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Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien

Rags to Riches Lottery Winner; Child Abducted from School by Stranger; Interview with Marc Klaas; Bill Clinton on Hillary's Health; Study: Facebook Makes You Fat

Aired January 16, 2013 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. We begin with John Berman who has a look at the day's top stories. Good morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR, "EARLY START". Good morning, Soledad.

A woman whose husband was killed in the Colorado movie theater massacre has filed a lawsuit against the psychiatrist who treated accused gunman James Holmes. The suit claims that the psychiatrist knew that Holmes was dangerous and should have alerted authorities.

Mark Sanford's attempt at a political comeback begins today. The former South Carolina governor will announce he'll running for Congress. You may recall Sanford's political career imploded in 2009 after he disappeared and later admitted it was because he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina. Sanford's ex-wife just announced she will not run against him in the primary.

O'BRIEN: That would be so interesting.

BERMAN: So, security is in place ahead of President Obama's inauguration next week, and as you can imagine, it is beyond tight. The head of Washington's FBI field office says 42 agencies will work together from the multiagency communication center in Washington. The FBI says there are no credible corroborated threats to the event.

And the Reverend Luis Layione of St. John's Episcopal Church just steps away from the White House has been invited to deliver the closing prayer. And, of course, we'll be in Washington to bring you all of the history here. President Obama's inauguration, we'll have Soledad, Zoraida, and I'm the one live from the National Mall, I'm the one in the middle there, that will begin at 5:00 a.m. eastern time Monday.

O'BRIEN: I wasn't sure.

BERMAN: A federal grand jury investigating a police beating in Henderson, Nevada. A dash cam video shows the highway patrol officer pointing a gun at a drunk driver. Moment later several cops had it on the ground and appeared to be hitting and kicking him. It turns out the driver wasn't drunk. He was in a diabetic shock. He won nearly $300,000 in a settlement from the city of Henderson. An update on a story we reported yesterday, a new mobile game app from the National Rifle Association called "Practice Range," Apple has changed the age restriction on the game from four and up to 12 and up. Apple determines ratings for apps, not developers, and was under pressure to change it. The NRA has been heavily criticized for this app releasing it just one month after the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

And this is a real rags-to-riches story. What started as a craving for corndogs turned into a multimillion dollar miracle for an Oregon family. Riley Gunn and his wife Misty had been laid off from their jobs and living on unemployment when a stop at a local mini mart changed everything. Gunn bought one $8 quick pick ticket and won $1 million.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RILEY GUNN, LOTTERY WINNER: She looks at the ticket. She says, you better not be kidding me.

MISTY GUNN, LOTTERY WINNER: It was a shock. I didn't know what to say or do. I just kept saying, no, it can't be real because I didn't believe it would happen to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Nice to hear. Since the win the family has a new car. They also plan to purchase their very first home.

O'BRIEN: I love stories like that, you know, a family that really needs the money that could really just use a break, a bunch of kids.

ABBY HUNTSMAN, HOST, HUFFPOST LIVE: What would you buy with $1 million?

O'BRIEN: Here in New York City, nothing. You would not buy a thing. You would get nothing. No, no, no, you would not. That's so great for them. That's so great.

I want to talk this morning about a story we were talking about yesterday. This little girl five years old from Philadelphia, she's now safely home with her family. A woman had walked into her kindergarten class, pretended to be her mom, and abducted the girl, took her out. It was all captured on this chilling videotape. You can see nobody tries to stop the woman who signed in to the main office, just scrawled her name, didn't have to show any I.D. And you'll see she's wearing a burqa so no one can identify her very clearly. And 24 hours later, a sanitation worker found the little girl 5 years old. She was hiding under a playground slide because she was wearing only a t-shirt and she was saying "help, help." Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NELSON MYERS, FOUND ABDUCTED GIRL: When I got closer to it, it just -- it kind of sounded so clear to me as "help, help." And when I heard that, that's what made me look towards the playground. I'm just glad that I was there at the right time because I just wish that, you know, somebody would do that for my child if my child was in that situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Oh, my goodness. Marc Klaas is the founder of Klaas Kids Foundation. Back in 1993 his 12-year-old daughter Polly Klaas was kidnapped from her home. They found her body two months later. The man convicted of killing Polly is currently on death row. It's a story I covered as a reporter in San Francisco so I've known Marc Klaas for a long time.

Sometimes I hear these stories. The newest one, a little girl five- years-old, it seems like every rule was broken in school policy. No, the woman didn't have to show I.D. when she went to the main office, she just was able to get her daughter 45 minutes after classes started and walk out. It made no sense on so many levels. I guess after all the news about all the abductions that we have covered over all these years, how can we protect kids from this exact thing? It's horrific.

MARC KLAAS, FOUNDER, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, Soledad, you're absolutely correct about the breakdown in policy. She was supposed to go to the principal's office. She was supposed to show I.D. they were supposed to physically I.D. her. And then escort the child to the office so that the principal could make sure everything was copacetic before they left. That entire thing broke down. I think that the secretary, whoever allowed her to do that, and the teacher both need to face disciplinary action.

We have to have these policies in place, and we have to follow these policies. As you say, particularly in lieu of the horrible tragedies that we've seen recently, these terrible crimes against children.

You have said that there's a lot of technology that actually could be used to protect kids. I was hoping you could walk us through some of the things you think could be most effective.

KLAAS: Well, sure, yes. We have recently actually put out a smartphone app called Polly's Guardian Angel that is a parent- activated alert. Once the parents realize the child is missing, they can hit an alert and immediately everybody else that holds the app within a 15-mile radius will be notified.

Secondly, cops, you're prompted to call the police within ten minutes. And then thirdly, within 30 minutes you're put into contact with our Polly center where we have trained operatives ready to help.

I think another solution to this problem would be something like the Leo watch, the Leo wristwatch, which is a GDP-activated for a GDP watch that has a titanium band on it that can't be removed from the child. The thing that makes that different from every other GPS activated device that's out there is the fact that it can't be removed from the child and people can track the child starting immediately following the bread crumbs to exactly where the child is. Those are two technology solutions that very well might have assisted in a case like this. O'BRIEN: The girl's grandfather said she's very strong, she's 5 years old and that she's actually doing well and she's a very strong little girl, thank god, what a traumatic and horrific thing as the investigation goes on. What kind of advice do you give, because I know you're a real point person for parents on this stuff, what advice do you give for this family as they try to navigate their way through the aftermath of this that has actually ended well for them, right? Their daughter is alive. She's OK. What do you tell them?

KLAAS: And we have to give credit to Mr. Myers, he didn't have to do the right thing. And many people might not have done the right thing.

O'BRIEN: That's true. That's true.

KLAAS: What do you tell them? You tell them, you know, that they're very, very fortunate in this circumstance and that they need to use this as a building block for their child. They need to first ensure that she gets all of the counseling that she requires. They have to hold her close. They have to tell her that they will be there to protect her. And then they have to open a dialogue with her, and hopefully it will be a larger dialogue within the community about, number one, school safety, and, number two, how children should react to these kind of situations. Of course, the fact that this woman was wearing a burqa and nobody saw her face complicates this even more.

HUNTSMAN: So, this is Abby here. I have a sister around this same age so this story really hits home. You talked about having this dialogue now that she's gone through it, but isn't it important to have a dialogue with your children before something like this takes place so they might know what to do if they're approached by someone they don't recognize?

KLAAS: Oh, absolutely. There's no question about that. There's always age-appropriate kinds of conversations you can have with your children and they don't have to be fear-based conversations. It can be very matter of fact. That there are bad people in the world, that we're here to help you, we're here to protect you, that there are certain things you can do without, of course, putting the burden of the issue on the shoulders of the children, but they can take commonsense approaches to protecting themselves. And really if we work together as families, as neighborhoods, as communities, and certainly in the schools as well I think we can have a much safer community and environment for our kids than we have now.

O'BRIEN: Marc Klaas joining us this morning. Marc the father of Polly Klaas and the founder of the Klaas Kids Foundation. Thanks for talking to us. We appreciate your time this morning.

KLAAS: Thank you so much.

O'BRIEN: Many people pointed out that it appears in the video the little girl goes so easily with this woman who was not her mother. Her mother wears a burqa and so I don't know if the girl didn't realize it wasn't her mother. Kids that age will go with an adult. Their whole lives are -- their lives -- CHRIS FRATES, REPORTER, NATIONAL JOURNAL: I picked one of my friend's kids from tae kwon do, and they didn't ask where is mom and dad, where are we going, it's one of the things you have to be so careful that what kind of adults are around. And I was amazed that an adult can stroll into a school and out with a child like this.

O'BRIEN: Kids don't ask, OK, because their whole lives are built around, you go to that now, you do this now, I think it's really a terrifying thing that the people didn't say to you, I don't care if he says he knows you, I need your I.D. and I didn't get a phone call from the parents and I always support those people. Grill everybody.

FRATES: Grill everybody.

O'BRIEN: Wow, that's such a sad story.

Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, we'll talk about Boeing's much-hyped Dreamliner. They've now been grounded. Is the entire fleet unsafe?

And this man says the trumpet took him off the streets and changed his life, and he is taking his love of music to schools. He's going to talk about his new project to save the arts in schools. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Welcome back to STARTING POINT. I'm Christine Romans, "Minding your Business".

U.S. stock futures mostly down this morning on concerns about global growth; we just learned last hour that JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, their earnings both beat analysts' estimates for the fourth quarter. JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, there he is, his bonus cut in half to $10 million because of this --

BERMAN: Poor guy.

O'BRIEN: My God.

ROMANS: -- because of the so-called London Whale trading law so --

O'BRIEN: I hope he's going to be ok.

ROMANS: I think he's going to be just fine.

All Boeing 787 Dreamliners are now grounded. This after one of them was forced to make an emergency landing in Takamatsu, Japan overnight. This is the plane on the runway -- we're going to show it to you. While in flight two cockpit alarms went off and a burning smell was detected in the cabin on an A&A flight. The plane was traveling from Ube to Tokyo. Several people were injured.

Six incidents since the start of the year with this brand-new aircraft -- everything from fuel leaks to battery fires, brake problems. A Boeing representative said they were aware of the latest incident. The company is working with ANA. Boeing shares are down nearly five percent in premarket trading.

And we know that American regulatory officials are actually one of them is on their way to Japan to talk about this --

BERMAN: Investors --

ROMANS: Yes.

BERMAN: -- investors don't like burning smells.

ROMANS: No.

O'BRIEN: Neither do fliers. From personal experience.

ROMANS: It's a complicated, highly engineered, high-tech future of -- you know, future of air travel and it's been just dogged with problems over budget --

O'BRIEN: Some of their own making.

ROMANS: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Right, some in the whole strategy behind how they put that thing together.

ROMANS: Well they put it together by outsourcing big chunks of the engineering and the production and then putting it together again at the end and they've just -- they've had a lot of problems.

HUNTSMAN: I think they need to start over again. You can't -- you can't recover from this.

ROMANS: Well, you know, it's interesting because Richard Quest says it's still a safe airline and he says that this is just working out the kinks, what did he say.

BERMAN: The niggles.

ROMANS: The niggles, working out the little problems.

O'BRIEN: You know in midair over the ocean.

FRATES: What's the difference between an airplane and Apple of toys that's how it works --

O'BRIEN: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT -- he says music changed his life and it's now the way to empower young people. Rapper and producer Swizz Beatz with us, he'll talk about his new project to help keep arts in schools. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody you're watching STARTING POINT.

Hillary Clinton's political future might be uncertain but to hear her husband Bill Clinton tell the story, she's got a long, long time to decide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She's always been very, very healthy and she has very low blood pressure, very low standing heartbeat. I tell her, that you know, she's still got time to have three more husbands after me, so I think she'll live to be 120.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: Secretary Clinton is recovering from a blood clot in her head after a fall.

So, not sure how many Facebook users will like this, Facebook makes you fat apparently. I knew it. That according to a new study from the University of Pittsburgh, researchers there say people who use sites like Facebook feel so good about themselves that they lose self- control. I know, I know.

MICHAEL SKOLNIK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GLOBALGRIND.COM: What self-control are you losing on Facebook?

O'BRIEN: Let me finish, Michael. The study also finds greater social network use tends to be associated with higher BMI, body mass index and increased binge eating.

Push away from the table.

BERMAN: I don't get that. I mean, I know that sitting at your computer on Facebook for hours and hours and hours might make you fat.

O'BRIEN: No it's the snarfing down the food while you're doing this.

FRATES: It gives you such good self-esteem, I have so many friends, I can eat more. They liked me, they really liked me.

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Oh it makes no sense at all, does it?

All right. We're going to take a short break we're back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: My "End Point" this morning I know I promised Swizz Beatz but he's running a little bit late, we're going to tape an interview with him and then we're going to run it for you tomorrow morning.

In the meanwhile we will talk about our "End Point". How would you wrap the day for me? Abby I'm going to let you start. HUNTSMAN: I'm going to wrap with guns because that's going to be really the talk today. You know guns have always been part of the American society and part of our Constitution --

O'BRIEN: Are you a gun owner?

HUNTSMAN: I'm not a gun owner. I'll be honest about that. But you know I was raised in western Utah and guns have been a big part of my family's culture, but I think there's a balance between making sure that people are protected but also protecting the Second Amendment. And I don't think we're here saying we're taking away your guns we're not allowed to own guns really a matter of taking the appropriate steps to make sure that people are safe.

O'BRIEN: Almost sounding like a Democrat there, Miss Huntsman.

HUNTSMAN: But not -- but not fully.

O'BRIEN: It's like that almost. All right, Michael, what do you have for us?

SKOLNIK: I think if the President makes a recommendations I certainly believe that we should have short term fixes on the guns but I also believe with some long-term solutions and a holistic approach. We can really fund amazing programs like I love my life camp in southeast Erica Ford, A.T. Mitchell in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Cease-Fire Program, these gang intervention and prevention programs. They're doing work in the inner cities where the streets have become battlefields.

O'BRIEN: What did you think of what Congressman Forbes say, I mean, he was ticking off some of those things but he's right there were no -- these are not the conversations that are front and center that the Vice President and the President have been having over the last few months.

SKOLNIK: I would love that conversation not just to focus on blame but to focus on uplifting these young people, these young folks are living we have three teenagers shot in Newark last night, 16 people shot in Chicago on Friday night, these kids are living in a battlefield. Instead of saying --

O'BRIEN: I am going to guess they weren't shot by AR-50s. I'm going to go on a limb and say -- and I think people who are gun rights advocates will say so all of these things that are -- that are proposals on the table are really problems that you need something about -- about handguns and now aren't we kind of getting into the slippery slope of taking away the guns as you talked about?

HUNTSMAN: That's why I think Hollywood has a role to play and video games because you have -- we talked about it earlier, 4-year-olds playing games are learning how to shoot people and it's ingrained in our culture. I think that we need to take a second look at that. That's --

FRATES: The conversation has to shift, right? So it's not just about the guns, it's about the potential shooter. Let's not just put fixes on the gun, let's put a fix on the long-term solution. We have a war on drugs that has dissipated the inner cities in this country. Let's not just look at how do we fix the gun problem. Let's look at how we fix the 30-year-old problem of inner cities being at war with each other.

O'BRIEN: Nobody wants to fund that.

FRATES: Then you get into a discussion on spending and there's no appetite for that in Washington at all. And so this is going to be a very one-sided conversation. F

(CROSSTALK)

SKOLNIK: More dead kids. If we're ready for that, then let's have that conversation.

FRATES: But that's going to be I think, Michael, you make a great point but I don't hear anybody trying to have that debate in Washington. It's a very focused debate on guns and not a holistic approach about how --

O'BRIEN: And why do you think that is. Is that a focused debate on guns because that's a debate that can be won? You know, when we talked to your colleague, Ron Brownstein, about that, he was saying you start narrow and small and sort of build on those victories could be one strategy. Do you think that's the --

(CROSSTALK)

FRATES: I think it's certainly a political strategy from the President. He wants to be able to say I did something and if he puts out this big spending proposal on childhood education and, you know, and teens and working in the communities, it's not going to pass and so he wants some victories, that's why they're already talking about executive orders.

They understand that even things like the assault rifle ban is not going to get through.

HUNTSMAN: 19 and 20 children killed puts it at a whole another level.

O'BRIEN: I think that's true. But how long does that last for the people to feel that emotionally? I'm going to give you the final word. John, this never happens, I'm going to give you the final word.

BERMAN: This is a big day here. It's an interesting day because Mark Sanford is announcing he's running for Congress. Mark Sanford, of course --

O'BRIEN: And his wife is not.

BERMAN: Left office in disgrace in 2009 because of an affair. It strikes me as interesting on this day when we're talking about Lance Armstrong whether or not he can be rehabilitated. I know it's different cases here -- O'BRIEN: Apples and oranges.

BERMAN: But this guy is running for Congress. This guy was chased from office essentially and now he's back and running for office.

O'BRIEN: He did bring this to people who said that -- who called him out.

BERMAN: We'll see. You know, that's a very interesting question. (INAUDIBLE). Once in districts so he has a good chance.

O'BRIEN: In just a few hours at 11:55 Eastern a.m., of course, President Obama will announce his new gun control agenda. We know how that some family members from the Newtown, Connecticut, will be joining the President. You want to stay with CNN for special coverage of that announcement. It begins with wolf Blitzer at 11:45 a.m. Eastern time right here on CNN.

Tomorrow we'll be talking with Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, New York Congressman Peter King, and actor Gabriel Mock, the star of the hit show, "Suits".

HUNTSMAN: I love that show.

O'BRIEN: "CNN NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello begins right now. Yes, you can come back tomorrow for that, Abby. Hey Carol good morning.