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American Morning
Obama to Issue Veto Threat on Bailout; Clinton Shows Broad Knowledge in Confirmation Hearing; Fugitive Pilot Caught; Lawmakers Debate on Remaining Balance of Bailout; Osama bin Laden Releases Videotape Calls for Holy War
Aired January 14, 2009 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Thanks very much for being with us. It's Wednesday, the 14th of January here on the Most News in the Morning. Lots happened overnight, lots to tell you about today.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: That's right, including this breaking news that's happening with this fugitive pilot. This Indiana businessman and pilot accused of trying to fake his own death in a plane crash is now in custody in Florida. Police say that Marcus Schrenker was captured at a campground after an apparent suicide attempt late last night.
He disappeared Sunday after allegedly bailing out of a small plane over Alabama. Schrenker is accused of defrauding investors. He's now under guard at a hospital in Tallahassee. We're going to be getting a live report from there just ahead.
Rockets launched from Lebanon, hitting northern Israel overnight. Israeli police say that three rockets landed harmlessly in open fields near the town of Kiryat Shmona. Israel responded with its own rocket fire. There's been no claim of responsibility for those attacks, and this is the second time since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza 19 days ago that rockets from Lebanon have landed in Israel.
A week before he takes office, President-elect Barack Obama issuing his first veto threat. Obama warning Senate Democrats he would veto any attempt to block his access to the remaining $350 billion in federal bailout funds. Transition aides are set to meet with Republican senators today ahead of a possible vote Thursday on whether to release the rest of the financial bailout money.
And President Bush says he is sure that he lost money in the financial market meltdown but he's not sure just how much. The president and Mrs. Bush appeared on "LARRY KING LIVE" last night and Larry asked the outgoing first couple how the recession has affected their personal finances.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KING, HOST, "LARRY KING LIVE": How, by the way, you're a couple, you have interests other than just -- you got a job of running the country but you're also a family, how has the economy hit you?
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm in a blind trust.
KING: So you don't know how it's hit you.
BUSH: So I can't tell you. But I'm confident it has.
KING: When do you find out? On the 21st?
BUSH: 21st of January.
KING: Well, when you're in a blind, that means you don't know what stocks you might have?
BUSH: I have no earthly idea.
KING: And who controls the trust?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: President Bush says he spoke with trustees eight years ago and won't know for sure how much money he may have lost until after he leaves office.
ROBERTS: Well, back now to our breaking news. Found alive, the fugitive financier and pilot accused of trying to fake his own death in a plane crash is in custody this morning in Florida. Federal marshals track down Marcus Schrenker at a campsite in Quincy. That's near Tallahassee.
Authorities say Schrenker tried to take his own life before he was captured and was taken to the hospital with "deep cuts to his wrist."
Brooke Baldwin is live outside the hospital in Tallahassee. How were the U.S. marshals able to catch up with Schrenker and finally take him into custody, Brooke?
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Couple of different reasons, John. One, they knew that this area, the Florida Panhandle, was an area that Marcus Schrenker frequented. They had marshals certainly on the ground looking for him ahead of time.
Number two, U.S. Marshals told us this morning that they responded to a tip. You mentioned where they found him. They found him in this rural campsite outside of Tallahassee, Florida. About 20 different marshals surrounded this tent at this camp site and inside this tent they found Schrenker with a self-inflicted gash in one of his arms. Of course, they treated him there immediately and airlifted him here.
We are at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital where he's listed this morning in fair condition. And also according to some of the newspaper reports we've been reading, some of the marshals have also been saying that when they came upon him in this tent it appeared that he was prepared to be on the run for quite awhile.
Why, John, would he be on the run? Let's go back over that one more time and the story really starts for Schrenker back in Indiana where he's from. He's owned a couple of different financial firms, and the state of Indiana has been investigating him for different charges. They searched his home pertaining to securities fraud.
And just yesterday this came out. An Indiana judge has charged him with unlawful acts by a compensated adviser, an unlawful transaction by an investment adviser and a judge yesterday actually already set his bail for $4 million in cash. So as one side of this, the other side, John, a personal reason. His wife, according to reports, filed for divorce just a couple of weeks ago. So perhaps those are all reasons why someone would want to fake a plane crash, parachute out of it, stash a motorcycle nearby and hide away in a tent here in the Florida Panhandle. How about that, John?
ROBERTS: So he must have been feeling pretty desperate, but probably not as desperate as he feels this morning.
BALDWIN: Yes.
ROBERTS: Brooke Baldwin for us this morning in Tallahassee. Brooke, thanks so much.
And later on this hour, 6:24 Eastern, we're going to talk with John Beeman from the U.S. Marshal Service about Schrenker's capture.
CHETRY: Well, this morning, Barack Obama is just six days five hours and a few minutes away from taking the oath of office. There you go, 56 to be exact. And he's threatening his first veto already over the remainder of the bailout funds. Obama wants access to the $350 billion as soon as he takes office, but many lawmakers including Democrats are unwilling to write another blank check.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is predicting Congress will allow though the rest of the bailout to go forward.
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SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW (D), MICHIGAN: That's not enough just to have someone that you trust. We have to have specific criteria as to what is going to be happening. Will there be accountability, transparency? We can't even get answers.
SEN. HARRY REID (D), MAJORITY LEADER: I think we will get the necessary votes, yes. I feel very confident about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: All right. CNN's Suzanne Malveaux is live in Washington for us. How serious is Barack Obama about issuing a veto? How likely would it be that he would face tough opposition to get the rest of that money?
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Kiran, talking to people in that meeting, that closed door session, he is serious about this veto but not in a sense that it was kind of in a threatening way. He really -- there was a sense of urgency about this. He was essentially saying, look, I need this money right away. I need the tools to be successful. I've set a very ambitious agenda.
There's really that realization there that these are folks that he has a good rapport with. He's established trust. But as you had heard before, they want these commitments in writing, and that is something that Barack Obama seemed quite accepted in actually doing that, and fulfilling that and saying OK, I'll go ahead. I'll put some of these things in writing when it comes to how this money is going to be tracked.
But a lot of those people in that room also, Kiran, realize that, you know, this wave of hope and change with Barack Obama going into the White House, that they're riding his coat tails as well. Some of them actually getting into office on that kind of theme of hope and change, so they want to cooperate. They want to help him out here but they also, too, they want some of those things in writing before they just simply sign off on this.
CHETRY: And it does really reflect just how conflicted many are, even those who support the bailout as to whether or not they can allow it to go forward again with even more money and how you really measure whether or not it's working. So those are the things that Barack Obama is certainly going to be struggling with as well.
MALVEAUX: Oh, absolutely, and there really is a sense of like, you know, what do we believe here? I mean, a lot of people just see this as that they really don't know what's going to happen. You know, this is uncharted territory here, but at the same time, they feel like, you know, what more can they do? What else can they do?
They want to give him a chance here to make this work, to be successful, and he is a convincing person. He's very charismatic. He negotiates, he's an incredible salesman. You just ask Senator Hillary Clinton about all the things that he was saying to get her to actually accept that State Department nomination.
This is somebody who, in a room with other people, with lawmakers face-to-face, is pretty convincing. And so they are really kind of being sold on this, but they want to make sure they have some assurances as well.
CHETRY: Absolutely. Suzanne Malveaux for us this morning. Thanks.
ROBERTS: Well, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs is hinting that the incoming administration will repeal the military's "Don't ask, don't tell policy" but probably not immediately. Gibbs said the president is, first and foremost, focused on the economy but added that Obama will follow through with his commitment to allow gay men and women to serve openly.
"Don't ask, don't tell" was signed into law back in 1993, the first year of the Clinton administration. It stopped the practice of asking potential service members their sexual orientation, but still required the dismissal of openly gay service members.
And this reminder, Barack Obama won't be sworn in until Tuesday but CNN's coverage of his inauguration begins on Saturday morning. Our reporters will cover every stop and every speech as the Obama express starts its historic journey to Washington.
And on inauguration day, you can watch the event with your laptop at hand. CNN.com is teaming with Facebook for special in-depth coverage. You can be a part of history just by logging on to facebook.com/CNN.
CHETRY: Well, you may remember back in November, Barack Obama likened himself to a shelter mutt during his acceptance speech. Well it turns out a mutt is exactly the type of dog that most pet owners would like the Obamas to get.
There's a new poll about this because the interest never waivers in what the future first dog or exactly what type of breed the future first dog will be. Thirty-three percent said they prefer a mutt in the White House. Twenty-three percent picked a purebred, and 38 percent said it doesn't really matter.
Of course, coming up the works is that one of his daughters is allergic so they have to find one that at least is as hypoallergenic as dogs can get. So one of the -- they had it narrowed down to a Labradoodle and a Portuguese water dog. So, there you go. They're both cute.
ROBERTS: And as we saw with Joe Biden, no matter what you pick, somebody is going to criticize.
CHETRY: Exactly. Keep it to German shepherds and they love German shepherds at the Biden household.
ROBERTS: Yes. But a lot of people thought he should have gotten it from somewhere else.
CHETRY: Right.
ROBERTS: You're just never going to win the conversation.
More harsh words from Sarah Palin today. See who she's calling pathetic and a liar. The reporter who just interviewed the former Republican vice presidential candidate is here to explain.
It's nine minutes after the hour.
CHETRY: Defending her husband, in front of her daughter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE: My husband doesn't take a salary. He has no financial interest in any of this. I don't take a salary. I have no financial interest.
(END VIDEO CLIP) CHETRY: Spotlight on Hillary. How the secretary of state nominee handled herself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Well, Mr. President -- president-elect -- chairman.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I'll take that.
CLINTON: It was a Freudian slip.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: The most memorable moments from inside the confirmation hearings.
You're watching the Most News in the Morning.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I assure you that if I am confirmed, the State Department will be firing on all cylinders to provide forward- thinking, sustained diplomacy in every part of the world, the appropriations committees and with Congress as a whole.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, this morning, Hillary Clinton is a giant step closer to becoming the next secretary of state. She pretty much sailed through her confirmation hearing yesterday, and the only red flag raised by senators from the Foreign Relations Committee, concerns over foreign governments using donations to Bill Clinton's foundation to curry favor with the Obama administration.
CNN's Jim Acosta is live for us in Washington with more on how it went today and what a State Department may look like under Senator Clinton.
Hi there, Jim.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran. That's right. After all of that contention during the 2008 campaign, yes, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be working together in an Obama administration. There's been a lot of grumbling on the left about whether Hillary Clinton would actually bring change to the State Department. A lot of hammering in Washington over whether the Obama administration would be more hawkish than voters expected. Hillary Clinton, though, signaled there would be a break from Bush foreign policy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLINTON: Well, Mr. President -- president-elect -- chairman.
KERRY: I'll take that.
CLINTON: It was a Freudian slip.
The president-elect --
KERRY: We're both subject to those.
ACOSTA (voice-over): Proving there is life after a failed presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton made the case for a new way forward in the post-Bush world.
CLINTON: The president-elect and I believe that foreign policy must be based on a marriage of principles and pragmatism, not rigid ideology.
ACOSTA: As a soon-to-be former president who just this week quarreled with the notion that America's moral standing in the world is damaged.
BUSH: It may be damaged among some of the elite.
CLINTON: American leadership has been wanting but is still wanted. You must use what has been called smart power.
ACOSTA: Obama/Clinton's smart power includes a possible future dialogue with Iran, engaged diplomacy on Gaza, a determined withdrawal from Iraq and redeployment to U.S./NATO operations in Afghanistan.
JAMES RUBIN, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: What you are really seeing was the end of an era of unilateralism in the United States and the beginning of an era of American diplomacy.
ACOSTA: And an era of diplomacy for Clinton. This was not candidate Clinton who once issued a dire warning to Iran should it ever attack Israel.
CLINTON: We would be able to totally obliterate them.
ACOSTA: Sitting in front of her daughter, Clinton was pressed on her husband's private foundation, a foundation that fights AIDS and malaria but also raises money from foreign countries and multinational corporations.
CLINTON: My husband doesn't take a salary. He has no financial interest in any of this. I don't take a salary. I have no financial interest.
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R), INDIANA: The core of the problem is that foreign governments and entities may perceive the Clinton foundation as a means to gain favor with the secretary of state.
ACOSTA: As Mr. Bush was handing out his final presidential medals of freedom to his allies in the war in Iraq, Vice President- elect Joe Biden was discussing troop withdrawals in Iraq. The Obama transition team was working on its plans to close Guantanamo, and Hillary Clinton was gearing up to take on a troubled world. CLINTON: America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ACOSTA: Hillary Clinton is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate as early as inauguration day. At her hearing, she spent a fair bit of time quoting Thomas Jefferson, the country's first secretary of state, who as it later turns out, became president -- Kiran.
CHETRY: At least they're not talking about Lincoln. You're right. That's who we talked about all day yesterday.
ACOSTA: That's right.
CHETRY: But it's interesting because despite the questions about former President Bill Clinton, it seems -- I mean, even her harshest critic, Dick Lugar, had praise for Hillary Clinton yesterday. So this is really going to be a cakewalk in terms of confirmation. No?
ACOSTA: That's right, a cakewalk, a seven-layer cakewalk with Hillary and Barack Obama sitting atop of it. Yes, you're right. And there were those questions yesterday about the former president. And while some people were expecting them to come from some of the Republican bomb-throwers like Senator Vitter from Louisiana, when Richard Lugar talks people listen and those concerns about the former president's foundation are real. He was trying to get Hillary Clinton to commit to some sort of timeline where they would report more frequently about these contributions, but that is not happening as of right now, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Jim Acosta for us in Washington, thanks.
ACOSTA: You bet.
ROBERTS: It's bailout outrage. Congress feels burned. The public is furious and now the government is going to spend another $350 billion of your money. Christine Romans is "Minding Your Business" this morning.
And President Bush offering up some free advice to Barack Obama who, in just six days, will assume the presidency. Hear what he said when it comes to dealing with the economy.
Seventeen minutes now after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Twenty minutes after the hour now. Christine Romans here "Minding Your Business." If you had $350 billion in your pocket, how would you spend it? That's the question a lot of people are asking today.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, we had $350 billion in our pocket and it got picked by Congress who handed it to the Treasury Department and now they're handing to the banks. And there's all this outrage on Capitol Hill about what were the banks doing with the money, why are we going to give $350 billion more.
The president-elect wants it. The current president is going to ask for it. This Congress is arguing about whether they should stop it. A quick question here. Who gave -- who authorized the $700 billion in the first place for the financial system? Congress. And now they're pretending as if, you know, oh, we've been, you know, ripped off or misled. They were never misled. They knew exactly what they were doing.
They were giving a bunch of money they had no oversight, they had no accountability. They knew that it had to be done. They were convinced by the Treasury Department to do it and they did it.
Now they're arguing about whether to stop the second half of the $350 billion. Democrats say they want strings. They want foreclosure relief, and the Republicans say they don't want a grab bag. They don't want to be just handing out money to everybody like it's candy.
CHETRY: You know, the question, though, is I think is, do you think there would be a different tune if they had seen quicker results or what they perceived more successful results after the fact, because we're still talking about a tight credit market...
ROMANS: Right.
CHETRY: ... and we're still talking about companies in trouble?
ROMANS: Part of the problem is you can't measure the results. How do you measure the results? Even people in the treasury say they're trying to work out ways to figure out how to better measure their results. Some people would say the first $350 billion worked because you didn't have a total collapse of the financial system that it stopped the bleeding.
Others would say, you know, it didn't work. It was just throwing money away. We don't know what the banks are doing with it. We don't know why aren't they lending. Some of the banks say we're not lending to people who can't afford to pay us back and that's the difference.
ROBERTS: Seen in the face of a lot of liabilities so different (INAUDIBLE) looking after the house.
ROMANS: Right.
So, I mean, it's really a mess. I think in the end, they're going to get the $350 billion.
They'll argue about it, they'll posture and they'll get it.
ROBERTS: Thanks, Christine.
CHETRY: All right. Well, investors say that he staged his own death, then took off. We're going to speak with the deputy with the U.S. Marshal Service about the capture of fugitive pilot and investment manager Marcus Schrenker.
It's 22 minutes after the hour.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
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PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" to the DeLorean in "Back to the Future."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACK: Flying cars have been a long-held technological fantasy. A fantasy no longer. This is the real thing. It's called the sky car.
Road league, all-terrain buggy one moment the next it can take off under its own power using a rear propeller and a fabric ring.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We started with a car rather than design an aircraft. I made a car engine (ph) aircraft.
BLACK: In propeller mode, that engine makes a lot of noise, and Giles (ph) says its cruising speed in the air is 17 miles per hour. Top speed on the road, 120 miles per hour.
Now an ambitious expedition will test the sky car's capabilities. The plan is to drive and fly from London, through France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, and the Sahara Desert to Marley's famously isolated city of Timbuktu, not your average fly/drive holiday.
(on camera): Driving and flying this thing all the way to Timbuktu isn't just about the sense of adventure. It's an effort to prove the idea works, well enough to potentially be a viable commercial product.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
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BLACK (voice-over): Phil Black, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: This just in to CNN at 26 minutes after the hour. It's been a while since we have heard from him. But Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, apparently has released a new audiotape in which he calls for jihad or holy war to stop the Israeli offensive in Gaza. He also singles out Arab governments for failing to, as he says "help liberate Palestine."
I don't know for sure if this is Osama bin Laden's voice. As we said, the last time we heard from him was some time ago, May of 2008. It appeared to be a new message back then. Haven't seen a videotape of him for a number of years now.
But this was posted on the typical sites, Islamic Web sites, Islamist Web sites that carry al-Qaeda messages. And again, Osama bin Laden urging a jihad or holy war to stop the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Obviously the CIA will be looking into this to try to authenticate the voice and we're checking with our anti-terrorism experts to get more on this and we'll have that for us just as soon as it becomes available.
CHETRY: All right. Well, authorities have caught up with a missing Indiana pilot accused of trying to fake his own death by bailing out of his plane putting it on autopilot, letting it crash.
Marcus Schrenker arrested at a campsite in Quincy, Florida. It's believed he was trying to escape legal and financial trouble. Investors are claiming that Schrenker bilked them out of millions of dollars. He is now hospitalized in Tallahassee after an apparent suicide attempt. U.S. marshals took the lead in capturing Schrenker.
Joining us now on the phone from Indianapolis is Deputy Marshal John Beeman. Thanks for being with us this morning.
VOICE OF JOHN BEEMAN, DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL: No problem.
CHETRY: So just trying to unravel a little bit about what happened, tell us how authorities were finally able to catch up with him and what happened when your marshals went to take him into custody.
BEEMAN: My understanding is our investigation led us to this campground, information that was developed marshal service task forces, Indianapolis, Alabama and Florida, and they approached the campground. He was identified by the campground manager, and they made an approach on the chance that Mr. Schrenker was in. And then once they made contact, they quickly realized that he had been injured, a self-inflicted injury and they immediately started medical assistance to Mr. Schrenker, stopped the bleeding and then got a medical flight in there to get him to a hospital.
CHETRY: All right. So you guys determined just by when they caught up with the plane that obviously it wasn't a crash, that the pilot had actually been able to leave the plane.
BEEMAN: Right. CHETRY: At that point, apparently, he had buried a motorcycle or like covered it with some pine needles or something so that he was able to use that as his getaway. So this all talks -- this all really seems to touch upon the fact that he planned all of this out. Then when authorities finally catch up to him, why would he have been then attempting to take his own life? I mean, how does that all go together?
BEEMAN: Well, I don't want -- I can't get into the mind of Mr. Schrenker, what his motivations were but he had placed the motorcycle in a storage unit down there in Alabama and made his way to that motorcycle and took off on it, once he got to the motorcycle. And then I can't speak of his mind-set of why he did what he did.
CHETRY: Right, but obviously he planned some sort of, if everything that the authorities are saying is true, some sort of getaway to get away from these other troubles, apparently, he's being investigated for some wrongdoing when it came to these investments but then at the time that he was being captured, was there any -- did you guys close in on him or was there any back and forth or dialogue that he knew you were coming?
BEEMAN: The preliminary information I have is that he did not know we were there.
CHETRY: I got you. So this suicide attempt is something that was not because he was being closed in upon.
The other question that is interesting, is he going to be facing any charges or is there a possibility of facing any criminal charges for abandoning this plane that could have crashed into a house and easily kill someone?
BEAMAN: I know the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Florida is looking into that at this time. I can't speak to what charges that may be. I just know that we were responsible for the apprehension and that was our small part in this whole drama.
CHETRY: Right and he is now of course in the hospital in Tallahassee, after that apparent suicide attempt that you guys came upon when you captured him. John Beeman, deputy U.S. marshal, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
BEAMAN: Thank you.
ROBERTS: Senator Hillary Clinton is hoping for fast track approval from her colleagues. The only rough spot during her confirmation hearing, her husband and his global initiative charitable fund. Clinton tried to focus her attention on the challenges that she will face as America's next top diplomat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Really it's all hands on deck. We have a lot of work to, in my view, kind of repair damage and get out there and present America as we know we are. It will be my undertaking to make this department as efficient as possible, so that you know you're getting your money's worth, to streamline it as much as possible. I will be frustrated as you will be if all we do is pile up paper. I want strategies. I want specific ideas. I want more partnership. The disparity of resources is such that, when you've got more than 10 times the resources going to the defense department, than you have going to the state department and foreign aid, the defense department has been, in effect, recreating many state departments. You know, they're out doing development assistance and then rule of law and other things. Why? Because as I said earlier, they have a presumption of being able to move much more quickly. The money we give them is, in many respects, more flexible.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Hillary Clinton yesterday during her confirmation hearings, Politico's chief correspondent, political correspondent Mike Allen was at those confirmation hearings yesterday, he joins us now with more on the challenges that await Clinton. And Mike, your former colleague from "The Washington Post," Dana Milbank, writes today that the senate modified its traditional role of advise and consent, it was more about admire and congratulate yesterday.
MIKE ALLEN, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Yeah, the Republicans there rolled over for a belly scratch. Can you believe a hearing where, for Hillary Clinton, of all people, where they basically salute her, but this shows how she has sort of won their respect with dogged preparation.
And John, we saw there yesterday why President-elect Obama chose her, and that is she's going to be activist. She's going to bring a new spirit to the state department. She talked about how she's going to use diplomacy first, and so while he's focusing on congress and the diplomacy -- and the economy, she's going to be able to use her celebrity -- credibility overseas.
It was incredible the way she went about this. She wanted to show these senators that she respected the process and would work with them. She had this huge team working with her, up in her home in New York over the holidays, at her transition office at the State Department, and they looked into what every senator was interested in. So when Senator Feingold asked her about Africa, she told him what he'd been saying about that topic.
ROBERTS: Yeah, she got way down deep in the weeds on a lot of these topics, obviously a lot of really, really deep preparation and it served her well yesterday. But in terms of how America's foreign policy will change under this Obama administration and with her as secretary of state she said that there was going to be a new policy of engagement, active engagement, even with enemies of the United States. That's a significant departure, Mike, from the Bush administration.
ALLEN: It is and they deliberately drew that contrast by talking about smart power, and that is that you use all the tools, not emphasizing the military, which would be their assertion about the Bush administration, but you saw again and again, Senator Clinton soon to be Madam Secretary, making it clear that she had personal relationships with these leaders that she would draw on and these goes back to her time as first lady, and these are things that you can't learn in a cram session.
She's talking about the problems in specific regions of Afghanistan. This is the sort of thing that senators eat up. And she's going back, then throwing out a little Thomas Jefferson, when it comes to the, she's talking about piracy in Somalia, she's talking about throwing out references to the Barbary coast. One republican said to me she played them like a fiddle.
ROBERTS: The Republicans did have concerns though about her husband's fund-raising activities. A lot of heads of foreign states have been donating to the Clinton global initiative. Dick Lugar was suggesting there might be some sort of an appearance here that you can buy influence if you're a foreign entity. How much of a problem do you think that that's going to be for her going forward?
ALLEN: It's not going to be but the exchange with Senator Lugar was one of the few moments in here that Hillary Clinton can be on the hill for the whole day and basically be boring, that's just how things are changed. But she drew a line in the sand about what they're going to disclose, she didn't budge from it. Even democrats say that it's kind of arbitrary and not particularly reasonable. But they disclosed a huge amount of information. I think she and President Clinton are tired of giving in and she stuck to her guns on this and got away with it.
ROBERTS: Sounds like she's going to be confirmed. We'll see if it's unanimous. Mike Allen from Politico for us this morning, Mike, it's good to see you. Thanks for coming in.
ALLEN: John, have a great week.
CHETRY: We have breaking news this morning. Terror leader Osama bin Laden allegedly releasing an audiotape this morning, condemning Israel's offensive in Gaza. It's the first time that we've heard from him since May of last year. We'll have more details on what exactly he's saying this morning. 36 minutes after the hour.
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ROBERTS: Just in to CNN, we've been telling you about a new audiotape purportedly to be of Osama bin Laden calling for jihad or holy war to end the Israeli military operation in Gaza. We've been working hard to try to confirm that this tape is in fact the voice of Osama bin Laden.
Of course, the CIA will be running it through their voice identification software to make a near certain match, but Laura Mansfield, terrorism expert, whom we've used many times on CNN and has been tracking al Qaeda for years and years says sure sounds like Osama bin Laden. It's apparently a 22-minute long tape. In addition to calling for jihad or holy war to stop the Israeli operations in Gaza, he also takes Arab governments to task for failing to quote as he says, "liberate Palestine." We're hearing for the first time in almost a year, nine months' time now from Osama bin Laden, last audiotape message from him was back in May of 2008, weighing in on the Israeli/Hamas conflict in the Middle East. We'll have more on this. As soon as we get it we're trying to get hold of some of our other terrorism experts and get them on the air with some more context, perspective and analysis. Kiran?
CHETRY: All right, thanks. Well, Governor Sarah Palin is not letting up on her warpath against the media and she's lashing out against bloggers, calling some of them bored and pathetic liars. She also takes others to task in an interview that she did very interestingly enough with "Esquire" magazine and Ryan D'Agostino is an articles editor for "Esquire" and he's the one that had that interview with Governor Palin and joins us this morning. Thanks for being with us.
RYAN D'AGOSTINO, ESQUIRE: Thanks for having me.
CHETRY: So this came out of the blue you said. You get the impression that perhaps she really didn't get to say and do what she wanted to do during the campaign and it's almost as if she's making up for it now.
D'AGOSTINO: I feel like maybe she is. She felt like she perhaps was muzzled, she said as much to me and we had been working on this interview going back deep into the campaign but then suddenly a couple months later, her office called up and said, "Can you do it today?" And it was a very free-flowing conversation.
CHETRY: You asked her whether or not she had any regrets about the way that the campaign went down, if she would do anything differently or tell the campaign anything differently. She said, "Don't just assume that they know you well enough to make all your decisions for you. Let them know that you're the CEO of a state. You're 44 years old. You've got a lot of great life experience that can be put to good use as a candidate." Did you get the impression that she felt that she was underestimated?
D'AGOSTINO: I think so, because my question really wasn't even that pointed. I was just simply asking what advice would you have for yourself going back to that day you were named as the nominee, and it immediately turned to, kind of turned around and was talking about the way she was treated on the campaign. So I felt like this is perhaps something she wanted to say going in, no matter what, it's been on her mind I think and she feels free.
CHETRY: She also continues to talk, rehash the campaign. She has a fair share of criticism for many, in fact, she was really upset at bloggers and she said, bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie, that was an answer to your question what annoys you. Did you feel that there was some anger or resentment by what went down in the campaign?
D'AGOSTINO: Yeah, it felt like she may have been kind of saying it with a kind of smirk. Because now she can say that and can speak a little more freely. But yeah, the question, as you mentioned, was fairly banal and innocuous.
CHETRY: And perhaps one of the things that she was criticized most for or parodied most for was the comments about Russia, about when Putin rears his head in air space, where is he. She actually defended that and you said this was also unprompted saying, you can see Russia from Alaska. You can. You can see Russia from Alaska. Something like that a factual statement that was taken out of context and mocked, what you have to do is let that go. Why didn't she let that go, why did she bring that up again?
D'AGOSTINO: Because I think and maybe this is speculation. But as we saw during the campaign, everything is very measured and controlled and I think that might not be her style. And you could really feel and sense the frustration coming through as she was answering my pretty simple questions. It was a little bit like she was exhaling and it, maybe it felt good.
CHETRY: Exhaling perhaps all the way to 2012. We have to see for that. Ryan D'Agostino, the very interesting set of answers that you got from Sarah Palin for sure. Thanks for being with us.
D'AGOSTINO: Thank you.
CHETRY: 42 minutes after the hour.
ROBERTS: Can't find a full-time job? Get yourself a gig, from long-term career moves to working with no strings attached. Living gig-to-gig. Could the new giganomics yank us out of recession? You're watching the Most News in the Morning.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. A live picture for you this morning in central Wisconsin. It's Osh Kosh B'Gosh right along the lake there. Minus two degrees, mostly cloudy, schools, even some ski resorts in Wisconsin are closed today because of the bone-chilling cold. It's going to be snowy with a high of just 6 today in Osh Kosh by the way.
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CHETRY: Breaking news, Osama bin Laden rearing his head again. The terror leader releasing an audio message, this time a warning, calling for jihad and condemning the Israeli offensive in Gaza. We're covering all angles and we'll also be speaking with former security head Fran Townsend about it. It's 47 minutes after the hour.
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CHETRY: When Barack Obama moves into the White House next week he'll have his work cut out for him, not just about fixing the economy though, also about satisfying Obama's basketball Jones. CNN's Erica Hill has more on the president-elect's hoop dreams.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Barack Obama's love of Basketball is almost as famous as the president-elect himself. From his high school days as Barrier Balmer in Hawaii, shooting hoops with soldiers in Kuwait last summer. It's clear the president-elect is at home on the hardwood. A game of pickup at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would be a little harder to come by. The only court is outside, and it isn't even half the regulation size. Not that Obama doesn't have plans.
OBAMA: We are going to take the bowling alley out of the White House. We are going to be putting in a basketball court.
HILL: The NBA has offered to help, while the owner of the Washington Wizards said the president-elect is free to use the Verizon Center any time. There's been much written about the president- elect's style on the court and what it says about his style as a leader. It isn't the first time someone's looked to his game for insight.
CRAIG ROBINSON, OBAMA'S BROTHER-IN-LAW: My sister heard my dad and I talking about how you can tell a guy's true character when you take him out on the basketball court. I told my sister, I was like this guy's terrific.
HILL: Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey played basketball with Barack Obama on the morning of the election. He offers this take on the incoming president's game.
SEN. BOB CASEY (D), PENNSYLVANIA: When he plays, he plays very seriously. He has a sense of command about the way he plays. And he always picks a good team.
HILL: Obama has joked about his new team in Washington, with more than one known for their time on the basketball court with the president-elect, including newly-appointed education secretary Arne Duncan.
OBAMA: Although I will say that I think we are putting together the best basketball playing cabinet in American history.
HILL: The only issue, where that cabinet will play.
OBAMA: He's clutch.
HILL: Erica Hill, CNN, New York.
(END OF VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Breaking news, bin Laden calls for jihad. We've got the latest.
Plus, war at the mall.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We really just want people to understand the Army.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: The Army's new $13 million arcade, they say come play.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're going to go into it thinking it's just a video game when it's not.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Toys for teens recruitment. You're watching the most news in the morning.
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ROBERTS: Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning. With the country steeped in recession and companies cutting tens of thousands of employees, more Americans are forced to work odd jobs, moving from gig to gig so to speak. In fact, Tina Brown, the editor in chief of thedailybeast.com says we have entered the age of, here's a new phrase for you, giganomics.
She's here to explain more about this. This is a term that really comes from the music industry. You know how bands will go from gig to gig to gig. It's like a one-night stand sort of thing, and now it's applying to the workforce.
TINA BROWN, CO-FOUNDER, THEDAILYBEAST.COM: It really is. As I say, you know people don't have jobs anymore, they just have gigs. They say, you ask somebody what they're doing and it takes about 10 minutes to answer. People go well I'm doing two hours here and I'm working there and I'm spending a few days consulting and I'm traveling and I'm doing this. And it's everybody's hustling. This is of course not news to people who, you know, in the lower income bracket but what is new and what really is quite striking right now is that the college-educated group who kind of thought that a college education was going to be a free pass to job security, are also completely scrambling in the new gig economy.
ROBERTS: And you write in your pieces these are not just undergrads. These are people with MBAs and other post-graduate degrees.
BROWN: MBAs and major positions and you know a lifetime where they thought that they could depend on a certain position and so forth and they're just scrambling to do three or four things at a time. So it's like no one is pretending any more when there used to be a time where people would say, oh yes, well actually I decided to leave to do things that were more interesting. Now people are just out there hustling. Nobody's pretending.
ROBERTS: And you have some empirical data on this as well, you commissioned a poll. Let's put the poll up and we'll take a look. The poll found, look at that, do you consider yourself to be a freelance worker? 22 percent of people said yes and in the overall, your poll found that almost a third of people are either working freelance or they're working multiple jobs. What does that say about the economy now as we go forward?
BROWN: It's been a very scary thing. It's one thing to decide to pursue a fulfilling freelance career and there's nothing wrong with working freelance. I did it myself many times and I loved it because you put together --
ROBERTS: You certainly had a number of gigs over your career.
BROWN: Yes, sure. Gigs can be great. What isn't fun is to find yourself enforceably (ph) doing it without any prepreparation, where you're pitched into it, and you suddenly have to scramble, and everybody else is trying to do the same thing to make the nut. Which is, and the difference too is that people used to --
ROBERTS: The nut being your monthly expenditure?
BROWN: The nut being your health care and child care and apartment and so forth. And in the past, I think people could feel, well, my apartment is my security. If I have to lose my job I can sell my apartment and move to a lower apartment but the fact is you can't sell your apartment either. So people are stuck.
ROBERTS: Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker wrote about your article, and she said, "Something has gone terribly wrong with the American dream." And she went on to say that the "newest fashion is recession chic, which means last year's clothes get recycled, ramen noodle potlucks served with two buck chuck have replaced pasta and champagne dinners."
Is there no such thing as job security or stability and what about this whole idea of stress and anxiety in the workforce now?
BROWN: I think there's a huge amount of stress and anxiety, I also think it's creating a lot of new problems actually for employers, too. It's not just the cut they're feeling how difficult it is. It's also the employer who's trying to scrimp around and do the job without anybody present. It's almost as if work, the American workforce now, everybody is on maternity leave. You turn around to try to get something done, and somebody will say, oh, that's not Sam's day to come in. And you go, well, who is coming to the meeting? They say well Julia. And you say well Julia doesn't know a darn thing about it. You say well yeah but she's the one who is in today.
So it's the kind of thing where the information is going to fall through the cracks in a tremendous way and you feel that people you're always calling out, saying can you fill me in with this piece of information because x or y isn't here today. So I wonder how that's going to affect frankly things and places like hospitals, because it's one thing when you can't get information in a technology company or something, but it's quite another when it's medical or, you know, it's issues which are really very serious.
ROBERTS: Another realignment of the American workplace. Tina Brown, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks for dropping in. Congratulations, by the way, on the success of "The Daily Beast." Read it all the time here at AMERICAN MORNING. Good to see you.
BROWN: Thank you.
