Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Getting Bailout Billions Back; Growing Number of Islamic Radicals in Nigeria; President Obama's Approval Rating

Aired January 12, 2010 - 12:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Time for your top-of-the-hour reset. I'm Tony Harris in CNN NEWSROOM.

It is 12:00 in Washington, where President Obama considers a tax on banks to recoup federal bailout money. It is 9:00 a.m. in Los Angeles, where I will talk with a Nigerian prince about the plane-bomb suspect and the security fallout in Africa. And it is noon in chilly Florida, where a cold wave wipes out a tropical fish farm and one man's livelihood.

Let's do this -- let's get started.

First, this story developing in North Carolina.

The port in Morehead City is shut down now after nine containers holding explosives were punctured. People near the port have been evacuated -- it's not mandatory -- and other residents have been told to stay away from windows and doors.

Police say the explosive is PETN, which is used primarily in blasting caps. It is the same chemical that was part of the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

We'll turn some sound with my interview with the mayor in just a couple of minutes for you.

Over the course of the global financial crisis, we've watched banks go from boom to bust and now back to boom times again. Now that most are steady, the Obama administration is weighing steps to ensure taxpayers get all those bailout billions back.

Business Correspondent Stephanie Elam joining me in New York.

And Stephanie, a lot of folks on Main Street won't be upset with what the president is proposing here.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I think you're only going to find people who are really upset about this, Tony, on Wall Street. And people everywhere else may have -- maybe, like, it must be just desserts here. But let's take a look at what's going on here.

You've got the White House supposedly mulling over the idea of taxing large financial institutions, and it's a multi-pronged reason why they want to do this. Let's go ahead and take a look here. They want to recoup those bailout losses, obviously, make sure taxpayers get back the money that they put up to bail out these companies. They want to reduce the budget deficit. They don't want this money actually affecting the deficit, which, as we know, is already gargantuan. And they want to discourage excessive risk taking, all of that risk taking that had been around for years and years on Wall Street that led to the debacle of 2008 and almost a collapse of Wall Street.

Also, a lot of people -- and we talk about this a lot, Tony -- but a lot of people are really angry over the bonuses that will be going out in the next few weeks on Wall Street, saying that Wall Street is really just disconnected and they don't get it. They're not doing enough to lend to small businesses, they're not helping enough of the little guy out there. So a lot of people are for this plan if it means getting that money back.

Now, here's what I can tell you, is that in this legislation for the $700 billion TARP plan that was passed in October of 2008, it did actually make it clear that the president could then ask Congress to go after these companies who haven't paid back their TARP money to make sure that they recoup that money. It isn't to say which way they can go after it, so this tax would be totally within the purview of the Obama administration to go after this get this money back.

Also, AIG, the auto companies, would not be part of that...

HARRIS: Right.

ELAM: ... right now, simply because, as you can see, they're still struggling. But a lot of those financial institutions out there, they are supposedly set to report record earnings in a couple of weeks here. So they're saying that they can afford to do this. Obviously, the banks not thrilled with that plan. They're saying it's a tender recovery here, and to do this would impact their ability to do their part and hold strong for the economy.

HARRIS: Is that the response so far?

ELAM: Yes, that's the response so far.

HARRIS: All right.

Stephanie Elam for us in New York.

Stephanie, appreciate it. Thank you.

ELAM: Sure.

HARRIS: You know, a plan to tax so-called Cadillac health insurance plans is under fire from labor unions. The proposal is part of the Senate health reform bill.

The tax would cover individual policies worth more than $8,500 and family plans above $23,000. Union leaders met with President Obama yesterday to express their disapproval. They say the tax would hurt members who negotiated good benefits in exchange for lower pay, as well as other working-class Americans.

President Obama says it is time to move on from the fallout over Senator Harry Reid's racial gaffe. The president says he has accepted Reid's apology for remarks in 2008 describing him as light-skinned, with no Negro dialect.

In a TV One interview airing later this month, the president says there are bigger issues to tackle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fact that we spend days on this instead of talking about the unemployment rate or talking about how we deal with critical issues like energy and health care is an indication of why I think people don't understand what's happening in Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: What do Americans think of the president's job performance? New poll numbers on the president's approval rating ahead this hour.

The president and the first lady are in Wilmington, Delaware, this hour attending the funeral for Vice President Joe Biden's mother. Jean Finnegan Biden died Friday at the family's home. She was 92.

In a statement, the vice president said his mother was the center of their family. He said, "She believed in us, and because of that, we believed in ourselves."

We are learning new information about the investigation of the Florida teen set on fire last year. In newly-released court documents, Broward County investigators say 15-year-old Michael Brewer knew he was in danger back in October. Although he had expected some kind of attack, Brewer told investigators he was surprised when the rubbing alcohol was splashed against his back moments before he was set on fire.

Here's some of the audio from his conversation with investigators.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BREWER, BURN VICTIM: Cold stuff all over my clothes. And all of a sudden, I felt burning. And somebody poured something on me and lit me on fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

BREWER: And I started running. This guy comes running out, too. He tries to pull me out of the water. I said, "No, leave me, leave me," because my skin was, like, hanging.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Oh, man.

Brewer has burns over 65 percent of his body and has a long recovery ahead of him. Two teens have been charged in connection with this attack.

We will have more on this case later this hour.

Assessing the Afghan war effort. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell just back from a trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is voicing concerns about the U.S. war plan.

Here's the senator speaking just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: With regard to the deadline of summer of '11, I think it is somewhat of a problem for both the Afghans and for the Americans over there in terms of our willingness to stay. Of course, the Afghans have had a number of experiences with people sort of not finishing the job, and there is some confusion attached to that. And I think anything we can do -- and we tried to underscore what I believe is the position of the secretary of defense and the secretary of state and, for that matter, the president -- that the summer of 2011 doesn't mean an automatic drawdown, it's based on the conditions on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Well, a key part of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is to train and mentor Afghan forces so they can take over the security of their country. Just last hour, we got an update on how that is going from an Army colonel in Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As you know, Afghanistan's comparable to the size of the state of Texas. And my unit is spread about half of the state of Texas, which is the first for a brigade combat team.

I'll tell you, we approached our mission through embedding and partnering with numerous army, Afghan police and border police units. It's a much less traditional mission than other U.S. brigade combat teams operating in previous deployments. Our overall purpose, as I said, is to increase the capability and capacity of our Afghan security forces by training, advising, conducting combined planning and conducting combined action operations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Government officials from Nigeria are protesting their country's inclusion on a terror watch list. I will ask a Nigerian prince for his perspective.

First, though, our "Random Moment" in 90 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS: It's so cold, it's our "Random Moment of the Day."

Carn Claussen (ph) sent us pictures from Austin. Yes, it's been so cold across, what, east -- yes, yes, yes -- central Texas, Carn (ph) and his buddies could play pool on the pool. Ice billiards in the swimming pool, our "Random Moment of the Day."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: The president and first lady are in Wilmington, Delaware, this hour attending the funeral for Vice President Joe Biden's mother, Jean Finnegan Biden.

The vice president is remembering his mother.

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... mom to come back to the church that she called home from 1955 on. She was here in when the cornerstone was laid in the church that is now the gym. We lived in Mayfield, and my two brothers went to grade school here, one having fond memories, the other wishing he never went to school.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: And our two sons were baptized here at IHM.

Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden was somewhat selfishly viewed by our family as a remarkable woman. She's the daughter of Ambrose (ph) and Geraldine Finnegan (ph).

Growing up in a tight Irish Catholic community in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the collective embrace of her four brothers who she adored, Jerry (ph), Blewitt (ph), Posey (ph), and her Jackie (ph), certain in their love, secure in their protection and nurtured by their loyalty and affection. By their words and by their deeds, they instilled in mom a sense of self-confidence and competence, allowing her to learn to trust her instincts and never be afraid to take risks, knowing she was any man or woman's equal.

As long as I can remember, in Scranton mom was referred to by her family, her extended family, her friends and neighbors as "Our Jean." It's kind of a Scranton thing.

HARRIS: Vice President Joe Biden remembering his mom, Jean Biden, who died Friday at the age of 92. The president and first lady in attendance.

A Nigerian man's attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day lands Nigeria on a U.S. watch list. Officials in the West African nation are reacting strongly to being included among so- called countries of interest.

Here's Nigeria's foreign minister talking to CNN's Christian Purefoy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OJO MADUEKWE, NIGERIA FOREIGN MINISTER: To put us on that list, like I said earlier, it's the most unacceptable new year gift to a friendly country. Some say terror list, some said, no, it's a country of interest.

We think the whole idea of "country of interest" is a euphemism. It's a distinction without a difference. We don't like to be on that list.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Nigeria does have a growing number of Islamic radicals located not far from where the Christmas Day terror suspect grew up.

Our Christian Purefoy takes us there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIAN PUREFOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An outpost of radical Islam in northern Nigeria. These young men are among thousands of followers of Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, one of Nigeria's most militant clerics who lives just an hour from the family home of terror bomb suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

In a rare interview with CNN, he expressed his grievances against America.

IBRAHEEM EL-ZAKZAKY, ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF NIGERIA: They attack our president - we feel also attacked.

PUREFOY (on camera): What do you blame for causing Nigeria's problems?

EL-ZAKZAKY: Failures of the United States of America, which has interests in our oils.

PUREFOY (voice-over): Nigeria is the world's fifth largest oil exporter to America. But even so, 70 percent of its people live on less than $1 a day. With promises of social support, El-Zakzaky's call for an Islamic revolution in Nigeria is appealing to many young Nigerians.

It's not known how many Islamic sects there are. But with similar ideals to El-Zakzaky, they are often at odds with the Nigerian authorities. Police accuse El-Zakzaky of storing weapons at this camp, but have never were found any here.

(on camera): Last year, there was a huge government crackdown against Islamic camps like this across the north of the country. The worst was when one sect (INAUDIBLE) rose up against what they called the introduction of western education and nearly 1,000 people died.

(voice-over): The sect's use schools as well as street protests to spread their radical influence.

(on camera): If someone gave him a bomb and asked him to detonate it over the United States, would he do that?

INUWA YUNUS, NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD STUDENT (through translator): If they told you they provoke me, they kill my brothers, they maim my people. Well, it's allowed for you to retaliate, to fight back. That is if you can. But me personally, I don't have the mind to do such a thing. Nor do I have the mind to kill myself.

PUREFOY: No sect has publicly expressed any desire to attack the west. However, such radical ideas provide an ideal breeding ground for more extreme foreign influences.

SULEIMAN AHMED, KADUNA CIVIL RIGHTS CONGRESS: We have sects, groups and individuals here who have very strong views against the west and in solidarity with issues and events happening in the Middle East and other places. But they may not have the opportunity and the resources of taking their own views to the next level.

PUREFOY: With this nation's first homegrown suicide bomb suspect now awaiting prosecution in the United States, local grievances in northern Nigeria cannot be dismissed as mere talk anymore.

Christian Purefoy, CNN, Kaduna, Nigeria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: And joining me live now from Los Angeles with his perspective, Nigerian Prince Malik Ado Ibrahim.

Malik, good to see you.

PRINCE MALIK IBRAHIM, NIGERIA: Thank you, Tony. Nice to see you.

HARRIS: And full disclosure here, everyone should know that you're a friend, and we have been going back and forth on this issue over the last few days. The only thing that will buy you in the next three or four minutes is an even closer interview, so I want everyone to know that.

Given what you watched in that piece from our Christian Purefoy, and what you know to be the situation, particularly in the north of your country, wasn't it prudent, after the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner, to put Nigeria on the country of interest watch list?

IBRAHIM: Personally, I think that that's a convenient misclassification for Nigeria, because if you're going to use that as the benchmark of how you classify a country that needs to be on that list, one of the things you've got to look at is Richard Reid and what he did in the -- as a British citizen, and the British don't seem to be on that list for any particular reason. And you can even use that analogy and look at Major Hasan and what happened in Fort Hood.

You know, we're a free country. We're a British colony just like the United States. And we have the same laws. We -- you know, we work under the premise of the Magna Carta. We have freedom of speech. We have rule of law. So, it's very difficult for you to look at the most democratically free country on the African continent and say, well, you know, we have to do some things...

HARRIS: Right.

IBRAHIM: ... that western countries can't do. So, it's very difficult.

HARRIS: Yes. But you know the argument about Richard Reid. You know that's just not going to carry the day. It just isn't. And you know that as well as I do.

But I want to get to a couple of other issues here.

IBRAHIM: Sure.

HARRIS: Put yourself in the position, again, of any official in the United States government charged with keeping the United States safe. You're not suggesting that you wouldn't take this very same decision, would you?

IBRAHIM: I'm definitely suggesting that, because let's look at what happened during this whole event.

You have a father who reports on his son at the American Embassy to the CIA and tells them that his son's gone radical. I mean, this is a Muslim father as well reporting on his extremist Muslim son. That must probably be the most difficult thing a father can do.

Everything from there on has, you know, been blamed on Nigeria. We did what needed to be done.

HARRIS: Right.

IBRAHIM: We've got two things that we haven't been able to do, is, first of all, look at, you know, the passengers and the crew on that plane. And they're heroes. And I think for us, in Nigeria and most of Africa, Abdulmutallab is a hero, too. He did something extraordinary.

HARRIS: So, let's cut to the bottom line here. What, in your view, are the real ramifications of this new classification for Nigeria?

IBRAHIM: Well, certainly this misclassification puts us on a list that we don't deserve to be on, and you can look at any measure that you want to judge a terrorist country or terrorist-aligned country. We do not have a lunatic at the top of our government. We do not have training camps.

We have freedom of speech here. And we don't fund terrorism.

What you're seeing internally is, you know, sects, if you will. We're 150-odd million people, and I wouldn't even count those individuals that were on that -- were in those cults close to even one percent or half a percent of the population of the country.

So, we're doing our best to try to mitigate some of the issues exporting terrorism. It's probably internal, but this is the first time you've ever heard of an African being involved in any of these sort of these anti-American or anti-western...

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: OK. Well, how about this? How about this -- why not view this as an opportunity for the Nigerian government to take concrete steps to reassure the international community of the country's willingness to battle radicalization in Nigeria? I go back to the piece from Christian Purefoy. Why not focus on this as an opportunity?

IBRAHIM: Well, there is an opportunity here, and the opportunity here is for the Obama administration to look at Nigeria as a friend. You don't admonish your neighbor for telling you you're going to get burgled. You don't call the police on your neighbor. You probably take him out to dinner.

We've done everything we're supposed to do. There are missteps. The president has come out publicly and said we dropped the ball.

What you need to do is now dialogue. And we need to be able to talk. You need to be able to talk to your friends. You need to be able to get human intelligence, and that's what's missing. We've been programmed to say electronics and screens are going to show where everything is hidden.

HARRIS: Yes.

IBRAHIM: But if we don't have human eyeballs looking at things and saying this is shaming these people, you're not going to get anywhere. And that's really the dialogue we need to have.

HARRIS: All right, my friend. Let's continue the conversation. All right?

IBRAHIM: Thanks for having me.

HARRIS: Prince Malik Ado Ibrahim with us from Los Angeles.

Good to see you, my friend.

And let's check our top stories right now.

People in the downtown area of Morehead City, North Carolina, are being urged to evacuate. Police say it is a precautionary measure after containers of highly-explosive materials were punctured at the port.

We have new photos in of the port right now. There you go. The material in question here is PETN, a primary ingredient in blasting caps.

I spoke to the town's mayor a few moments ago, and he gave me this update.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR JERRY JONES, MOREHEAD CITY, NORTH CAROLINA: At 4:44 a.m. this morning, we received a call from the port that a -- that there was a hazardous material spill down at the port. And when we responded, we noticed that there were some product spilled out of the drum -- drums on the port property. And so we immediately identified it was hazardous materials, assessed it that it was contained on the port and not to go into our neighboring waters, into the waterway.

And then we notified our neighboring emergency offices, which would also include our Cherry Point, which is the military base, and their EOD Department, and the Carter (ph) County Emergency Services, and have contained this now in this area. And we've also set up an instant command center here in Morehead City, approximately a half- mile away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: OK. We will continue to bring you the latest on this developing story as we continue to get additional information.

Chad Myers is checking the latest winter forecast. Are some of us in for a bit of a break from the cold?

We are back in a moment.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's all relative.

HARRIS: It's all relative.

We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: OK. What kind of job do Americans think the president is doing right now? New poll numbers are out.

CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser joining me with analysis.

Paul, good to see you.

What do Americans think of President Obama?

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Tony, we're nearing one year in office for the president.

HARRIS: Yes.

STEINHAUSER: Check this out. This is a brand new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll.

This number really got us excited, myself., and our polling director, Keating Holland. Americans appear to be split. That's what our poll indicates on whether this first year so far has been a success for failure for President Obama.

What about his overall approval rating? That's the kind of standard, the gold standard we always use on the president. You can see right here, 51 percent right now approving of the job Barack Obama is doing in the White House. That's down three points from last month. Within the sampling error, but down three points, Tony.