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Battle Lines Drawn over Biden's Gun Proposals; New York to Vote on Gun Laws; Lance Comes Clean; Christian Wins Case Against British Airways; Setting Up Narco Radio; How Your Mind Affects Your Money

Aired January 15, 2013 - 12:30   ET

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


SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: I want to bring in Jessica Yellin from the White House to talk a little bit about this. And, Jess, I understand you're reporting 19 different ways, 19 different steps, that the president could act without Congress to move this forward. How so?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Suzanne. That's right. Some of these things really are just better enforcement of current laws and just stepping up the way that they administer the existing law.

There's also, for example, asking the Center for Disease Control to change the way they gather research on who owns guns. They haven't actually gathered that data in many years, so they don't have a compilation of who in America has the guns, where they are.

The big one, one of them, again, I should add, is reorganizing, for example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

But the big one everybody's talking is redoing the way the do background checks because, for example, we don't have a very comprehensive system on the background checks.

A lot of people who have records of mental health problems don't have those records transferred into the background check system. So, people get, you know, go in to buy a gun, they have a problem even in the prison records system, and with the mental health program and it doesn't get a ding, a hit, when you go to buy a gun. They want to change that, Suzanne.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, ANCHOR, "CNN NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL": So, Jess, there are two different tracks that the White House is taking.

Obviously, they're going to try to work with Congress, pushing for legislation, that they hope will be -- they'll cooperate with and, on the other hand, the executive orders.

Can you give us a sense for the timetable for both these tracks?

YELLIN: Well, look, they have to work with Congress, as you're saying. The president can do -- the executive orders, they can handle on their own, but it's the congressional track they have to move on quickly because, here in Washington, as you know, you've got to strike when the iron's hot. You've got to use the momentum.

So, I would expect we'll see the president -- they'll unveil these things. We're expecting an announcement tomorrow. We're expecting events here at the White House, the vice president perhaps to make some statements and maybe some public figures to come out and endorse what they say.

And then maybe the president will unveil some more of these proposals in his Sate of the Union speech. And then they'll have to press it before Congress.

The challenge is, you know, Harry Reid today said, as Dana Bash is reporting that he doesn't think, for example, an assault weapons ban can get past the House.

So, there's going to be a little bit of jockeying to see how do you get this done.

MALVEAUX: And one of the things, too, there's no head of the ATF. That's something that they have just not had in place. I imagine that's probably going to become a priority, yes?

YELLIN: I would imagine that would be something they would take care of rather quickly, Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: All right. Jess, thank you. Appreciate it.

And, of course, we're going to be keeping our eye on that briefing in the briefing room at the White House. We expect that there are going to be some questions about some of those proposals, perhaps some details, that we can learn there.

We're taking a look at the podium. As soon as that starts, we'll probably dip in and see if there's any news coming out of that briefing. We'll be watching for all the developments as well.

The state of New York, it's not waiting for the federal government to push for tougher gun laws. The state assembly now plans to vote on new regulations that were approved last night.

Now, last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo called on lawmakers to do something. This new bill is going to tighten the state ban on assault weapons and it also includes new measures to keep the guns out of the hands of mentally ill.

Cuomo says people are demanding action after that recent massacre.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: This is a scourge on society. People have had to live through these tragedies, tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. And people are sitting there saying, at what point do we get it?

(END VIDEO CLIP) MALVEAUX: So, if the full legislature actually proves this bill, New York would be the first state to pass new gun laws since that shooting that took place in Newtown, Connecticut.

After decades of denial, Lance Armstrong is talking about doping that put him at the stop of cycling. He's telling Oprah Winfrey the full story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: He's a one-time champion. Well, he's finally admitting the truth.

Oprah Winfrey says that cycling superstar Lance Armstrong admitted to her that he lied for more than a decade about doping.

Want to bring in our Ed Lavandera. He's following all of this at a bike shop in Austin, Texas. This is a place, right, that's partly owned by Lance Armstrong. I can't imagine what people are saying.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, this is a place called Mellow Johnny's in the heart of downtown Austin not too far away from where the Livestrong Foundation headquarters are where he went before the interview with Oprah Winfrey to apologize and this has been kind of a place of refuge for Lance Armstrong as the world has kind of closed in around him and, as the amount of support has started to dry up, this is one of those places where he can come and find support.

His picture's still on the wall, the seven yellow jerseys still hanging up there. I talked to the general manager of the store here. His name is Craig Stanley who runs Mellow Johnny's here.

He's known Lance Armstrong since they were teenagers growing up in the Dallas area. They used to race against each other. For people like Craig Stanley, this news has really been the hardest to handle as they see their friend, kind of everything kind of come unraveling around him.

You know, he told me he had his suspicions for some time, but nonetheless, seeing Lance Armstrong go through what he's going through this week, even though it's self-inflicted, it is very difficult.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Have you -- I mean have you told him have you lost faith in him? I mean, do you ...

CRAIG STANLEY, GENERAL MANAGER, MELLOW JOHNNY'S: No. There's still a lot there. You know, there's still a lot of things that he's done and accomplished outside of the seven Tours of France and, you know, everything right now is focused on that.

Which, when you take him, the person, and look at all the things that he's done, people he's inspired, people he's helped with cancer, there's a much bigger story and I think that part of the story will start to come around.

And a lot of people are sort of abandoning him really quickly and I think that was a rush to judgment because I've known the guy a long time and the story's not over and he's not finished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Yeah, but Craig tells you, you know, the tide and mood towards Lance Armstrong has changed. Even here in his hometown of Austin, Texas, he said there was a woman who had come just to -- bought a bike a few weeks ago and came back recently to return it. She said, I don't want to buy a bike from that guy, Lance Armstrong.

So, definitely very tough situation for Lance Armstrong and that's why so many people will be watching the tone with which he confesses in this interview with Oprah Winfrey.

And I think that will go a long way toward kind of influencing what people's opinions coming out of this interview will be.

You remember he's been defiant and steadfast and combative in many ways over the last several years, attacking the people who have attacked him. If that continues, that can rub a lot of people the wrong way as well.

MALVEAUX: Ed, the guy you talked to, Craig, do you think that he's going to take posters down? Is he going to keep those posters up? Is he still going to be there in his corner, in Lance Armstrong's corner?

He seems to be one of the people that still believes there's more to him than someone who has been lying and cheating.

LAVANDERA: Yeah, no, Craig says there's no plans to take any of that down.

He said, look, in his mind, it's part of history, regardless of what that history might be or how this, you know, how it's been influenced or how it got to be history.

But he says, you know, all of that -- the jerseys kind of wrap around the corner right over there, but he says all of that will remain as is.

MALVEAUX: Is he worried at all it might affect his business if people are returning bikes and they're thinking, look, you know, this guy's isn't what we thought he'd be, that maybe he's not going to sell as many bikes. People are not really believing in it?

LAVANDERA: You know, there's probably that concern, although it's interesting. This is Mellow Johnny's, kind of give you -- have to give you a tour, but there's a cafe connected to it. There's also a training center below where we're standing here.

So, there's a lot more going on here. Obviously, this is a place that is highly connected to Lance Armstrong in many ways, but it's also done a million other things, bike rides with children and all sorts of events that he put on and they sponsor throughout the year.

So, in very much the same way that the Livestrong Foundation just a few miles away from here is trying to grow beyond just being identified with one person that is now Lance Armstrong, in many ways, you know, the bike shop here, they know they have to do the same thing.

MALVEAUX: Sure. And, Ed, we want to bring this because this is just in here. We have a statement that was released by the world Anti- Doping Agency director-general. This is David Howman, regarding Lance Armstrong's Oprah Winfrey interview.

The statement reading here -- "Only when Mr. Armstrong makes a full confession under oath and tells the anti-doping authorities all he knows about doping activities can any legal and proper process for him seek any reopening or reconsideration of his lifetime ban commence."

So, they're looking for statements that are under oath. They do not see the Oprah Winfrey interview as being enough to clear his record or clear his name and certainly not to reverse that ban.

Ed, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. We'll be following this very closely in the next hour, as well.

This woman here, she wore a cross around her neck until her employer told her to take it off. So, she took her court -- her fight, rather, to the courts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: A European court has ruled that British Airways discriminated against a worker by refusing to let her wear a cross openly at a check-in desk. Now, this women had lost all her previous lawsuits in the British court system.

And our Dan Rivers is joining us from London. And, Dan, first of all, why do you think it was that you had the European Court of Human Rights, they saw her case very differently than the British court system?

DAN RIVERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They did, yeah, and this is a massive victory for Nadia Eweida which could potentially have big repercussions for things like the burqa ban in France. She has steadfastly stuck to her argument that she feels she had absolutely the right to wear this very small cross around her neck underneath the neckerchief that she wore has part of her uniform. Initially, British Airways threatened to suspend her. It took the intervention of the most senior Anglican in the world, the archbishop of Canterbury, who said it was offensive if British Airways found it offensive. Finally, B.A. backed down. But she continued her fight, effectively against the British government, saying they hadn't safeguarded her human rights to wear this cross. Finally, now, after six failures in various different British courts, a European court, one of the highest in the system, has ruled in her favor. She explained to me why she felt so strongly about her right to wear the cross. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NADIR EWEIDA, WON CASE OVER WEARING CROSS: Because why should I be made to feel ashamed for wearing my cross, being told off for exercising what I thought was a civil liberty of manifesting my faith, expression of my faith by wearing the Christian cross and other colleagues around me expressing their faith with wearing hijabs, sikh bangles, turbines? So why pick on Christians or why pick on me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIVERS: She's saying this is a huge victory for Christians, but a number of other Christians who brought their cases before the European court in the same time failed. But she certainly is absolutely delighted, jubilant. She said she jumped up and down with joy when she'd heard the verdict today.

MALVEAUX: Dan, one thing I don't understand is what was -- what was the beef from British Airways? Why did they object?

RIVERS: Well, I think they -- their argument was they wanted a certain sort of image, a corporate image, to be presented on check-in. They felt that this cross interfered with that. But as she just pointed out there, Nadir, there were other members of staff, Muslims, sikhs, who were allowed to wear, you know, head scarves, turbines and so on. And so she felt she was being unfairly persecuted, in her words, unfairly targeted for that when other people were allowed to wear their religiously significant clothing and symbols. And she was so determined to take this all the way to the top and now she's won.

MALVEAUX: All right, Dan Rivers. Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it.

They call it radio narco, Mexican drug cartels taking to the airways to help steer drug runners across the border. We're going to show you how this works.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: In the mountains of northern Mexico, not far from the U.S. border, the Mexican army has found a secret stash of high-tech radio gear. They say it was being used by Mexican drug cartels to create a communications network. Rafael Romo checks out some of the equipment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): Call it radio narco. It's enough telecom equipment to communicate across states and international borders. State of the art gear that include antennas, transmitters, receivers and other equipment, in this case seized by the Mexican army.

MARTIN MENA GUTIERREZ, SPOKESMAN, MEXICAN ARMY (through translator): These confiscations have allowed us to disrupt and in many cases dismantle communication networks utilized by organized crime. Our operations have also led to the arrest of members of criminal groups and the seizure of weapons, tactical equipment and vehicles. ROMO: Mexican officials say drug cartels are operation communication networks that are essentially regional radio stations, like a network run by a taxi firm or truckers but way more powerful. And they have a very different purpose -- to exchange messages about drug shipments and where the security forces might be headed.

Not surprisingly, the equipment found in Mexican border states that are drug trafficking transit points. In November, the Mexican navy dismantled a clandestine radio station in the border state of Coahuila, just south of Texas. It was capable of broadcasting encrypted signals to nine cities using 11 antennas and transmitters.

Juan Lozano, a telecommunications expert in the Mexican city of Monterey (ph), says technology makes it easier and cheaper than ever to operate the radio station, whether legal or not.

JUAN LOZANO, COMMUNICATIONS EXPERT: Equipment is available to just about everybody and it could be set up in just a matter of a few hours.

ROMO: Lozano says the cost of installing a radio station can be as low as $5,000. More sophisticated systems can cost up to $30,000. Small change for international criminal organizations. And more sophisticated means having the ability to encrypt messages.

LOZANO: Encryption technology that's available in commercial equipment is very, very good. So while it's easy to detect the use of the system, it's not easy to actually intervene or actually hear what they're talking about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Can we add that?

Rafael, I wanted to ask you a little bit about this radio network here. What is the range here? Because it looks like it was kind of a combination, a mix of high-tech equipment and low tech. but it seem like, you know, they were able to communicate fairly accurately.

ROMO: That's right. And the goal here is to try to set up a communications network that reaches through the border. Think about places like Brownsville, Texas, Laredo, they set up their equipment about 100 miles from there, on the Mexican side, so that then they can have this network operating in places that are considered transit points for drugs, think just south of Texas, all those Mexican border states, those stations have been found in that part of Mexico.

MALVEAUX: Was it hard to find these places? I mean are they kind of out in the open or are they hidden pretty well?

ROMO: They're in very remote areas. But what experts say is, it's not very difficult to find the radio signals themselves. The problem is that they are encrypted. Modern technology is allowing Mexican drug cartels to buy this kind of equipment, the signals are encrypted and it's very difficult to determine what the communications are, in fact, but the signals are there. They are just easy to detect. MALVEAUX: All right. Fascinating. Thank you, Rafael. Appreciate it.

We are 15 days into the new year and, well, we're going to ask about resolutions. How are your financial resolutions? We're going to take a break and break down the money code to find out why you spend the way you do.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: All right, besides losing weight, it is probably one of most popular New Year's resolution, that is getting a handle on your money. It's not too late. Our guest, he has advice on how to figure out how to view your money and your finances so you can actually make some better decisions. Joe Duran is a chartered financial analyst and he's author of "The Money Code: Improve Your Entire Financial Life Right Now." Wow, that's a big order -- that's a tall order.

JOE JOHN DURAN, CHARTERED FINANCIAL ANALYST: It is a tall order.

MALVEAUX: But it's fascinating. I love the book. And I love the idea of how you break down how you spend money based on your own emotions and your own feelings. Tell us about that. There are three elements in the book.

DURAN: Well, there's three elements. People are either driven by fear and urge to protect and finding peace of mind, an urge to enjoy life or happiness, or a desire to help other people, commitment. And really because money only does three things, it helps you to enjoy life, it helps you to take care of the things you're afraid of and it helps you to take care of the people you love. And when money is involved, which is very emotional, you tend to revert to your primary core value.

And so, for me, I grew up in Zimbabwe in a very stressful environment and so my primary driver is fear. My urge is to protect. When I make decisions, my first thought is, how do I protect myself. And that is the overwhelmingly largest segment of society, by the way, is driven by fear.

MALVEAUX: It's driven by fear.

DURAN: The next is happiness. And the next is commitment. But the reason we wrote this book is because people do not think about their emotions. And when they make the same mistakes over and over again, it's because their emotions are making a decision when it comes to money.

MALVEAUX: I want our viewers to go to this Web site here. So this is how -- the quiz to determine your money mind. It is mymoneycode.com here. So we have --

DURAN: This has to go to honest conversations. It's really easy to remember.

MALVEAUX: It's fascinating. So our team --

DURAN: So, honest conversations with an "s." Yes. MALVEAUX: OK, and honest conversations.

DURAN: Yes.

MALVEAUX: So our team took it. Most of our team, they spend money and they save money and the motivation is fear, just like you said.

DURAN: Yes.

MALVEAUX: I took the quiz, as well. And the results were 43 percent fear, 43 percent happiness.

DURAN: Yes.

MALVEAUX: That's how I determine how I spend or how I save. What is that saying?

DURAN: So you have a very balanced approach. What it says is that you -- that you're very -- it's very unusual, by the way, because what you find is --

MALVEAUX: Really?

DURAN: Overwhelmingly, 85 percent of people have a very dominant money mind. It's very unusual for people to have both perspectives. Because what typically happens, as the case for most of your folks, if you're driven by fear, you typically delay gratification. You don't take trips. You don't vacation. You don't buy the things that you want to buy because you want to find safety, and so you're very good at saving money and often a very bad invest, unfortunately, because what happens is, you only want to buy when it feels safe, which it only feels safe after the market has gone up.

And so one of the things we see, since we are taking care of our clients' entire financial well-being, is to help them understand that their natural biases are going to affect them and help them to make the same mistakes over and over. And we try to hold up the mirror and say, hey, listen, we've got to change course here.

So you have a very balanced approach. Good for you. It will make it very easy for you to see both sides.

MALVEAUX: I need to help our team a little bit.

DURAN: But for a lot of your team, what they're going to need to do is to be told, hey, listen, it's OK to enjoy life because what happens for many -- fear money minds is they defer enjoyment and gratification to try to find peace of mind that they never really find, by the way. Folks, there's lots of money (ph) who are driven by fear still feel this need to find security, even when they have more money than you and I can spend on any fun (ph).

MALVEAUX: So it's OK to spend a little. It's OK to splurge every once in a while.

DURAN: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. MALVEAUX: To allow the happiness.

DURAN: Yes.

MALVEAUX: To determine how --

DURAN: And this -- I think for all of us, the important thing when you're with -- it's not just for yourself. When you're in a committed relationship, how do you talk about money with other people as well?

MALVEAUX: All right, Joe, thank you so much.

DURAN: Thank you.

MALVEAUX: I love the book. And we're going to have a lot of folks, you know, weigh in and take that quiz.

DURAN: Great. Thank you.

MALVEAUX: Thanks again. Appreciate it.