Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Cyber Attack on Banks Predicted; Chris Christie Talks about His Weight Struggles; Weight and the American Presidency; Susan Rice Withdraws Name from State Secretary Consideration

Aired December 13, 2012 - 15:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thanks for being with me.

Here's a heads-up for you, a warning really for anyone with a bank account from the computer firm McAfee. McAfee claims that cyber- criminals, hackers are planning on attacking the customer accounts in several U.S. banks and financial institutions some time early next year.

Alison Kosik live for me at the NYSE, how do I find out if my money will be safe or not?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: OK, so keep in mind that those who are at the biggest risk are those who have online banking, who do online banking.

But the good news with this, Brooke, is that the more this is brought out in the open, the more law enforcement and banks can do ahead of time to put security measures in place. So, that means that's the safer you will be.

But, still, you can't deny the fact that this is a huge worry, because McAfee is the second security firm to put out a warning on the same cyber-attack. The first report came from RSA. That one came out in the fall.

Now, the financial industry, it is used to fending off cyber-threats. This one, it is scheduled is hit in full force next year in the spring. McAfee says cyber-criminals are targeting 30 U.S. financial institutions and what they may try to do is funnel money out of those banks, including Fidelity, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Chase and other banks, as well.

And, so far, Wells Fargo has responded saying it constantly monitors the environment and working with law enforcement on this, but now that this is out in the open, the good news is it could be a deterrent.

Brooke?

BALDWIN: I know that this whole attack has a name. They're calling it "Project Blitzkrieg," but who are these criminals. Who is behind this?

KOSIK: Well, it has the backing of Russian cyber-criminals and what they did is recruited from online chat rooms to help them. The plan is to get a lot of hackers to draw small amounts from these bank accounts because the thinking is the smaller the footprint the harder to detect.

But, once again, now that it is public, the cyber-criminals have apparently disappeared from chat rooms and that could actually be a good sign, but you still want to keep an eye on your account. You want to keep your anti-virus software up to date.

But, remember, even if you do get hit, your funds are not necessary low at risk because the bank is liable. You are not liable for this and they are aware of this possible attack in the spring.

Brooke?

BALDWIN: OK. It's frightening. Alison Kosik, thank you very much.

And I don't know if you caught this -- we did -- Barbara Walters, Chris Christie, you know by now besides being a heavy weight, politically, New Jersey's Republican governor, well, he casts a pretty sizable shadow.

So, here's Barbara Walters engaging Chris Christie in the touchy little matter of his physique.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARBARA WALTERS, ABC NEWS: You are a little overweight.

GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: More than a little.

WALTERS: Yeah.

CHRISTIE: Yeah.

WALTERS: Why?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Stay with me. We're going to give you Christie's answer here in just a moment, but just to be sure, Chris Christie's weight, whatever it is and Christie doesn't say, that's his business.

But when your name is bandied about as being presidential timbre, people do want to know about your health.

Douglas Brinkley is a presidential historian, joins me now from New Orleans. Doug Brinkley, welcome back.

But before we talk, I want to play the answer. This is Chris Christie's answer to Barbara Walters's question as to why he is so rotund.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALTERS: Why? CHRISTIE: If I could figure that out, I'd would fix it.

WALTERS: Do you try to diet?

CHRISTIE: Barbara, I've had more diets and lost and gained back more weight in my lifetime than I care to count.

WALTERS: There are people who say that you couldn't be president because you are so heavy. What do I say to that?

CHRISTIE: Well, that's ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Ridiculous, Doug Brinkley. Do you think so?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I agree with Governor Christie, 100 percent.

Look, he has a problem with his weight, but we all have some kind of ailment we're combating and the American spirit is one of not holding something like that against a candidate.

I mean, after all, Franklin Roosevelt had polio and was in a wheelchair. You know, John F. Kennedy had Addison's disease. We can go on and on and on.

It should not matter to people. Now, will it hurt Christie if he ran and tried to be on the campaign trail, jumping city to city, could the weight slow him down some? Perhaps.

But, as we saw in Hurricane Katrina ...

BALDWIN: Eighteen hours a day.

BRINKLEY: ... he's been working 18 hours a day.

BALDWIN: Yeah, he said he had absolutely no problem.

Let me just -- let me take away concerns about his health for a moment, but we haven't really had that many overweight presidents, have we? Especially since the dawn of television, which, you know, image-making goes along with that.

BRINKLEY: It's a good point, but we've had Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, all overweight.

Things did change in the '50s when you had to be telegenic in some ways, but there's something about Chris Christie being overweight, the way he handles it, the Jersey accent, the way he's a "can-do guy" that works for him and it comes off as part of his personality and being authentic.

The cartoonists would have a field day with it and the comics would make fun of Governor Christie, but I think the American people will love him all the more for it. BALDWIN: Chris Christie, vintage Christie and all, people do -- they do love it, but, you know, look, we have our issues and that's, of course, what makes all of us human.

But Christie's situation and he all but admits, it seems to involve a behavior that would maybe be considered compulsive. Would that give pause to a fair-minded voter?

BRINKLEY: I don't think so. Remember, Bill Clinton used it to great effect, jogging and eating a Big Mac and he was able to use it in his favor.

Now, later, he had heart problems and he is on CNN all the time, talking about it.

BALDWIN: On the other side, we have Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. Let me tell you what Mark says.

"Voters today find so little they can believe. They put a real premium on anything they perceive as authentic. Governor Christie's weight just makes him more human, more real and, therefore, credible."

I mean, do you think it gives him a little cred, maybe makes him a little bit more relatable?

BRINKLEY: I think so. I think the way he talks about it directly and he -- we are all trying to diet out there and he -- if anything, there's going to be a lot of people that feel they're better a little better. I, at least, had a better result than Governor Christie did.

But, not to joke about it, look, obesity is a big problem. The first lady is trying to talk about it and have a national dialogue, but Chris Christie may want to try to lose 10, 15, 20, more even pounds, but that's his business. It doesn't disqualify him for running for president.

BALDWIN: Doug Brinkley, thank you.

Coming up next, a big bank in big trouble and is now paying for it.

Plus, Apple is learning the hard way -- the customer is always right. Ali Velshi with the business news you need, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALI VELSHI, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: From the CNN Money Newsroom, I'm Ali Velshi. This is "Your money."

Another big bank will pay big for its bad deeds. Retail sales bounce back. Apple finds out the hard way that the customer is always right. And small businesses and jobs, the facts that you need to know.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: If the president got everything he wanted, over $1.4 trillion in taxes, this is what that would represent.

If you look at the spending problem, you see it does nothing -- nothing -- to solve the spending problem that our country has.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Did you watch that earlier? How Speaker John Boehner was nearly beside himself earlier today when he displayed the chart in support of his and the Republican Party's ongoing contention that we don't have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem in America.

That chart does not make sense to me. It's a jumble of numbers that I am trying to deconstruct. It will take a little time. It is something that Boehner has been doing a lot of.

So, let me explain how deficits, the shortfall between revenue and spending, are mathematical. It's entirely ridiculous and insulting to the intelligence of Americans to suggest that it is one or the other.

If you want to balance the books, either you spend less or you bring in more. That's it. You can't make the argument that one or the other is more or less the problem and, every time Boehner says it, it's more and more ridiculous.

But, since he gave you one side of the equation, I will complete it for him. I will tell you the truth where your politicians fall short.

Take a look at the effect of Bush-era tax cuts which started in 2001 on the national debt. We've projected it out to 2019. That big blob on the top, beige, whatever color you want to call it, butterscotch, that's the Bush-era tax cuts. That's part of what is expected to be a massive debt.

The Bush-era tax cuts are the single biggest part of it, bigger than the cost of the wars, bigger than the cost of the economic downturn, bigger than the cost of TARP, bigger than the cost of the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and of all the measures to combat the financial crisis, combined.

So, America, I can't tell you whether we have a tax problem or a revenue problem. We have a math problem and it would serve our politicians to stick to the facts.

OK. That's it. On to the money menu. Swiss bank, UBS, is the next in a line of big banks that are paying dearly for their bad deeds.

According to reports UBS has agreed to pay a fine that could top a billion dollars to U.S. and British regulators to settle claims that it rigged a key interest rate, LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate. It's the benchmark to calculate rates for everything from loans to credit cards.

UBS and other global banks are accused of rigging those rates to boost their balance sheets. But UBS would be the first to settle with regulators. We'll be watching for more banks to come clean. All right, shopping came back in style in November. Retail sales bounced back last month in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Car dealers saw sales pick up 1.6 percent. That was helped in part by people replacing vehicles damaged during Sandy, but in general, retail sales across the board were also helped by people getting out and doing their holiday shopping early.

Sales of electronics jumped 2.5 percent in November while clothing was up almost a percent. Online shopping jumped 3 percent.

Hey, the customer is right, always right. Just ask Apple. Three months ago, it released its much anticipated iPhone 5, daring to replace the Google Maps app with one of its own.

The problem is, customers hated it. Apple got the message and, as of last night, iPhone owners can now download Google Maps. iPhone Users complained that Apple's map app had no turn-by-turn navigation, directions on public transport or live traffic info.

In other words, Apple's map app was getting people lost.

Apple's "map-gate" may have cost one executive his job and maybe a few billion dollars worth of market cap. Look at the stock chart of the two companies, Google and Apple, over the past month and you can see who is getting the love from investors. Apple has done good by its customers now, apologized for its mistakes and made peace with Google for now. You can say that Apple has found its way.

All right, it was called the biggest lie of the election season. Now, PolitiFact, the political fact-checking website, rates it as the biggest lie of all of 2012. Mitt Romney's campaign ran the political ad in the swing state of Ohio before election day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obama took G.M. and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Now, the ad was referring to the auto bailout that the president championed which lent a lifeline to both Chrysler and G.M. and, in fact, saved America's car industry from imminent collapse.

Now, I was in Ohio when the ad came out, riding the CNN Election Express, talking to voters. Ohio was crucial to Romney. He had to take the state if he wanted to win, but Ohio is auto country.

I met voters in Youngstown and Toledo and Columbus who were outraged by the ad because -- well, because it was a bald-faced lie. All Chrysler has said is that it may make extra Jeeps it was expecting to sell in China in China.

Here's what I said about Romney's surprising misunderstanding of the auto industry back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: For decades and decades and decades, American auto companies have made cars in the countries or the regions in which they sell them. And I want to remind Americans when they buy Toyotas and they buy Hondas and they buy Hyundais and they buy Nissans in America that are assembled here, back home, somebody says, why are you shipping our jobs to America?

So, it really shows a fundamental, fundamental misunderstanding by the Romney camp to try and get under people's nails about jobs and cars being made elsewhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Poor Christine didn't see that coming and got stuck listening to my entire rant.

Of course, the Romney campaign knew all of this very well and Chrysler, which makes Jeeps in Ohio, immediately denied the claim. Incredibly, Romney stood by his ad.

Now, I don't need to tell you what an important swing state Ohio is. There may be a host of reasons why Romney didn't carry the state in the end, but his Jeep in China stunt clearly didn't help.

What's clear is he tried to deceive Ohioans and it backfired. And without Ohio, Mitt Romney lost possibly his best chance at the White House.

The lie of the year may have cost Romney the election.

That's it for me from the CNN Money Newsroom in New York. For more coverage, tune in to "Your Money," Saturday at 1:00, Sunday at 3:00 p.m. E.T.

I'm Ali Velshi. I'm out. Same time tomorrow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Want to let you know we are now hearing from both Dana Bash and from Jessica Yellin.

They are reporting that, according to a Republican aide, we have learned that House Speaker John Boehner will be headed to the White House just about an hour and 15 minutes from now to talk to the president. We will presumably assume here they're going to be talking about the fiscal cliff.

Wolf Blitzer, I'm going to bring you in now because -- let's just take a look back in brief time. I know that they met at the White House on Sunday. There was a phone call a couple of days ago.

Still, you have the House speaker today with his big sign, saying, you know, still they need too much spending in Washington, need to cut the spending cuts. The president wants the tax on that top 2 percent. Where do you think this is going to go? WOLF BLITZER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "THE SITUATION ROOM": It could go either way. It could be a collapse. It could be a success. It could get worse before it gets even worse. Who knows where it's going to go?

I know the pressure is really mounting on both the president and the speaker of the house. The speaker had made it clear earlier in the day he was getting ready to go home to Cincinnati for the weekend if there was no movement.

Now, there seems to be movement. They're going to get together. Maybe the president's got some specific new spending cuts he is ready to put forward on the table, including some entitlement spending, whether Medicare or Medicaid, maybe something on Social Security, although I doubt Social Security will be thrown into the mix by the president. There's so much Democratic opposition to any entitlement cuts, let alone Social Security which is sacrosanct, as you know, Brooke. So, I suspect that's not going to happen.

But the speaker needs something right now. If he is going up in terms of additional tax revenue and maybe even allow a hike in the tax rate for the highest income bracket, those making more than $250,000 a year. He's going to need something to take back to his coalition, his Republican base out there.

The Republican caucus is, as you know, pretty firm. They don't want to see those hikes go up as far as the rate is concerned, although the speaker has put forward increased tax revenue of $800 billion.

BALDWIN: What do you think, though, of one thought that's been floated where they can vote on the tax increase or perhaps, at least, the cuts for the $250,000 and less and then increase the rates for the top 2 percent? Let that sit and then handle spending cuts later.

Is that sort of where this whole thing is getting ugly because John Boehner and the Republicans wouldn't agree without something having to do with spending cuts.

And, again, you know, 19 days here, 19 days to go. Isn't the president supposed to be in Hawaii on Monday?

BLITZER: I don't think he is going to be in Hawaii on Monday.

BALDWIN: I don't think so either.

BLITZER: I think they're going be here for at least all of next week. Let's see what happens on Christmas Eve.

But, if you're going to get real legislation passed, you've got to get that legislation down on paper, you've got to let members take a look at it, you've got to have a roll call. I mean, there's -- there's a fast track. They can do in a fast track, on a very speedy fast track, but they still need some time and they're still pretty far apart on a lot of these substantive issues.

Will they kick the ball down the road? Do a partial deal? That's obviously possible. They often do that in a situation like this, especially when they want to be home for Christmas and New Year's, get out of Washington, D.C.

That puts an enormous amount of pressure on these men and women in the House and the Senate. Let's see if that pressure is enough, though, to score a deal.

And remember -- and we can never say it often enough, Brooke, and you know this. Our viewers know this. If nothing happens, if there's no legislation that is enacted, everyone's taxes are going on and there will be significant spending cuts and national security spending. That's going to happen until there's legislation. So, the pressure is clearly enormous.

BALDWIN: The pressure is on in about an hour in a room in the White House where these two men will be talking, at least face-to-face and not through the media.

Wolf Blitzer, we'll be looking for you in "The Situation Room" to talk all about this, I'm sure.

But before we go -- we're going to go to a quick break -- but we're going to talk coming up, "On the Case," you know how you sit on a bus and you know there are cameras and you're being watched because video? What about audio? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Breaking news here on CNN. I have something else for you now.

We are now learning from a senior administration official that the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has now withdrawn her name for nomination for the U.S. secretary of state cabinet post.

You know the story. She's very much so been under fire in really the weeks since September 11th of this year and the aftermath of the attacks on the consulate in Benghazi in Libya that killed the ambassador there and several others.

So, it was -- she's come under fire because of the administration's response. We've seen in recent weeks many veteran senators very critical of her, including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

And they will have much, much more on "THE SITUATION ROOM," of course, as this news is just coming out, what this means, of course.

Let me get to the statement here, a statement from the White House. Quote, "I spoke to Ambassador Rice and accepted her decision to remove her name" -- this is the president -- "remove her name from consideration for secretary of state."

It goes on. "For two decades Susan has proven to be an extraordinarily capable, patriotic and passionate public servant. As my ambassador to the United Nations, she plays an indispensable role in advancing American's interest."

"Already, she has secured international support for sanctions against Iran and North Korea, worked to protect the people of Libya, helped achieve an independent South Sudan, stood up for Israel's security and legitimacy and served as an advocate for U.N. reform and the human rights of all people."

It goes on to say he's very grateful that she will continue to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

But, you know, it's been sort of widely known that Susan Rice has been the president's top pick, so with her withdrawing her nomination, what does that mean? Who else, what other names might float to the top of that list?

A lot of valid questions, as people will start mulling this over, of course, in the coming days as there are now changes coming in the president's cabinet for these next four years.

Again, Wolf Blitzer will have much more on "THE SITUATION ROOM" at the top of the hour.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)