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New Push Today for Gun Control; Giffords Starts Anti-Gun Violence Website; NRA'S influencing on Obamacare; Announcer Digs McCarron Girlfriend; $1 Trillion Coin Controversy; U.K. Unveils New Winehouse Probe Results

Aired January 08, 2013 - 09:00   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Cameron Russell will be joining us -- yes, yes. Look at John Berman. For the first time he's like, oh, I'm interested.

(LAUGHTER)

We got to take -- we've got to wrap it up. I'm kidding you, for god's sakes.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We had Ben Cardin today, you know?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: "CNN NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello begins right now. We'll see everybody back here tomorrow.

Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad.

Happening now in the NEWSROOM, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the nation marveled at her recovery from a gunman's killing spree. Today she launches a new fight. But will Americans embrace her initiative for stricter gun laws.

Million-dollar mystery. An Illinois man suddenly dies after winning the lottery but after toxicology tests show he was poisoned there are new questions this morning. Who killed Urooj Khan?

Alabama rolls to its third BCS title in four years, but it was announcer Brent Musburger's comments --

(LAUGHTER)

That are making news this morning.

Plus this.

Yes, Bowie's back and it's his birthday. Ziggy Stardust celebrating by giving his fans the gift of a new album. The new single, yes, you will hear it right here. That's coming up.

NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning to you. Thank you so much for joining me, I'm Carol Costello. We begin this morning with a debate over gun control and new efforts today to force stricter laws. Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords launching an online campaign to raise funds and public support. She's unveiling the effort two years to the day since a gunman shot her, along with 18 other people.

Also marking the anniversary, a second initiative founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It targets illegal guns and features the mother of the youngest victim in that Tucson killing spree.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My 9-year-old daughter was murdered in the Tucson shooting. I have one question for our political leaders, when will you find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby? Whose child has to die next?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In the days after that bloodshed, gun control advocates said a reawakened public would demand change. The sobering reality, there have been 11 mass shootings since then. That includes the summer shooting spree inside a Colorado movie theater, 12 people died that day and today the suspect is in court where witnesses have described a horrifying scene.

And of course last month's killing spree in Newtown, Connecticut, 27 people died, most of them little kids.

Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly say that tragedy prompted them to leave behind the private life they envisioned and launch an aggressive new fight for gun control. The couple had this to say in "USA Today." Quote, "We saw from the NRA leadership's defiant and unsympathetic response to the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre that winning even the most common sense reforms will require a fight," end quote.

David Mattingly is here now with a -- with a closer look.

And, David, I guess one of the most striking things is Gabrielle Giffords has some clout.

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

COSTELLO: The question is how much clout, right?

MATTINGLY: She is taking this fight directly to her former colleagues and she's not softening the language at all, she's making it very clear what her intent is here. She launched a Web site this morning called "Americans for Responsible Solutions." The intent, she says, will encourage elected officials to stand up for solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible ownership by communicating directly with the constituents that elect. A very strong language also today in an op-ed in the "USA Today" in which she goes directly after the gun lobby, saying that special interests purporting to represent gun owners but really advancing the interests of an ideological fringe have used big money and influence to cow Congress into submission, rather than working to find the balance between our rights and the regulation of a dangerous product."

She goes on to say, "These groups have cast simple protections for our communities as existential threats to individual liberties."

Also speaking to ABC News, a couple of comments we saw on "Good Morning America" this morning. Let's listen to one of them here.

COSTELLO: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK KELLY, HUSBAND OF GABBY GIFFORDS: I have a gun. Gabby and I are both gun owners. We are strong supporters of the Second Amendment, but we've got to do something to keep the guns from getting into the wrong hands.

DIANE SAWYERS, ABC NEWS: When it can happen to children in a classroom, it's time to say --

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, FORMER CONGRESSWOMAN: Enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: So there's the timing, there's their personal experience, all of that coming to bear now as they take this fight to Congress.

COSTELLO: You know, the other thing that I've noticed is that even in light of what happened in Newtown, you know, the conversation about gun control is kind of fading and I know it's renewed with Gabrielle Giffords, you know, coming out and saying all of these strong statements, but people aren't talking about it as much as they did.

MATTINGLY: Well, obviously they're trying to change the conversation and they're trying to change the conversation the way that they think would be toward what they consider practical solutions toward this, and one thing they're doing here, it's very ambitious, they're talking about trying to match the political clout and the money that the gun lobby now has and the influence they have over Congress.

So no small task here at all. So they're starting, we'll see where this goes from here, but -- you saw the Web site, the first thing they have on there, how to contribute.

COSTELLO: David Mattingly, thanks so much.

In the days after the Newtown killings the NRA went on the offense. They called for putting armed guards in American schools, and even offered its own network of firearms training programs to get the program under way immediately. And if you question the reach of the NRA, consider this. Did you know the gun rights group has even been able to influence Obamacare? Yes. The signature achievement of a president long tied to gun control bears the fingerprints of this ultrapowerful gun lobbying group.

Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been looking into this and I must say, this really surprised me.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They take credit for this, absolutely. They -- you know, the lobbying, the money certainly since sort of 2010 pushing to have some specific provisions put into the Affordable Care Act. It was Senator Harry Reid who ultimately put it in. But -- and it's not a very long provision, Carol. just five lines. It doesn't specifically say doctors can't ask patients about guns, but it really prevents any kind of data collection, any research, any making gun questioning part of wellness programs.

Like you might ask about smoke detectors, swimming pools, other things in the home, so it's a pretty significant provision. The NRA will say and we've talked to them. They'll s look, if people know -- doctors know they have guns, could it affect their insurance premiums in the long run, even though there's been no history of that actually being shown. The -- obviously the people who are arguing in favor of being able to ask these questions say look, we need to collect this data to be able to allow guns to be safer. So this is a --

COSTELLO: So -- just so I'm clear on this, if a parent comes in, and the kid's been shot, the doctor can't ask the parent if there's -- if there are guns in the home?

GUPTA: Well, in many -- in many states you can ask about the guns, you can't collect the information, though. Write it down specifically so it's not part of the permanent chart, at least the way these provisions are written. And I will say in some states, though, to your point they're trying to take it even further. In Florida right now there's a fight going on where in fact the governor said, you know, it should be forbidden for doctors to have that conversation at all, period, paragraph.

A federal judge overturned that decision but right now the governor is appealing that. So they'd like to have it at least the governor would in Florida and seven other states that conversation really cannot happen legally.

COSTELLO: So if a doctor violates what's in Obamacare right now, as it applies to guns, what happens to the doctors?

GUPTA: Well, that's a good question. That comes up with a lot of these things. What is the -- what is the penalty? Will there be circumvention? You know, it's a larger issue. I can tell you, as a physician, what happens is money dries up for this sort of research, if there's really not a focus on this, then even if you collect the data, you know, finding, beginning the analysis of this and getting the research done can be hard. There are several different layers to this. COSTELLO: So -- and I'm just trying to get to the underlying reason for this. Is it that the NRA doesn't want there to be any record of anyone owning a gun anywhere?

GUPTA: Well, yes, you know, I mean, and what they'll say and we asked them about this, is they say they don't want gun owners to be discriminated against based on the fact that they own a gun. Again there's no history of insurance companies raising premiums and if you look at the language in the Affordable Care Act you can't charge a higher premium to someone because they own a gun.

So it's really kind of a moot point. Some would say what you're saying that look, they just want to sort of get rid of that conversation between health care officials, health care professionals and gun owners. It's just that we -- you know, I go to the doctor, they ask me if I have a swimming pool in my background, do I have smoke detectors, Do we have carbon monoxide detectors, do I have gun? That's part of the conversation, it's part of safety especially since I had young children. But that conversation at least if the NRA had it their way would start to go away.

COSTELLO: OK. So I'm going to be really cynical here, so if you can't ask questions of gun owners, you can't really compile any sort of statistics.

GUPTA: That's right.

COSTELLO: You can't compile any sort of studies that would prove one anything one way or the other. Is that it?

GUPTA: I think that that may be it, and the CDC, we talked to the sort of gun control safety people over there and they say look, we simply cannot give satisfactory answers on this questions because there hasn't been the funding for the research, there hasn't been a data for the research. And at least according to the Affordable Care Act the way it stands now that's going to continue not. Not getting that data.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.

GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

Nearly four months after that deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, the one that killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans the only person questioned in the case is now free. A judge released a Tunisian man. He was already questioned by the FBI in connection with the September 11th attack.

A tanker must now be repaired after running into the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. The Coast Guard says that 752-foot long ship collided with one of the towers on Monday. The ship then parked near Alcatraz Island to be checked out. It was not carrying any oil as cargo. No one was hurt. No reports of fuel leaks.

A newly wedded couple and their wedding party will have quite a story to tell. The party was in this balloon when it made a hard landing just after the couple took their vows in the air. Part of the balloon covered a house. Fourteen people were on board. One person was taken to the hospital with a minor injury.

The BCS tile games, touted as a classic top-of-the-rankings battle between two storied college football teams -- turned into a blowout.

Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron play action passing and the power running of Eddie Lacy proved too much for Notre Dame. The Tide rolled 42-14 for their third BCS title in four years.

Carlos Diaz from HLN Sports covered the game.

I guess Alabama can use the word "dynasty" safely now.

CARLOS DIAZ, HLN SPORTS: Yes, I think they can -- wait, hold on. Yes, we just confirmed that Alabama has scored again so that's -- they just keep scoring and they can't stop. But yes, they can use that word "dynasty" in the biggest way after the 42-14 drubbing of Notre Dame. It's their third title in the last four years, they've won back-to-back national championship games. You know, head coach Nick Sabin doesn't want to talk about the word "dynasty." And we presented the question to quarterback A.J. McCarron, how about your "dynasty."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AJ MCCARRON, ALABAMA QUARTERBACK: It's pretty crazy to just think about, I've been here four years, I got three national championships, two back-to-back, it's pretty special. It definitely is special. At the end of the day when I think about it. It's been an unbelievable ride so far and hopefully we can come back next year and get another one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAZ: Yes, he is the golden boy this morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: He certainly is. Although it seemed the hardest hit McCarron took was actually from one of his own teammates.

(LAUGHTER)

DIAZ: Yes, you know, you know -- you know you're having an easy game when the toughest hit you have all night is from your own center. This took place later in the game last night when A.J. McCarron was frustrated with his center, Barrett Jones, and he basically was jawing him out and had to call a time-out during the game and if you see the footage you'll see that Barrett Jones gives him a shove and basically said hey, you might be the quarterback, but I'm a senior and you can see kind of the shove that happens right there, and he's basically saying listen, roommate, you're a junior, I'm a senior, I don't take that stuff from you so that's the toughest hit that A.J. McCarron had to take last night, from his own guy.

COSTELLO: But he has a really beautiful girlfriend. I think that was the real reason that guy pushed him. DIAZ: I didn't hear -- does he have a really beautiful girlfriend? I haven't been on her page all morning long. Catherine Webb is the girlfriend of A.J. McCarron and she was shown last night on ESPN about a thousand times. In fact, her Twitter followers went from 2300 to over 100,000.

She got 90,000 twitter followers in the course of the game. She now has more twitter followers than A.J. MaCcarron himself but it was Brent Musburger's comments about her that got some people on Twitter saying hmm. Some sports writers, one sports writer said Brent Musburger making college women uncomfortable since 1978.

Another sports writer wrote, sources say A.J. McCarron's girlfriend is going to seek a restraining order against Brent Musburger at halftime. So as you could tell, some people were creeped out that the 73-year- old Brent Musburger was being very descriptive of his feelings toward the 23-year-old beauty pageant winner. So there you go.

COSTELLO: I don't think he was bad that he pointed out how attractive she was but he kept doing it. And kept saying wow, wow, those quarterbacks they get some beautiful gals.

DIAZ: I thought -- I thought for a second the words hubba-hubba were going to come out of his mouth. Hubba-hubba. But he stopped just short of that and regained his composure. But I cannot confirm or deny that I'm one of the new 90,000 followers that she has on Twitter. I cannot confirm or deny that at this point -- Carol.

COSTELLO: You are incorrigible, Carlos Diaz. But we love having you. Thanks a lot. Carlos Diaz reporting live.

Sometimes when we need it the most a coin can be our best friend ever. Now as the United States reaches its debt ceiling limit, could one coin, one single coin help us avoid another big congressional fight?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Seventeen minutes past the hour. It's time to check our top stories.

Police ending a ground search for a missing Florida skydiver last seen on a Thursday during a jump. Kurt Ruppert disappeared after leaping from a helicopter over the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. Search crews had been looking on the ground all weekend. They will continue a search from helicopters. Ruppert was wearing a wing suit which lets you glide through the air before deploying a parachute.

CNN affiliates are reporting crews are resuming their search for two teenagers who may have fallen through a frozen lake. The teenagers disappeared last night in Mt. Olive Township, about 40 miles west of Newark. A witness heard calls for help on the ice and alerted authorities. Police stayed at the lake overnight to keep people away.

Five people hurt when the escalator they were riding on started going in the wrong direction. It happened Monday morning at a transit station in Jersey City. The escalator was heading up when it suddenly started going down. Most of the injuries were for back and neck problems.

And your Netflix cue might soon fill up. Netflix and Time Warner have reached a new content deal that will bring several television shows to the popular streaming service, including NBC's "Revolution" and a past hit, "The West Wing." Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.

I am sure you've heard about this by now. Could avoiding the debt ceiling be as easy as minting a coin? There is a debate going on right now, I don't know how serious it is but there is a debate going on, on whether the United States can create a coin worth $1 trillion, a $1 trillion coin.

Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange.

And I love this story even though it's not real, but it's just fun.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I hate to burst your bubble, Carol, but you know what? It's not likely to happen, OK? But you know what? It is legal. So, you know what? Let's play the "what if" game, has got a little more room to run since it is legal.

So, yes, we know that the Treasury Department with mint and issue platinum bouillon coins. So, how about this idea? Let's make a coin with a value of $1 trillion on it, deposit it at the Fed and the Treasury could pay off its debts and we wouldn't have to deal with watching the catfight on Capitol Hill with dealing with the debt ceiling.

Even Paul Krugman, he's the Nobel Prize winning "New York Times" columnist says it's a gimmick, but says in an op-ed that ran yesterday in "The New York Times", he said, you know what? This trillion-dollar coin, it should be printed. He said we should sit down like serious people and deal with probably seriously. Realistically, that may sound reasonable, but if you've been living in a cave for the past four years, think twice about that. He specifically blames House Republicans.

But both sides are gearing up for a fight on the debt ceiling. President Obama said last week he won't negotiate and some Republicans won't raise the debt ceiling without getting their spending cuts. So, you know what, Carol? The coin may be a gimmick, a big fat joke.

But it's not about the coin when you think of this. It's really reflective of how dysfunctional it is on Capitol Hill that that people are getting this creative.

A magic coin on how to ditch the drama on Capitol Hill just to solve the U.S. debt crisis? Come on.

COSTELLO: I'd like to have my own personal trillion-dollar coin to pay off all my debts no matter what anyone else says.

KOSIK: And print your face on it, and print your face on it, right?

COSTELLO: No, I want your face on it.

KOSIK: OK, deal.

(LAUGHTER)

COSTELLO: Thank you, Alison.

Her life was cut short more than a year ago. Now, the U.K. has opened a second probe into the death of Amy Winehouse. We'll head to London for a live report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Rest in peace does not seem to apply to Amy Winehouse. Even in death, she stirs controversy just as she did in life, despite her prodigious talent.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

COSTELLO: Winehouse, the Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter died in 2011 at the age of 27. Well, we all thought sadly she died of alcohol poisoning. But there was a catch, always a catch with Amy Winehouse.

Joining me now is Zain Verjee. She's in London.

So, talk about what the British authorities are doing and why they reopened the investigation into Winehouse's death?

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, basically there was a little bit of mess up but they didn't know it at the time that the deputy coroner, Carol, who carried out the investigation and the inquest and then concluded the cause of death was basically lacking the experience that they legally needed to have. They were not registered as a lawyer for five years, which is the root of this country. They have to do that in order to be carrying out the kind of role that she was.

And then also her husband hired her. So, that became a major issue and he had to resign. She was the deputy coroner. He was a senior coroner in the north London area.

So, they did the whole thing again and the results were the same as before. She drank too much, five times the legal drink/drive limit. So basically just to be specific she had 416 milligrams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood in her system and the legal amount is 80 milligrams. So, that's essentially what happened. They had to redo it again.

The result was the same but it just opens up the tragedy to all of this, that she voluntarily consumed alcohol, drank too much, and we also got a little more detail on things like too empty vodka bottles were found by her bedside, and she talked to her doctor the night before and said, I really don't want to die and I want to make sure that I don't.

COSTELLO: That's just so sad. It's so sad. Well, hopefully, Amy Winehouse can finally rest in peace. Zain Verjee, thanks so much.

Now is your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. The question for you this morning: why are we hooked on violence on screen? We've always been intrigued by serial killers, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson.

But when you get right down to it, intrigued isn't the right word. We're fascinated by them. Television certainly reflects that now, FOX and NBC are about to launch two new series depicting serial killers, "Hannibal" and "The Following", about a cult of serial killers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I first came up with the back story this show several years ago when I was doing all this research on serial killers and, of course, the Gainesville murders and I found it insidious how he murdered all those women. Then when they actually found it, oh he was just a vagrant in the woods? Wouldn't it be better if he was this sort of charismatic professor and had some sort of great literary purpose?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: These fascinating serial killers join a well-loved TV veteran, "Dexter", whose emotions bubble over as he opens up to his therapist about his pension to murder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a serial killer. Oh, God. Oh, that feels so amazing to say it out loud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Yes, kind of like that stereotypical cathartic response, hey, I really hate my parents. The goal seems to be to make these killers kind of like you, so likeable you'll want to watch them. To do that, producers make evil appealing, they make killing a sport. You certainly see that in every Arnold Schwarzenegger movie to hit the big screen.

But when you suggest this depiction of violence may have something to do with Newtown or Aurora, Hollywood sounds an awful lot like NRA -- it's not our fault, the lax gun laws, the gun lobby, mental illness, everything except violence on screen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: You have to look at everything, every aspect of it has to be looked, rather than just one thing, we have to look at the overall picture that we're dealing with as a society in the right way, there's always something we can do to improve the situation and reduce the risk of those incidents that are horrific.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Maybe it's us -- our violence-loving culture made "The Walking Dead" the number one entertainment show on TV. Number one at the box office, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

So, I want to ask this question this morning. Why are we hooked on on-screen violence? Facebook.com/CarolCNN, Facebook.com/CarolCNN, or tweet me @carolCNN.

I'll be right back.

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