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American Morning

New Evidence of Fraud Against Doctor Who Linked Autism with Vaccinations; Republicans Rule the House; Mayor Cory Booker's Let's Move Challenge

Aired January 06, 2011 - 07:00   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Thanks so much for being with us on this "AMERICAN MORNING" Thursday, January 6th. I'm Kiran Chetry.

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. Taking a look at some of the things we're keeping a close eye on this morning. The medical world right now being rocked. New evidence of fraud against a doctor who linked autism to a childhood vaccine. His name is Dr. Andrew Wakefield. He's accused out and out lies now. His exclusive interview with Anderson Cooper.

CHETRY: If you've never actual hi heard the constitution read aloud, you will today. House Republicans plan to read it out loud, every single word, and then they'll try to dismantle the president's health care reforms. It may be the first new day of a brand-new Congress, but some say it may feel like politics as usual.

HOLMES: Also, he is the honorary vice chair for the Partnership for a Healthier America. And he is not setting a very good example. Brother got up to 300 pounds. We're talking about Mayor Cory Booker. He admits he is out of shape. I'm not getting on him here. He's doing something about it. He's going to be here with us. You will hear his plan to get in shape.

CHETRY: He's doing a lot of running for being out of shape.

HOLMES: That was a long time ago. I'm just messing with you, Mr. Mayor.

CHETRY: He's the one who said, I've got to call myself out. He's joining us to talk about it.

First, more fuel being added to the fiery debate over whether vaccinating your children could actually harm them. This morning the "British Medical Journal" is out with a scathing report accusing a lead researcher of that 1998 study, Andrew Wakefield, which links measles, pumps, and rubella vaccine to autism, accusing him of deliberate fraud.

HOLMES: The investigative journalist here was Brian Deer, and he says Wakefield actually made up the data on the 12 children who were the focus of that study. Deer was here just a little bit ago talking to Kiran last hour, and he said Wakefield has financial motives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: What was the motivation then, for Dr. Wakefield, to falsely link autism to the MMR vaccine in that initial study?

BRIAN DEER, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, "SUNDAY TIMES OF LONDON": Well, I believe that his motivation was essentially to make money, initially to make money from litigation. He was retained as an expert in a lawsuit for which we know he was paid $750,000. But he also had all kinds of business interests which he thought would make considerably more money through promoting the scare and anxiety over the MMR vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: In an exclusive interview with Anderson Cooper last night, Dr. Andrew Wakefield responded to those charges and defended his research.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC 360": Sir, according to this new report, not only did you do a study that was scientifically and ethically flawed, it was, quote, "an elaborate fraud." Award winning investigative journalist Brian Deer has published evidence that you, and I quote, "altered numerous facts about patients' medical histories to support your claims of identifying a new syndrome" and that you also, quote, "sought to exploit the scare among parents for financial gains." How do you respond?

DR. ANDREW WAKEFIELD, AUTHORED RETRACTED AUTISM STUDY: You know, I've had to put up with this man's false allegations for many, many years. I've written a book --

COOPER: This is not just one man. This is published in the "British Medical Journal."

WAKEFIELD: And I have not had a chance to read that. But I have read his multiple allegations on many occasions. He's a hit-man brought in to take me down because they are very concerned about the adverse reactions to vaccines occurring to children.

COOPER: Let me stop you right there. You say he's a hit-man and brought in by "they." Who is "they"? He's a journalist who has won many awards.

WAKEFIELD: Who brought this man in, who is paying this man, I don't know. But I do know for sure, he's not a journalist like you are.

COOPER: He's actually signed a document guaranteeing that he has no financial interest in any of this or no financial connections to anyone who has an interest in this.

WAKEFIELD: That's interesting that you should say that because he was supported in his investigation of the British pharmaceutical industries which is funded directly and exclusively by the pharmaceutical industries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Let's bring in our Dr. Sanjay Gupta this morning. Sanjay, good to see you, as always, buddy. Thanks.

To help parents this morning, because the debate has been going on for quite some time. Parents don't know what to do. That really doesn't change the debate. We're kind of in the same place we were already.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this paper that everyone is talking about, Dr. Wakefield's paper was published back in '98. Look, it's been scrutinized for the last 12 years. Some of the authors who co-authored that paper with him left, they took their names off the paper. The paper was subsequently retracted for unethical practices to look the patients in the paper.

And now you just heard specifically, you know, claims of fraud, specifically. It wasn't that it was bad science. It was that it was actually manipulated data.

But my point is, T.J., despite all of that, over the last 12 years, it hasn't changed the debate, the criticism of Wakefield's paper. I don't think it's going to change the debate going forward either.

HOLMES: Sanjay, where are we in the research in the studies that have been done, to gets closer to knowing what in the world is behind the increase that most agree is there, the increase in cases of autism?

GUPTA: Let me say one more thing about what Wakefield said as well and two of the larger autism groups in this country. I think that they're very careful in not saying that children should not be vaccinated. I think that's not been the message of two of the major autism groups. Even Dr. Wakefield last night said that wasn't his message that children should be vaccinated.

He did suggest splitting up the vaccines. T.J., I have three children. I've got my children vaccinated on schedule, on time. But the real answer to the question that would settle this is we don't know, which is what causes autism. We're not sure. We've seen an uptick.

Interestingly enough, in been in groups of older parents, more affluent parents, parents who are more educated. Why exactly that is happening, it's unclear. Is there an environmental factor that triggers some sort of genetic predisposition that a child is born with? The answer there is probably.

You know, there's 25,000 genes, which genes specifically are they looking at to try and make that connection. It's complicated. But, T.J., there's a lot of things in medicine that we don't specifically know the answer to. It doesn't mean that we can simply say it's because of this without knowing for sure.

HOLMES: All right, the debate goes on. Sanjay, we appreciate it. Thanks, buddy. GUPTA: See you.

CHETRY: Finally, some breaking news for you this hour. A 55-year-old American woman has reportedly been arrested in Iran. According to local media outlets in Iran, they say that customs agents arrested the woman on suspicion of spying after entering the country illegally. Reports say she arrived from neighboring Armenia without a visa. This report cannot be immediately confirmed by officials, but we are following this story.

Well, the torch, in this case, the gavel has been passed on with Republicans in control of the House and Ohio's John Boehner replacing Nancy Pelosi as the speaker of House, promising something that we've heard before and are still waiting to see.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R-OH) HOUSE SPEAKER: To my colleagues in the majority, my message is this -- we'll honor our pledge to America, built on a process of limping to the American people. We will stand firm on our constitutional principles that built our party and built the great nation.

We will do these things, however, in a manner that restores and respects the time-honored right of the minority to an honest debate, a fair and open process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: And the first order of business in the House this morning, Republicans taking turns reading the entire constitution out loud for the better part of three hours.

Well, can we really expect Republicans and Democrats to cooperate? What about transparency? Is that a possibility? Coming up in six minutes we're going to talk to the new House majority leader, Virginia Republican Eric Cantor.

HOLMES: Also this morning, students and faculty mourning the loss of their vice principal. Vicky Casper died yesterday after being shot by a student at Millard High School in Omaha, Nebraska. The principal also shot. The principal expected to recover. Police say the student later shot himself in a car just a mile away from that school.

CHETRY: Well, the plot thickens in the mysterious death of former John Wheeler. There's new surveillance video showing him wandering aimlessly around the Wilmington, Delaware parking garage just days before his body was found in a nearby landfill.

The parking attendant who encountered him doing this described his behavior as "downright bizarre." She said she thought he might be suffering from dementia, even.

The attendant said Wheeler had no coat and he was freezing and he asked her to enter his cubicle to sit and warm up. He was wearing only one shoe, insisting he wasn't drunk. Authorities are still trying to determine exactly where Wheeler was killed.

HOLMES: Researchers say they're even surprised by this particular study. The study found that the more people drink alcohol, the more they exercise. That's coming to us from the "American Journal of Health."

Quote "Heavy drinkers exercise about ten minutes more per week than moderate drinkers and about 20 minutes more than people who don't think at all." You can hit the gym after long spout of binge drinking.

CHETRY: You've got to put your thinking cap on here and figure out somebody's going to make money off of this, whether it's the new bar and gym combo. I'm just saying, obviously, you know. Somebody invented the Snuggie.

(WEATHER BREAK)

HOLMES: Of course, we've got that brand-new Congress getting started, today its first full day of work. The House is now under Republican control. They are making promises to America and also making promises to Democrats. We will be asking the new majority leader Eric Cantor how his party plans to keep some of those promises.

CHETRY: New York Mayor Cory Booker had a lot on his plate this year both figuratively and literally. He says he ballooned to nearly 295 or more when he stepped on the scale. Meantime, he was out helping people in the storm. Now he's turning to Facebook and Twitter. He tries to shed light on the problem of obesity and his own unwanted weight. We're going to talk to him coming up.

HOLMES: Also, big fish, little boat. You can probably fill in the story to see how this story ends. But come on back. We'll show you how it ends anyway. It's 12 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: It's 15 minutes past the hour right now. When the new Republican-controlled Congress gets to work today, we, the people, will be treated to a reading of the constitution, every single word of it out loud, something that's actually never happened before. Republicans will also be offering up a largely symbolic measure calling for cuts to congressional budgets. And then they will move to a much bigger target, the president's health care reform.

Virginia Republican Eric Cantor is the new House majority leader and he joins us this morning from Capitol Hill. Thanks so much for being with us this morning, Congressman.

REP. ERIC CANTOR (R), VIRGINIA: Kiran, good morning. Thank you.

CHETRY: So the first big item on the agenda, the repealing of health care. It's a bill though that no one expects to go anywhere beyond the House. Is it a waste of time that could potentially be spent on some other big issues? CANTOR: Kiran, no, it's not. Because what we heard from the people when they went to the polls in November is they wanted Washington to stop business as usual and get down to work to try and cut spending and shrink the size of this government so we can see results for the families and businesses of this country. What we do know is the Obamacare bill spends money we don't have. We also know it has had a lot of follow-up regulations that have provided a disincentive for small businesses to grow jobs. And it doesn't provide the kind of health care that people want.

Republicans want to provide access to good health care. We just know there's a better way. So we're going to pass a resolution next week on the floor of the U.S. House that repeals Obamacare. And we want the president and the Senate to work with us to try and achieve a better way so that more Americans can have access to affordable health care and stress the fact that it's a doctor/patient relationship, not the government that should be governing what kind of health care people get.

CHETRY: I want to ask you about a couple of things on that note. The latest CNN poll showing, this is after the election, shows pretty much a split actually. It has 49 percent of people saying, yes, they agree with you, repeal and replace. About a quarter saying leave it as is. And then a quarter who would like to see actually more government involvement. So is it a bit of an exaggeration to say that Americans don't want this health care bill?

CANTOR: No, Kiran, I don't. I think your numbers speak for themselves. I think there's other polling indicating that Americans just don't want Washington controlling the kind of health care they have access to. Republicans believe that we should have more competition, more choice. We believe we ought to do something to try and get the lawsuits out of the examining room so we can help bring down costs. And we believe, ultimately, it is the families that want to choose the kind of health care that they want, not some bureaucrat here in Washington.

We know that this health care bill is over $1 trillion cost. Spending money we don't have. And so we're going to take the first step to try and deliver on our promise that we're going to repeal this bill, we're going to stop spending money we don't have. And we're going to change the culture here in Washington. And that's what I hope that you'll begin to see today as we take to the floor of the U.S. House.

CHETRY: Well, the Congressional Budget Office said I know you might quibble with their numbers. But they say that health care reform will actually do one of the key things you want, which is to reduce the federal deficit. They say by $140 billion over 10 years. And even if you don't necessarily agree with that number, of course, there's no doubt that health care costs are going to continue to dig us deeper into a deficit. So how do you make that money up if it's not through this measure, if it's not through this law, and it's not depriving people of being able to get health care?

CANTOR: Kiran, I think most people know, whether you're in Washington or outside the beltway, that you know this bill has the potential to bankrupt the federal government or the states. I mean, as we've seen there are many governors on both sides of the political aisle very concerned about what Obamacare is going to do to the fiscal health of the states. So we want to take a much more prudent approach. And from the physical standpoint, we're going to go about reducing discretionary spending across the board to '08 levels. We're going to save the taxpayers money. Each and every week, we've committed to bringing a bill to the floor that reduces spending that actually changes the culture here in Washington. That folks are not coming here to see what they can do to spend more, but actually to spend less.

And, Kiran, that is the way we're going to start today. And you'll see that happen every single week.

CHETRY: Well, Congressman, is this easier said than done? I mean, some of the moves that you guys have talked about, wanting to try to cut $100 billion from the domestic spending this year, cuts into popular programs. You talked about complaints from the states and concerns about that. If there's an across the board cut, 20 percent, in things like transportation, in education. I mean, in some cases, you can't even get Senate Republicans to agree to that. How is that going to happen in reality?

CANTOR: Well, first of all, I think the message from the election in November was, the American people get that we are living beyond our means. We have got to tighten the belt. And what we're talking about is we're turning to 2008 levels. Most people know that the sun rose and set in 2008 before the bailouts, before the stimulus bill. That's what our intention is. And we're going to work together. I talked to the president yesterday. And I said, we want to work with you if your intent is to cut spending, shrink the size of this government. And I also told him I hope he begins to reevaluate the kind of regulatory environment that has persisted in Washington over the last two years because we want to see job growth. And the agencies here in Washington have caused an impediment to small businesses creating jobs.

CHETRY: It's kind of interesting. So, you know, you're coming out there and you're saying, we want to dismantle basically your biggest legislative achievement, Mr. President, but you're also meeting with him. I mean, where are you guys finding common ground?

CANTOR: I do think that the common ground, Kiran, is in cutting spending. And I expect when the president comes to deliver the State of the Union address for him to lay out some significant spending cuts. You know, the president has talked a lot about joining Republicans and banning earmarks here in Washington.

I asked the president if he could call Leader Harry Reid in the Senate and ask him to join us in this. I also think that we have to come together on both sides of the aisle to say that it's jobs first. It's about getting Americans back to work. I've asked the president if he would be specific in terms of his ideas for tax reform. You know, we, Republicans, believe that we've got a competitive disadvantage here in this country. And what that means, it translates into a lack of jobs. And we've got to reverse that trend and get America back on track to win again.

CHETRY: Well, most people would agree we do want to see that for sure. It was great to talk to you this morning. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, thanks so much.

CANTOR: Kiran, thank you.

CHETRY: Also, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to be one-on-one with John King. The exclusive interview airs tonight, 7:00 Eastern here on CNN.

HOLMES: It seems like everybody wants a piece of Facebook these days. And Goldman Sachs taking orders. However, not everybody is going to get a chance to get the piece that they wanted. Those would-be investors may be getting turned away. We'll explain why. Coming up.

CHETRY: Also, Joe Biden unscripted. The vice president takes on this 3-year-old boy. Uses some good old fashioned grandpa tactics to swipe back his speech.

Twenty-two minutes after the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHETRY: "Morning Talker" time. Twenty-five minutes past the hour.

I was going to tell you, if I was in this boat, I don't know what I would do.

HOLMES: Yes.

CHETRY: But this family held it together on a vacation near Perth, Australia. They were in a little skiff in the Indian Ocean when a 15- foot great white shark started circling. And I mean, you know, they see sharks there all the time. But this shark wanted some appetizers, I think. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: I love it. They start the engine. You see, they're taking BlackBerry video right there. But if this was a movie, you know, of course, the motor would not work. But thank goodness.

HOLMES: They had a bit of a problem. It seemed like they had -- it took a second to get that going.

CHETRY: There you go. Thank goodness.

HOLMES: Everybody all right?

CHETRY: No one was hurt. And they actually said they hopped back in the water and went swimming a little later. HOLMES: I love them.

All right. We've got a little more here. This is great. You know, you have to make a speech, oftentimes, politicians they have it written down. But Vice President Joe Biden, he was literally speechless because his script was stolen by a child. The vice president was swearing in the new Oregon senator. And these are great moments because they bring their families and everything. You never know how the kids are going to behave. So the little boy made off with the prepared remarks. Take a look at how this all played out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I need to borrow that back. Do you want to give that back to me? Hey, I'll trade you. I'll trade you. Here you go. Here you go.

I'll make a deal. Hey, here's the deal. You see this? If you can tell me which hand it's in, you can have it. Which hand?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look at that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There you go.

BIDEN: It's a mint. There you go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: The old bait and switch.

HOLMES: They're going to hoot (ph) their little boy when asked of that --

CHETRY: Everyone is smiling. Ha, ha, ha, you bring him home.

HOLMES: Yes.

CHETRY: Grab him by the ear. Can I speak to you for a minute?

HOLMES: Yes.

CHETRY: No. It's so cute, though. He always has a mint at the ready. You never know when someone is going to steal -- it works for members of Congress, too. Not just 3-year-olds.

HOLMES: Oh, Kiran, they just got there. Give them a couple of days to prove themselves.

CHETRY: Well, Starbucks making a major milestone with the new look. The company is debuting a new logo for its 40th anniversary. Look at that. They took off Starbucks and they took off coffee. And it's just the green mermaid or Medusa. HOLMES: They get it. Everybody gets it. You want the stuff, you need the stuff, you're going to pay for the stuff. It doesn't matter. They can put it in a white cup with nothing on it.

CHETRY: That's right.

HOLMES: Go get --

CHETRY: Exactly.

HOLMES: All right. Is it going to cost any less now?

CHETRY: Oh, no, of course not.

HOLMES: OK. I'm sorry, I'm not a coffee drinker. Sorry, Starbucks.

CHETRY: You're hot water spree.

HOLMES: Yes. That's right. (INAUDIBLE)

Everybody is talking about Facebook. Costs a pretty penny these days if you want to get in on that action.

CHETRY: Yes.

HOLMES: As you know, this company was valued at some $50 billion not too long ago. Well, demand for a stake in it is so big Goldman Sachs now planning to stop taking orders for it. We are "Minding Your Business" with our Christine Romans coming up.

CHETRY: Also, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, he has a new diet involving Facebook and Twitter. We're going to talk to the mayor about he plans to lose some of the weight he gained over the past year. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: We're at the bottom of the hour here now. The news we are getting is that a 55-year-old American woman has reportedly been arrested in Iran. Reports say customs agents arrested this woman on suspicion of spying. She had arrived from neighboring Armenia without a visa. Again, information just coming in on this. We're collecting that info. Will continue to update the story as we get information. No official comment from anyone.

CHETRY: All right. Also, a scathing report out this morning could put the final nail in the coffin when it comes to the issue of vaccines being linked to autism. An investigative journalist says the author of the famous 1998 study on this, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, deliberately manipulated data for financial gain. It's a claim that Wakefield denied during an exclusive interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. ANDREW WAKEFIELD, AUTHORED RETRACTED AUTISM STUDY: I've had to put up with this man's allegations for many, many years. I've written a book.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: But this is not just one man. It's published in the British Medical Journal?

WAKEFIELD: And I have not had a chance to read that. But I have read his multiple allegations on many occasions. He's a hit man. He's been brought in to take me down because they are very, very concerned about the adverse reactions of vaccines that are occurring in children.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHETRY: Earlier I spoke to Brian Deer and he refutes the allegations that he was paid somehow to do this article or to do a hit piece. He says, of course, had was paid because he was a journalist. And that he was paid money by his employers and commissioned by the "British Medical Journal." But he says that it was basically investigation. And the continuing investigation into untruths that led him do this.

Also, still more fallout to the response from last week's blizzard. It's now cost the head of New York's Emergency Medical Service his job. Chief John Peruggia has been reassigned now. During the height of the storm, you'll remember, the day after Christmas, ambulances, as you see in some of these pictures got stuck in the snow, some critically ill patients waited hours for help to arrive.

CHETRY: Well, Elizabeth Edwards cut her cheating husband out of her will, leaving everything to her three children and making her eldest daughter the executor. John Edwards isn't even mentioned in the document. The former vice presidential candidate admitted an extramarital affair back in 2006 while his wife's cancer was in remission. And then later admitted to fathering a child with his mistress. John and Elizabeth Edwards were still married but estranged when she died of breast cancer last month.

HOLMES: Everybody wants to be Facebook's friend. (INAUDIBLE) have been flooded with interests from its wealthy clients on how to get shares of this social networking giant.

CHETRY: Right. So Christine Romans is here "Minding Your Business." They keep upping the ante, right, if you want to get in.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You've got your request from your banker, right, to put in two million for some shares?

CHETRY: Oh, yes, of course. Yes. Yes.

ROMANS: Look, this is not you and me, folks. You and I can't own a share of Facebook. It's not a public company. It's not traded on the New York Stock Exchange but the big investors for Goldman Sachs can. And here's the thing, Facebook has partnered with Goldman Sachs to try to raise the money. Goldman Sachs is so inundated with requests from investors or responses from investors who say "yes, yes, I want to pony up that money, that they have $3 billion plus in requests to invest in Facebook. The minimum request originally was $2 million. You had to put up $2 million just to get into the Facebook investment.

And now Goldman says, $2 million won't be enough. There will have to be even more than $2 million. What do you pay if you're one of these investors? Well, four percent of your initial commitment. And then five percent of any of your profits when you exit your - when you sell your stake in Facebook. That's what it will cost you.

So clearly, Goldman Sachs is going to make a lot of money up and down the food chain here on this investment in Facebook. A lot of people still wondering why is Facebook doing this. Is this is a precursor to them trying to go public so that someday you and I can have shares of this? Are they trying to raise money to buy out some of their own Facebook employees who may want to sell the private shares that they have and maybe raise scrutiny from the SEC why are they doing this and is this a good investment for these very rich, wealthy people?

CHETRY: And the other question is what's the next step? Because already, I mean, people paid a ton of money for MySpace and that sort of didn't pan out, right? I mean, what's the next Facebook or next iteration of it?

ROMANS: There's some thought that maybe what Facebook is doing is raising money to out some of its original investors who are looking onward to the next big thing. They want to get their profit out of Facebook and they want to go on and fund some other projects.

The fact that so much money and so much interest in Facebook tells you that there's an incredible buzz around this company. Look, Facebook has 550 million users. Those users would be the third largest country in the world. Clearly, it's changed the world. How do you make money from that? You and I won't be making money from it right now. But on Wall Street, a very, very big gain going on right now about Facebook and investing in this company.

HOLMES: You can tell you're excited about it.

ROMANS: I mean, I think Goldman Sachs. I mean, it's a really interesting story.

HOLMES: Christine.

ROMANS: Sure.

HOLMES: Appreciate you as always. Thank you so much.

CHETRY: Well, "30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin said he's very interested in running for political office. Baldwin appeared last night on CNN's "Parker Spitzer." He admit it would be hard to give up his acting career but he said he's had his fill of politicians who lost sight of the needs of the middle class.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEC BALDWIN, ACTOR: We've had, you know, 22 years of Yale and Harvard running this country right now. And the problems aren't getting solved, they're getting bigger. Because I think what's missing -

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN HOST, "PARKER SPITZER": You almost sound like Sarah Palin. But you have the right answers, that's the good news.

BALDWIN: Well, I think that there's nothing wrong with that. What's missing is, we need people who are obviously educated or a leader who brings the educated people in on his back. But people who really have not lost sight of what the middle class in this country needs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHETRY: Baldwin would not say what office he might consider running for but -

HOLMES: Michelle Bachmann might be saying what office she may be consider running for. Maybe running for president? Close aides to the Minnesota Republican say she's planning on traveling to Iowa this month to discuss the potential presidential bid with GOP leaders. One of the press people told the newspaper yesterday that nothing is off the table.

CHETRY: Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray is being called a hero this morning. He was driving in Worcester Tuesday night when he noticed a tire on a parked car was on fire. So he called 911 and then he pulled two children from that burning vehicle. Unbelievable. No one was hurt.

HOLMES: We need more public servants like that.

Right now, tell me if you recognize this guy. We've got a picture of him right now in our newsroom. He says he didn't recognize himself at one point when he looked in the mirror. Mr. Mayor, the big guy who says he put on a little weight. This is not me. I'm not being too hard down, Mr. Mayor.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: Cory Booker is in the house. We're going to be talking to him talking about what happened when he stepped on the scale and the number began with a three.

It's 37 minutes past the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHETRY: You know, that's not video of NFL training camp. That's Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Cory Booker. He put himself to work during last week's blizzard. In fact, he was pushing cars, shoveling snow. Actually responding to calls for help on Twitter.

HOLMES: But even by the mayor's own admission, that was the first exercise he had done in a while over the past. The former Stanford football player put on a little weight. You know what we're going to ask him specifically - he's here. We're going to ask you how much weight you actually put on? Yes, Mr. Mayor, welcome, first of all. How much did you put on?

MAYOR CORY BOOKER (D), NEWARK: I went from about 230 pounds in 2009 to being this year at 295 pounds was my high. So right now, this morning, I got - I was 284. I'm starting to come down. But it's really a bad situation to be a leader, to be Michelle Obama's co-chair of our national effort and to be sitting there telling kids you need to eat healthy and exercise when I'm not exercising and eating chocolate chip cookie dough and ice cream late at night.

HOLMES: Did she get on you about that?

BOOKER: No, she didn't. When she was just in Newark and the shame of it was, that day I still remember going to find a suit that actually fit me because I had gotten so big.

So you know, (INAUDIBLE) children are never going to listen to their elders and they never fail to imitate them. And this is an issue that's epidemic in America, a third of our kids are obese, close to 50 percent in many urban areas like Newark. I had to lead by example and stop preaching and start practicing.

CHETRY: We had a chuckle (ph) out of your - what you wrote about it. Because it was very candid. I mean, we've all heard these moments but you said, you're sitting there with the first lady. And you said "my stomach was still trying to digest the French fries and the cookie dough from the night before. I hadn't exercises for more days than I could remember. I simply couldn't help feeling the shame of falling so short of my own words to the children."

And it's interesting because this is sort of where we start in January with our resolutions and our proclamations to be better. But why is it that we fall so far off the wagon around the holidays?

BOOKER: I think that what we do is we make promises to ourselves but what I'm trying to do by example, I'm trying other people to do it is make public commitment. You know, I've got over a million Twitter followers now and Facebook followers. I want all ourselves to put ourselves out there and hold each other accountable because America is going down a very dangerous road. If you're obese, you have much more costly lives. Shorter lives. Health problems.

Obese children do worse in cool. This is really undermining the very core of our country. So I think that, you're right, willpower is a hard thing to muster. And I had a lot of great excuses. I was running a job around the clock. I had lots of stress. But at the end of the day if we're not taking care of ourselves, we can't take of our families, our communities or do our jobs as effectively.

HOLMES: That was going to be my next question. I don't want to call you lazy. It's hard to call any public servant lazy. You guys keep heck a schedule so what was it? You just started eating? You said you had excuses there? What did you do?

BOOKER: Anybody who was an executive in government from last year, from White House, state house, city halls, it was the most stressful year that any of us went through. Frankly, for our constituencies it's a most stressful year. So it was intense. We had a number of crises. You know, you don't think about what you eat when you're just ordering pizza, you're just grabbing what there is and we get these terrible habits. I'm one of those guys who comes home, and this is what I write about on my blog on Facebook - who plop in front of the TV at 2:00 in the morning, not feeling that I can sleep and just eat food mindlessly as I watch TV. So these are the kind of habits that I'm committed to breaking.

(CROSSTALK)

CHETRY: You said you want to reach it by your birthday, April 27th, you want to get back down to your goal weight of 230. What are some big changes that you're putting into, besides shoveling snow?

BOOKER: Well, you know, most of my days, I'm going to put out a blog of what I've done. So I've cut out TV. I'm not watching TV while I'm eating at all anymore.

CHETRY: Except for the morning cable shows.

(CROSSTALK)

BOOKER: This is the deal I made to myself. I'll only watch TV when I'm on my stationary bike.

HOLMES: When are you on the bike?

BOOKER: What's that?

HOLMES: When are you on the bike? 6:00 to 9:00 Eastern?

BOOKER: Exactly.

HOLMES: All right. Just checking.

BOOKER: You know, I've given up that and I'm making sure that I plan my meals out before, you know, because that stops me from just grabbing what there is. I've already thought this out. If my schedule as mayor is planned out for everything else if my professional life is important to my health, I should plan that out as well.

So a lot of different secrets - well, not secrets, thoughts that I'm putting up on Facebook every day and the great thing is the response. I've had thousands of people reaching out, saying they're going to join me for this Let's Move Challenge, also giving me their tips.

We, as a country, we can only go as far as we're willing to take each other. And so I'm hoping we can be much more mutually supportive because we have become a very obese nation and that is ridiculous for a country this strong and this great to allow us to get this bad.

HOLMES: One more thing here. We talk about the weight here. And we kind of joked about the first workout you had was out there shoveling. And that got a lot of attention, no doubt. But when you juxtapose what was happening in your town, seeing a mayor out there all hours of the night, literally responds to Tweets, showing up at people's homes to help out versus the criticism here in New York, also in New Jersey with the governor there, as well.

How did you see how other officials were handling their communities as you were handling yours in that way?

BOOKER: Well, Mayor Mike Bloomberg is probably one of my mentor mayors. He's one of the best that's out there. And we didn't get it perfect in Newark, either. What we did do well, though, was our communication strategies. And it was great to have a mobile command center, as oppose to staying where I usually sit, was in City Hall and trying to work it out. I said, you know what, let's get into the streets, let's move around.

And with BlackBerrys and other devices I could command sort of the operations, as well as most importantly respond to residents. And actually, being out there, for me, it affected me seeing people who were trapped without everything from diapers to people that needed to get to their diabetes services.

CHETRY: Right. And, in fact, in New York they just -- the fire commissioner let go of the head of EMS because of that slow response time. I mean, do you think that in New York City, in particular, that people should lose their jobs over the response to the storm?

BOOKER: Well, this is life or death. And folks don't understand that. Storms are life and death. And you got to get it right. We had a lot of snow-post (ph) mornings. We had a long meeting at City Hall just yesterday looking at what we did wrong and we helped people to account for it.

Because if you're a resident stuck in your house in need of vital services and those don't arrive, there should be accountability. And so I don't blame anybody here in New York or in Newark, frankly, for holding their employees accountable for providing those services.

HOLMES: Well, congratulations on those efforts. A lot of people gave you high marks for what you were doing out there and the video we saw. So, congratulations on that.

And good luck. You look good. You don't look like you're 284 --

BOOKER: If you let me, I'll come back in April and show you the results.

HOLMES: Of course, you can come back.

CHETRY: We'd love to.

HOLMES: Thanks so much. Good luck with that.

CHETRY: We won't get you a birthday cake. We'll get you some carrots and hummus or something, right?

BOOKER: Sounds good. Sounds very good.

CHETRY: Mayor Cory Booker, thanks.

HOLMES: Thanks so much.

CHETRY: Well umbrellas required down south, absolutely, they're getting hit. Plus, more snow is heading our way. Rob Marciano is going to have the forecast for us. Forty-seven minutes past the hour.

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(WEATHER REPORT)

HOLMES: This morning's top stories coming your way in just a moment. Also part of the top stories, they're getting back to business in Washington. A lot of people hoping, though, it won't be business as usual. Republicans now in charge of the house. What changes can we really expect? We'll be live on Capitol Hill.

CHETRY: And pint-sized eagle eye becomes the youngest person ever to discover a supernova. Sorry, that's space speak for the death of a star. I know. Supernova. Saying it like --

(CROSSTALK)

CHETRY: All right. We'll talk to her live. Hopefully she'll do a better job speaking than I am right now.

HOLMES: Also coming up, how does this sound? You want to charge your phone in the car? How about just throw it on the floor? Just, yes, throw it on the floor mat. New technology being developed by one of Detroit's Big Three. Those stories and a whole lot more coming your way in just a couple of minutes at the top of the hour. Stick around.

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CHETRY: A shot of the control room this morning. Fifty-six minutes past the hour. In Texas, the Coast Guard's working to contain a pretty disgusting spill -- 250,000 gallons of animal fat.

HOLMES: Yes.

CHETRY: Yikes. Well, this forced part of the Houston Ship Channel to actually close. Officials say it came to a shore-based storage tank. Some 15,000 gallons seeped into the Ship Channel Tuesday through a storm drain. They say that colder weather will help with the cleanup as fat congeals.

HOLMES: Continuing with the spill theme here. You know, of course, last year's Gulf oil spill, well, it could actually happen again unless some serious changes are made. That is the warning coming from a presidential commission blaming BP and other companies involved, saying they cut corners to save money and to save time.

The commission points out that such short cuts are common in the industry. It also faults government regulators who were supposed to be watching those companies. The commission's full report expected next week.

CHETRY: And the FAA investigating how a cup of coffee in the cockpit actually led to an emergency landing and quite a scare for aboard a United Airlines jet. This flight was supposed to go from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany. Ended up getting diverted to Toronto, Monday, after the pilot spilled coffee in the plane's radio equipment, cut out communications, and then the jet sent out a hijack alert signal because of it. Federal investigators are now asking about United's policy about food and drink in the cockpit.

HOLMES: Something you don't ever think about, food and drink in the cockpit, how it's disruptive.

CHETRY: For these long flights -- I mean, they're on a transatlantic flight. They've got to drink something, right?

HOLMES: Got to have something.

All right. Getting close to the top of the hour. Quick break. Top stories coming your way.

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