unconscious woman out of the elevator. I probably think they did get the video and didnt want to look at it. Did anyone in the nfl see the second videotape before monday . No. No one in the nfl . No one in the nfl, to my knowledge, and i about v. Been asked that same question and the answer to that is no. He is just full of bs. And joining us, fox tampa sports director chip carter and scott smith. Scott, first to you, your thoughts on this new information tonight which the nfl is denying but which someone says that a tape had been delivered to the nfl in april . Yeah. And if it, indeed, had been told to Roger Goodell that that tape had existed, then is he in a lot of trouble. And i dont expect him to keep his job if that is the case. There is a coverup underway. I think this whole process, the investigation by the nfl has been a joke. The initial two game suspension was a joke. I think even their domestic policy that they kind of put in place after the fact is a joke in the sense that its not going to look at individual cases and its actually giving a ground for Second Chances when maybe a Second Chance isnt deserved in this situation. But i do want to point totoone thing that we want a commissioner thats consistent. If we point back to what he did with bountygate gate and the new orleans saints. He talked about ignorance not being an excuse. And with that came suspension and came for there was a lot of fallout in that situation. Does the same apply to the commissioner in this case . Thats my question. Chip, to you. I know the you cover sports all around the country and also based in tampa. Within the range of ravens land here. I am curious you are in buccaneer land. Whats your thought on all of this . Well, if there was a
coverup, if there is any evidence of a coverup, then there is no question that Roger Goodell is going to lose his job. If it stops just short of that, greta, can i cannot see 32 nfl owners tossing him out of league. Lets face it the nfl is a money first business, just like any corporation. And until something really effects the bottom line, the man in charge is going to stay in charge. Now, there is public pressure. There is groups. There is support groups, congress is now taking a look at it but until the nfl, until the owners start losing sponsors, until commercial advertising pulls out. Until something effects that bottom line, goodell, to me, stays in power. Its not the right call but its a call the nfl i think makes. Chip, do you think the nfl sort of protects its players more than it should . The nfl, do they protect their players more than it should . Yeah. Im a little surprised i dont think so. No i think that you know, when you heard scott mention the nfl has been, i think,
horribly inconsistent about how they have handled the penalties. But i think a lot of that fault really relies on or falls on the shoulders of Roger Goodell. He as an nfl commissioner shouldnt be involved in the penalize side of the game. He should be able to delegate that to somebody else and stay above that. And come in at the end if absolutely necessary. Throughout his history as commissioner he has never been c consistently consistent how he handles nfl penalties and rules regarding the players. Big night tomorrow night Pittsburgh Steelers are going to be at ravens stadium. They are big rifles with those two teams. Im curious, your thoughts about that Game Tomorrow Night . I think its going to be a tough one for ravens fans to come to the game and try to stay focused on what is actually happening. I know players are so focused on whats going on inside the locker room that they wont have a problem focusing on the steelers. But, there is such a distraction thats going
around. The Ravens Organization which, by all accounts is a class organization, run the right way from the top down. How they would miss something like, this you know, the letter from steve that was sent out to fans last night. I thought he did a very nice job of being thorough and kind of going through the steps of what they knew and when they knew it. But this is a big black eye for this team. And how they move forward on thursday night, im not sure. I think its something that the fans are certainly going to be buzzing about. Is there any buzz around either one of you know any buzz around ray rice . Is this his reputation . I know my concern is. Greta scott, go ahead. First time deal, greta. And, you know, really jonathan banks, i think, with the buccaneers put it a way we have not heard from any other player right now in the league. Where he says the timing ever the rerelease of the video is what bothers him. It goes without saying that Domestic Abuse is horrible in any kind of a situation. But he said thanks to me
this is two people who are trying to do the right thing. They are in the nfl program. They are going through the anger management issues. And that his prayers were with both of them simply because of the timing of this rerelease which, really, nothing has changed. We all knew exactly what happened in the elevator. Thats why there was so much outrage when the nfl blew the call originally. Scott, a quick to you about his reputation. And, well, his reputation was, prior to, this it was great. But the problem is that what we saw on video doesnt demonstrate that what we know about ray rice is what we fully know about him behind closed doors. I think thats the concern is that if this is something that was caught on video, had we not seen this, what does happen behind closed doors . And im not going to imply that this is something that has been going on for a long time. But, you know, what we are seeing here is come to light and what im concerned is what was done behind closed doors. And im not sure. I think the fact that the rises want to push this to the side and move on o, im not surprised that they want
to do that but thats not necessarily the right thing to do. I think the conversation needs to continue and it needs to move up the chain and Roger Goodell needs to act on this. And to put it very gently its a very disturbing tape none the less. Anyway, gentlemen, thank you both. Thanks, greta. Thank you. And now tonights other big news in just two hours president obama will tell the nation his plan to combat isis. Will he order air strikes in syria . And as we get ready to hear the president s strategy, youre about to hear from former president ial candidate mitt romney, senator marco rubio and former u. N. Ambassador john bolton. We begin with former governor mitt romney. Governor, its great to have you back on the record. Thanks, greta. Good to be with you. Well, there is a lot going on in the world. The president is speaking tonight. But before we get to sort the president s speech, im curious, how did we get to this point where now the world seems enormously dangerous, again, we are seeing the beheading of two americans, that doesnt count. The hundreds of thousands of other people being
terrorized and killed. How do d. We get to this point . Well, the point that we have reached is really the result of the president s power of attorney policy. I used to joke during the campaign the president didnt have a Foreign Policy, and i know Hillary Clinton recently said about the same thing, he doesnt have a real policy. But the truth is, he does have a Foreign Policy. And its one threes based upon america withdrawing from the world in some respects, apologizing for our heavy footprint over the years, shrinking our military. In a place like syria, not getting involved to support moderate voices in iran when there were demonstrators in the streets. Not saying anything, not getting involved. And the result of that is that people see american weakness. See a lack of resolve on the part of the president. They hear him talk about a red line and then back away from it. And bad people do bad things when they think there is not going to be some kind of punishment. And unfortunately, bad people are doing bad things all over the world. Syria was an enormous opportunity for us three years ago. I, and a lot of other people said that but the it the
just watched and now three years later is he is finally acting and its, im afraid, its unfortunate that it took so long. Well, he had people both sides of the aisle about syria. He had, of course, senator john mccain which you might expect, but secretary of state Hillary Clinton also was eager to be more aggressive in syria. And so now we find the situation we are in, he says that he is not going to put boots on the ground in syria. And the experts say that the only way to get isis is to go into syria and the only way to get isis once you are in syria is boots on the ground, which puts us in a very bad position. Well, the military minds are going to have to sort out exactly what action we should take. Clearly, the right action was three years ago to arm the moderate insurgents there in syria, to get rid of assad. You wouldnt have seen isis at that stage, had we taken those kinds of actions and if we had had a status of forces agreement in iraq. Those things combined, i think, would have prevented
isis from forming and doing what its done. Obviously thats the past. You look forward and say the right course is for us to take aggressive military action. Boots on the ground that come from our friends on the region will be able to get the job in coordination with our training, with our intelligence, and with our assault from the air. Do you have any i i mean any level of confidence that thats going to happen that we are going to be able to adequately train and arm the people on the ground, the rebels in syria or even the Kurdish Forces . I mean, do they have the ability . And do we have the ability to train them and arm them . Well, the insurgents in syria, three years ago, obviously gave a real scare to the assad regime had the assad regime running for cover. They were Strong Enough at that point they needed to be coalesced and armed. We didnt do that as a result of not having done that al qaeda and isis and other jihadists have swarmed in. And they have really played
a key role in the fighting in syria and the moderate voices have been, in many respects, almost disappeared. So can we rebuild that three years later . Thats a real question. Likewise, a real question as to what involvement will come from nations that are also opposed to isis, whether jordan or turkey or saudi arabia. There are sufficient armed forces in the region to be able to fight and defeat isis, but will they come in sufficient numbers . Will the president be able to garner that support is something time will tell. But, clearly, its critical that we have got to take that action. You know, we have issues of we always sort of set politics aside. We are all on the same team for this one. Republicans and democrats, independents, everybody. In going in to tonights speech, i assume isis will be watching and other leaders around the world will be watching. Americans will be watching. Our military will be watching. You know, what is it that the president needs to do . I mean, whats his task
tonight . You know, his task tonight is, once again, to describe what he would do and to talk about the actions he is going to take and what his commitments are. The challenge, of course, that the president has, sr. That he has done that before. Red line before. And people have come to see in the president someone who speaks eloquently and oftentimes definitively but then doesnt follow through. And so there will be a great deal the discounting behind his words. But then people will r. Going to look for action. I certainly hope that you are going to see from the president the follow through thats been missing in the past. But, if there is the follow through with our military support and if were able to get support from our friends in the region, then well be able, ultimately, to defeat isis. How long thats going to take, what the costs will be in blood and treasure is something which is hard to calculate at this point. But, look, this is the first
time really since 2002 that jihadists have had a major swath of territory and a source of income from whi they can train and launch attacks against us and against our friends. The president s policies have put us in a place of danger unlike anything we knew prior to 9 11. And this is a this is the result of a Foreign Policy gone severely awry. Its almost hard to imagine how the president s Foreign Policy could have been worse as it relates to keeping america safe from jihadists having territory and funds from w