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Obama Announces National Security Team; Miami-Dade Mall Shooting; Shoppers Turn Out for Holiday Bargains; Recognizing World AIDS Day

Aired December 01, 2008 - 11:26   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: President-elect Barack Obama announcing his national security team and giving each member of the team an opportunity to talk about the challenges of the job they have agreed to take on. They are the men and women he has chosen to protect and serve the country. The team includes loyal friends and former foes.
Why don't we bring in our correspondents now to talk about Obama's choices?

Our Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley is in Chicago. She'll join us shortly. State Department Correspondent Zain Verjee and Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre -- and if Candy is there...

Candy, why don't we start with you? Great. I understand that you are with us.

I would love, Candy -- if you would, would you expand on a word you used, oh, about 90 minutes or so ago to describe this team? It came to my mind again as I was watching the rollout of this national security team. It was very interesting. You used the term "muscular."

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, meaning in the more traditional word, more hawkish than he has been, particularly when you look at the top of this team, or what we believe is the top of this team, and that is Hillary Clinton and that is James Jones and that is, of course, Robert Gates. So it was interesting because it is not just for the people in this room, not just for Americans, but this is also watched in world capitals across the globe.

So the fact of the matter here is, I think the signal here, both in the selection and in the words of those that you heard, was, listen, we are all about reaching out for diplomacy, but we are all about protecting U.S. interests abroad. And we believe the best way to go about that, of course, is diplomacy. But there was a very clear message here, I think, that the protection of U.S. troops, the protection of the U.S., is also up there as a primary concern.

So, again, throughout his campaign, certainly, Barack Obama was seen as more dovish than a lot of the people who stood behind him. Nonetheless, the message here today, I think, was also about, I have a tough team up here. And that is certainly a signal that they wanted to send out there. HARRIS: Our Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley in Chicago.

Candy, appreciate it. Thank you.

CROWLEY: Sure.

HARRIS: She was Obama's political rival. Now Hillary Clinton is his choice to be the nation's foreign affairs chief.

State Department Correspondent Zain Verjee joins me now with more on Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

And Zain, good to see you.

What's the view of the people at State and others you talk to on this topic? Will Hillary Clinton be a good secretary of state for the United States?

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPT. CORRESPONDENT: Well, a lot of her supporters say that this is a woman that is so high profile, so respected around the world, and she would really energize foreign policy. She's smart, charismatic, has that kind of political base here as a lawyer by profession, and would, in fact, be a pretty tough negotiator.

But critics, however, Tony, say, look, here is someone that didn't run a campaign well, she's not very well qualified, they say, and never engaged during the course of her primary campaign in the kind of arm-twisting and management that was really needed. So there are a lot of question marks.

But the bottom line, her message today was really, this is a new day for the United States, and this administration is going to reach out to the world and engage in looking for more partners than adversaries. And that would be music to many leaders around the world.

HARRIS: And Zain, another quick one here. To expand the foreign service corps, which many believes needs to happen, would a new secretary be asking for more money, perhaps a shift of some resources from the Pentagon, even?

VERJEE: Well, the State Department is pretty under-resourced. It needs more manpower and more money. What Secretary Rice did, she pushed this whole idea of transformational diplomacy. So, don't send all the good diplomats to cushy places like Paris and Rome. But instead, send them out to build democracies and more of them in places like Middle East.

Critics say that there wasn't the kind of money or manpower to really make that successful. And that's something that's going to fall into Hillary Clinton's lap. There's also a financial crisis she's going to have to navigate around. And the priorities and the challenges that she faces just with the issues like Iran, Iraq, North Korean, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. You're going to get a major headache. She needs to prioritize all these things.

One last point, Tony. And this is really important for the State Department. Having someone like Hillary Clinton, who knows the internal mechanisms and the internal bureaucracy of this government is really going to be important. She's not going to take nonsense from anyone. And she really can push the State Department's case from within this government and raise its profile that's much needed.

HARRIS: Zain Verjee at the State Department for us.

Zain, appreciate it. Thank you.

Barack Obama takes office with the country fighting two wars. And he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his post at the Pentagon. Our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre joins us live now with more on that decision.

And Jamie, good to see you. Keeping Secretary Gates, is it simply about continuity or continuity and something more?

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Tony, it's a really interesting choice. Because of course, it's an interesting moment there when somebody said, does Gates qualify as the Republican in your candidate?

Because we don't actually know what party Gates is registered with, if he's registered at all. Harry Reid said he's not registered as a Republican. He, of course, has really established his reputation as a pragmatic moderate. And you know, the perception is, that he's in odds with Obama over this withdrawal timetable. But, you heard President-elect Obama. He qualified that withdrawal a lot of different ways.

16 months he thinks is about the right time frame. But, he's going to listen to commanders. Now, also by the way, he just said you know, again combat troops, not all the troops. They will be more troops there. So, it's a very interesting choice. So, when you couple that with General Jim Jones, who was really thrust into prominence by former Defense Secretary Cohen, who tapped him to be a senior military senior adviser and then made him the commandant of the Marine Corps.

Jones is a very interesting character. You saw, he spoke the least of anyone. He's not a dynamic public speaker. But, it's easy to underestimate him. Cohen relied on him for a lot of advice. A lot of people think he's a really -- he's going to really smart at sort of stitching the team together, knowing where the bodies are buried. And the role of the National Security adviser is to sort of minimize the big decisions that the president has to make by smoothing things over.

He's going to be a very interesting choice as well. One interesting thing, though, I was looking into some of his past testimony. He was asked by Senator McCain last year, whether he favored a deadline for withdrawal. And he said, you know, Jones said, no, I think deadlines really work against us. So that's the kind of advice Barack Obama's going to be getting from General Jones and perhaps from General Gates. And we may see him modify his position a little bit, about how fast this withdrawal has to be undertaken.

HARRIS: I know you've known General Jones for a long time.

What kind of a man is he?

MCINTYRE: You know, he's -- again, he's really easy to underestimate him because he's not a dynamic public speaker. That's probably the biggest difference between him and Barack Obama.

But, he's got a very sharp mind. He's got very good diplomatic skills. When he was the Supreme Allied Commander for NATO and dealing with all those NATO nations, very much someone who was a diplomat. In fact, a lot of people thought he might be the person tapped as Secretary of State if Hillary didn't take the job.

Very accomplished. And sort of low key. Not a yeller. Very imposing guy, tall, you know ex-Marine, served in Vietnam. And the interesting -- he also advised General Peter Pace when he was considering to be the Joint Chiefs Chairman. You may remember this. He said, you know, don't be a parrot on the shoulder of the secretary. That was first revealed by Bob Woodward in his book.

HARRIS: Yes.

MCINTYRE: And in that book, he also revealed that Jones actually considered resigning because he thought the Iraq situation was such a debacle, to make a statement. But, he decided to stay on in his position as a four star general.

HARRIS: Well, quite a team with quite the accomplishments. Our senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre, for us.

Jamie, appreciate it. Thank you.

Bring out the red ribbons. President Bush helping to raise awareness about a deadly disease. Today is World AIDS Day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Today, World AIDS Day. Take a look at this. That means four people will be infected while I'm on your television screen. Today is the 20th World AIDS Day. Globally, 33 million people are believed to be infected with HIV. CNN's Kathleen Koch is at the White House where a gigantic red ribbon decorates the North Portico.

Kathleen, good morning to you. Quite a sight.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes indeed, Tony. This very same ribbon actually graced the North Portico, if you'll remember last year on World AIDS Day. And some things to point out, that this is a really -- something that the president is quite proud of.

The strides that the U.S. has helped make globally in the fight against HIV/AIDS. A really important part of his legacy. And he and the First Lady came out on the North Lawn, about an hour and a half ago underneath this great, huge ribbon that's gracing the North Portico.

And the president talked about how his precedence emergency plan for AIDS relief, known as the short hand version as PEPFAR most of the time. How it finally has reached the goal that it set back in 2003, when it started, of increasing the number of people who are receiving anti-retro viral treatment for HIV/AIDS from 50,000, that was the number in 2003, to 2 million within just five years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When PEPFAR began, only 50,000 people living with HIV in all of sub-Sahara Africa, were receiving anti-retro viral treatment. Around the world, we've also supported care for more than 10 million people affected by HIV. Including more than 4 million orphans and vulnerable children. More than 237,000 babies had been born HIV free thanks to the support of the American people. From programs to prevent mothers from passing the virus on to their children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: Now, for the last hour or so, the president has been participating across town in a civil forum in global health here in Washington. And the president receiving touching video tributes not only from the head of the U.N., Ban Ki Moon, but, from Bono, from Bill Gates. The president also reflected on how he got involved in fighting this global pandemic of AIDS. And he talked about, if he'd done nothing about it, how he would have quote, "disgraced the office of the presidency."

And he said he also discussed how he was surrounded by people who felt this was just such an important cause for the United States to take up. People including, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Now looking at the program the president did just in July sign legislation that will authorize another $48 billion, Tony, to expand the program.

HARRIS: All right, Kathleen Koch, wow that is quite a figure.

KOCH: Quite a lot.

HARRIS: Yes. At the White House for us, Kathleen thank you.

KOCH: You bet.

HARRIS: Got some breaking news that we want to share with you. We want to take you to Miami-Dade County. The Dadeland Mall is the scene of a shooting, a mall shooting we understand. At least one person has been shot. We see an armored car, you'll see it here, just outside of the mall. We don't know if that -- to what extent that armored car has something to do with this attack. But as you can see, there are police around it, fire engines as well.

And once again, one person has been shot at the Dadeland Mall in Miami. We don't know anything of the whereabouts of the shooter. We don't know if the shooter has gone inside the mall or left the scene. A lot of questions at this time. But certainly wanted to bring you this breaking news. Again, a mall shooting, one person shot. Don't know the condition of that individual at Dadeland Mall in Miami. We will bring you more information as soon as we get it.

Two states will decide if the Democrats captured the 60 seats they need to stop Senate filibusters. We are following the races closely in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Survivors of last week's terrorist attacks in India are back home and talking about their ordeal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN MACKOFF, MUMBAI ATTACK SURVIVOR: As soon as the first two shots were fired...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ben said that's not firecracker, that's gunfire. And then we immediately -- we didn't know where it was coming, but we locked the door to our room room.

MACKOFF: They didn't have the moustache or anything like that, they didn't look evil. They looked like young men probably in the late teens or early 20s, slim, athletic looking, talking to each other. One was talking on a cell phone after they (INAUDIBLE) -- after that.

So, you know, the face of evil doesn't -- isn't necessarily evil looking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Carol (ph) and Ben Mackoff of Chicago describing their experiences. The couple sent text messages to family and friends as well as CNN's international desk throughout the three days of terror. And get this, Ben Mackoff says he even read a 400-page book during that time.

Well after the deadly storm of terror attacks in India, investigators focusing now on who was behind last week's massacre. It left almost 100 people dead, including six Americans. Nine gunmen also killed. Top Indian officials blame Pakistani militants. They say the only suspect in custody has told police he is Pakistani. But Pakistan's prime minister dismisses the accusations.

The attacks straining already tenuous relations between the nuclear armed neighbors. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to India Wednesday to try to ease the tensions. Meanwhile, the chairman of the shattered Taj Mahal hotel criticizes police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RATAN TATA, CHAIRMAN, TATA GROUP: The police were woefully inadequate in terms of equipment and in terms of being prepared. And it was only after the army and the commandos came in -- and even they were, in relative terms, ill equipped against these militants who were very well trained, seemed to have a plan of action. And it has led me to believe that what this city really needs is a crises management group.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Live to Mumbai and our Matthew Chance.

Matthew, a lot of finger pointing going on here. But if you would, give us the very latest on the investigation.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's still no conclusive evidence demonstrating which group carried out this attack. But obviously all the fingers, according to Indian officials, are pointing towards Pakistan.

As we mentioned, the government in Islamabad has categorically denied any involvement. And has said it will cooperate with the Indian authorities as much as possible to try and get to the bottom of who carried out these simultaneous attacks -- nine of them in India's financial capital.

Meanwhile, as you just mentioned there, much of the anger amongst ordinary Indians is being directed not towards Pakistan necessarily, but towards the Indian government's preparedness for this kind of a strike. People very -- they are angry that these reports are appearing in Indian newspapers this morning that intelligence tip-offs may have been received by the Indian intelligence agencies up to a year ago, that some kind of big, spectacular attack against Mumbai was being planned. But they were just not well organized enough, just not able to actually stop it from happening.

So there's a great deal of anger and frustration about that. And there's been political consequences as a result, Tony.

HARRIS: Matthew, one other quick question here. There was talk of Pakistan sending its top intelligence chief to India to help in the investigation. Has that happened?

CHANCE: Yes, it sparked a lot of controversy, that, because it is an unprecedented suggestion by the Pakistanis. They've got a long- standing rivalry.

They're not doing it. What they're doing instead is sending more junior officials from the Pakistan military intelligence agency, the ISI, but not the head.

HARRIS: OK, Matthew Chance for us in Mumbai, India.

Matthew, thank you.

Shopping either at the store or online, you're spending some bucks.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS: We're always talking about how important spending is to the health of our economy. And this past weekend, shoppers turned out in droves. You did, huh?

But will the optimism hold up through the entire holiday season? Susan Lisovicz is at the New York Stock Exchange with more.

Good morning, Susan.

SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Tony.

HARRIS: Good news?

LISOVICZ: Very good news in that consumers are spending.

Of course they're spending because prices are so low. And you know, kids are going to get gifts. There will be gift giving this season, although it will be more modest, one would think. But the numbers this past weekend defied Wall Street's estimates.

The National Retail Federation says shoppers spent more than $40 billion over the long Thanksgiving weekend. That's up more than 7 percent from last year. This is big. Shoppers motivated by big discounts. And in the sign of the times, the Retail Federation says more than half of shoppers went to discount stores like Wal-Mart for those every day low prices, Tony.

HARRIS: Can we expect the shopping surge to continue here, Susan?

LISOVICZ: Well the shopping season will continue. The surge is another question entirely.

The National Retail Federation says it expects the shopping season to be the worst in six years. There are more pessimistic forecasts that say it could be, in fact, the first decline ever. Not only is this holiday shopping period shorter than usual due to the later Thanksgiving, but analysts say shoppers will stick to their lists this year. So less discretionary items.

The NRF also says a lot of people finished most of their shopping this weekend. Good for you.

HARRIS: Yes, really.

LISOVICZ: That outlook is pulling Macy's shares down 11 percent. Limited brands down 13 percent. Wal-Mart up 3 percent. The whole retail sector, in other words is under pressure. And so are the three major averages.

(STOCK MARKET REPORT)

LISOVICZ: So, five steps forward and -- looks like three steps back or something.

HARRIS: Well Susan, I want to thank you ahead of time for your help tomorrow with Sheila Bair. I'm really look forward to --

LISOVICZ: Look forward to it as well. Very timely.

HARRIS: Yes, yes. OK, Susan. See you next hour.

LISOVICZ: Count on it.

HARRIS: With lots of bailouts, little direct help for homeowners. Sheila Bair Chairman of the FDIC wants to change that. She is the member of the administration speaking most directly to the concerns of homeowners. She is proposing a $24 billion plan to help.

Now, if you're wondering how that plan would work and when help will be on the way, tune in for the NEWSROOM interview with Chair Bair. That is tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. As I mentioned, Susan Lisovicz will help me out with that interview.

Also, go to CNNMoney.com to read her plan. And, how about this? Send your questions Sheila Bair to cnnnewsroom@cnn.com and I'll work those questions into the interview.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Take a look at this. Monster waves. Reynolds, are there? What is going on here? Northern California coast, we're talking about swells of 30 feet, jumping the seawalls there at Pacifica.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Isn't that something?

HARRIS: Yes, what is this? A storm -- in Alaska?

(WEATHER REPORT)

HARRIS: All right, Reynolds. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

WOLF: You bet.

HARRIS: And hello again everyone, I'm Tony Harris at the CNN NEWSROOM and here are the headlines from CNN for this Monday, the first day of December. It is World AIDS Day.

A grand hotel in ruins. India links Pakistan to 60 hours of terror. The U.S. Secretary of State works to calm the nuclear rivals.

A Republican and a rival in his cabinet. President-elect Obama unveils his high voltage national security team. Meet the players in the newsroom.