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Dow Enjoys Best January Gains Since '94; Obama's Job Councils Terminated; Super Bowl Stress Can Kill You; Beyonce Addresses Backlash; Emergency Landing After Pilot Passes Out; NFL Players Association No Trust for Team Doctors

Aired February 01, 2013 - 09:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Alison Kosik at the New York Stock Exchange, good morning to you.

We are watching stocks move higher after Wall Street got a pretty strong jobs report showing that the economy added about 157,000 jobs in January. It wasn't quite what everybody expected, it was a little on the soft side. Still, Wall Street seems pretty sweet on it. The hope is now that that momentum can carry through this New Year, and with a good jobs report comes that expectation that the Dow could hit the milestone of 14,000 today. It is inching closer to that.

Who knows, Carol, it could hit 14,000 before your second latte today.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: That's coming soon, Alison. So better do it quick. We'll get back to you to see if it does. Thank you so much, Alison Kosik, reporting live from the New York Stock Exchange.

They are some of the biggest names in corporate America and today they are out of a job -- well, sort of. I'm talking about the members of the White House Jobs Council, which was created to stimulate U.S. job growth.

These are scenes from the group's last meeting with President Obama, which took place a little more than a year ago.

The jobs council came together just four times since its creation two years ago, and those infrequent sessions has led to some sharp criticism.

Press Secretary Jay Carney defending the group and in this heated exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: On the jobs council, why did it only meet four times? If this was such an important tool for the administration to get input from the business community --

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The jobs council provided a series of ideas, many of which the president acted on. It did not require a formal meeting for those ideas to be generated or work on by other the jobs council or the administration.

REPORTER: I mean, he hasn't met with the jobs council in over a year. Isn't that problematic?

CARNEY: Why -- it's a group he created that did very effective work on behalf of the country and this administration and president for two years. It was a two-year charter and the charter has expired.

REPORTER: You're talking about a two-year charter, but if he hasn't met with it for a year. I mean --

CARNEY: I think I answered the question.

REPORTER: No, but --

CARNEY: I appreciate the fact you are more concerned with meetings than progress, and there is no creation. There is no dispute over the fact that when this president took office, the economy was craterous. There is no disputing economic, cold hard facts that because of the policies that this president pursued, that kind of economic decline was reversed, and that's the measure of your commitment to job creation and economic growth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Steve Case is the chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC and also the co-founder of AOL. He was also a member of the White House Jobs Council, and he joins us now from Washington.

Good morning.

STEVE CASE, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, REVOLUTION LLC: Good morning.

COSTELLO: So first question's got to be, why did you guys only meet four times in two years?

CASE: I think it may be a little bit overblown. I think I had over 100 meetings related to the jobs council. I was asked to chair the initiative entrepreneurship and high growth enterprises and some of those are meetings with full council, 26 people, a lot of those were phone calls.

But we really had meetings all over the country with a lot of entrepreneurs. A lot of meetings with the White House and a lot of meetings with folks in Congress, Republicans and Democrats, we were able to build bipartisan support for the jumpstarting our Business Startup Act that passed last spring. We introduced the -- or helped introducing the Startup Act 2.0, again, bipartisan support in the Senate, working on high skill immigration and support over the comprehensive immigration solutions now being talked about.

So, from the prism of entrepreneurship with one just compliment of the jobs council, I think we made good progress in the last two years but there's a lot of work to be done and with continued White House support from the president, and Gene Sperling and Valerie Jarrett and others, and continuing Republican support from people like Eric Cantor and Marco Rubio and others who have been helpful in these entrepreneurship issues, I think we can keep moving this agenda forward.

COSTELLO: So, just to be clear, you guys didn't really just meet four times. Is it just you met four times in Washington and then you met in other places in the country and did teleconferences?

CASE: There were four meetings with everybody in the jobs council but the real work, like most of these efforts is in the specific groups. There was things around infrastructure, things around workforce training.

My focus was on entrepreneurship. And I say we had over 100 meetings. So, we actually spent a lot of time on it.

But the reason things got done was there was bipartisan support. So I credit the president and the White House team for putting it in place and making it a nonpartisan council. But I also credit the people in Congress, including the Republicans, who took some of those ideas and ran with them, which is why the Jobs Acts passed and why the Startup Act 2.0 now has been introduced and why there is now a discussion around the rather important of winning the global battle of talent around high skilled immigration as part of the immigration discussion.

So, as I said, good progress in two years but there's still work to be done. We need to continue to make bipartisan support.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I heard you say Eric Cantor but John Boehner also spoke out on the issue, the House speaker, he's a Republican. His spokesperson responded to the ending of the jobs council this way, quote, "Whether ignoring the group or rejecting its recommendations, the president treated his jobs council as more of a nuisance than a vehicle to spur job creation. The president has also been slammed for ignoring his deficit commission."

So, is he at odds with Eric Cantor? I mean, is he right?

CASE: Well, I've chosen to stay out of the politics and try to focus on policy, and particularly try to focus on building bipartisan support for policies around entrepreneurship, so we can remain the world's most entrepreneur nation. The reason we're the leading economy in the world isn't by accident. The work of entrepreneurs, focusing on people and watching that, ultimately in the actions what entrepreneurs are doing, building companies.

But Washington does play a role and make it easier to invest, reducing regulations, improving access to talent around immigration, improving access to capital such as with crowd funding and IPOs with the Jobs ct, it only can happen in a bipartisan way.

So I understand kind of the debates and the fun when people go back and forth with the talking points. The reality is Republicans and Democrats have come together around entrepreneurship over the past couple years. We need to continue to build progress with or without a jobs council and that's what I'll continue to try to help facilitate.

COSTELLO: Steve Case, thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.

CASE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Breaking her silence and bursting into song.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

COSTELLO: Beyonce responds to that inauguration backlash. We'll talk.

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ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The intensity of a good football game, when can it be too much?

DR. ARSHED QUYYUMI, CARDIOLOGIST, EMORY UNIV: Not just physical stress, but emotional stress can lead to cardiovascular disease.

COHEN: Emotional stress from disasters like earthquakes or floods can trigger heart attacks, even death. But the Super Bowl?

Los Angeles researchers studied football fans there in the 1980s. They found a Super Bowl loss by the L.A. Rams was associated with more cardiac deaths than the win by the L.A. Raiders four years later, and the difference was more dramatic among women than men.

They also found intensity of the game mattered. The Rams' 1980 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers was a nail-biter.

Super Bowl party rituals like overeating, drinking and smoking may be part of the problem.

QUYYUMI: All of these things lead to disturbances in your blood pressure, heart rate and how the blood vessels are working.

COHEN: There's no one size fits all for prevention, but Quyyumi has some advice with people with heart disease.

QUYYUMI: Pay particular attention to not getting carried away.

COHEN: This precaution applies to all smokers and anyone with high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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COSTELLO: It was the national anthem heard round the country, or was it? Beyonce under fire for lip syncing at the inauguration, and after staying silent for more than a week, the superstar finally answered her critics in one dramatic fashion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(BEYONCE SINGING NATIONAL ANTHEM)

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

BEYONCE: Thank you, guys so much.

Any questions?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Any questions?

Joining me now from Boston is five-time Grammy-winning music producer, Prince Charles Alexander. He's worked with many artists, including Destiny's Child, where Beyonce, of course, got her start.

Good morning.

PRINCE CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAMMY WINNING MUSIC PRODUCER: Good morning, Carol. How are you today?

COSTELLO: I'm good. I was one of those people who were, I mean I was appalled that she lip sync at the inauguration. I wanted her to sing live and she obviously could have done it.

So did she quiet her critics?

ALEXANDER: Well, I think she quieted her critics. I listened to the performance -- well, I listened to it last night and I listen to it again just now. It's a great performance.

Her original performance was a great performance, whether you get it from the tape or whether you just check it out for what it was. It was a performance.

Beyonce is both a singer and an entertainer and I think that she made the "entertainment" call or the "I want to give a good performance" call at the inauguration.

COSTELLO: But here's the thing, in watching her at that press conference sing it live, she had such passion and it wasn't perfect. At times she hit some of the wrong notes but it made it more real to me. She had passion in there, and at the inauguration it was just perfect.

ALEXANDER: Well you know, there are a couple of events that are occurring. We had the inauguration, we have a Super Bowl coming up, we have Grammy weekend coming up, so there is a long slate of performances that Beyonce will have to be ready for and you know, she wanted to be perfect. It was a call that she made, and I think ultimately with the performer that has that kind of voice, which is the most sensitive instrument, I kind of would err on the side that she made a good call for that particular performance. COSTELLO: Oh but come -- come on I mean --

ALEXANDER: Now would I have prefer to have seen her sing live?

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: I mean, if you listen to like Jimi Hendrix, I mean, he never lip synched and his performances weren't perfect but he's a classic. Or Janis Joplin, she didn't sing in perfect harmony all the time but we remember them as fantastic artists. Why does everything have to be so perfect now?

ALEXANDER: Well, it's interesting to me, you know, you know I was always under the assumption that the 1991 performance by Whitney Houston was a live performance. I was shocked when Rickey Minor told the world that was lip synched. So in many ways it's like we have the ability now to kind of pull the -- the curtain away from the Wizard of Oz and actually see what's going on behind the scenes and I think that what Beyonce did was show you that yes I did levitate when I performed but I actually can levitate.

COSTELLO: I know but I still wish she would have, I don't know. Some part, a little piece of me like and I love Beyonce but I was just disappointed.

ALEXANDER: Well I love her, too. And it's amazing to me that this became a story and it's amazing that, you know, I do feel a little bit of what you're going through, that you would prefer to see this great entertainer entertain us in a great fashion. I think that, like I said, Beyonce is a singer and an entertainer and I think the entertainer in her won out that day.

She wanted to give us a great performance and I did come away thinking it was a great performance. I didn't really know that she lip synched and people asked me what did I think? I looked at the tape, looked at the tape, looked at it ad nauseam and came away really unsure.

And the only way that I -- the only way that I knew that she lip synched because I knew before she said so was the fact that she didn't respond in social media.

COSTELLO: Oh yes.

ALEXANDER: You know if somebody's going to tell you, that say well you lip sync and you know that you sung, oh, you're going to try to let people know. And she didn't, and that was the only thing that let me know that she lip synched.

COSTELLO: Yes I wish she would have just come out quickly. But anyway we could talk about this all day. Prince Charles Alexander thank you so much for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.

ALEXANDER: Carol that was fun and you know, I'm sure she'll give us more great performances and look out for the Super Bowl.

COSTELLO: I know, Sunday she will. We're getting ready for the big game actually with the CNN NEWSROOM Super Bowl special, next hour we'll be outside the Superdome and we'll have a face-off between the San Francisco and Baltimore Mayors, plus we'll talk with the Super Bowl Chef and yes, there is one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Oh, some scary moments for some Alaska air passengers. A flight from Los Angeles to Seattle was forced to make an emergency landing because the captain passed out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then all of a sudden the attendants started running up and down the aisle I've never seen them go so fast. And then they announced that if there's any doctors or nurses or anyone aboard, please come forward. And then the rumor spread that it was the pilot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We saw the flight attendants run into the cockpit pretty quickly. And so as soon as that happens, you know, there's something going wrong. And then the cockpit door opened and they laid the pilot on the floor. And went and got the defibrillator, I think is what it was or some medical equipment and began to work out. And she asked if there were any medical personnel onboard, EMT, paramedics, doctors, and one young lady came up to the front as well as another young man. And they worked on him for a while and he seemed to be ok. I think he hit his head.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Can you imagine? The first officer landed the plane in Portland, Oregon, while that doctor who happened to be on board the plane treated the captain. The captain was taken to an area hospital.

The Justice Department is worried beer in the United States is going to cost too much so it's moving to block a merger by the makers of Budweiser and Corona. Of course the executives at both beverage companies say that will not happen. The maker of Budweiser, Anheuser- Busch already owns half of Modelo the company that makes Corona trying to buy the rest of it.

Steve Harvey hosting the 44th annual NAACP Image Awards tonight. The Awards celebrate the accomplishments of people of color in TV, film, music, and literature. This year's nominations are led by "Django Unchained" and "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

NFL players trust their teammates but maybe not their team doctors. A union survey has surprising results.

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COSTELLO: A disturbing statistic about NFL player safety coming out this Super Bowl week. According to a survey taken by NFL Players Association, 78 percent of the players have absolutely no trust in their team doctors. At the NFLPA's annual state of the union address, the executive director, Demaurice Smith, that's the union president, said the league must fully credential all team medical personnel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEMAURICE SMITH, EXEC. DIRECTOR NFL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION: Our standpoint is we want to know who is providing the care to hour players. So, you know, for us, it would start with certainly what we get from the National Football League. The name, where the person went to school, who are they affiliated with, what their practice area is.

We want to do a deeper dive. We want to know if, for example, there's been any complaints against the doctor for malpractice. We want to know if there's any judgments against them. We'd like to know more detailed information about how the teams selected their doctors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Smith attacked the league for locking out referees at the start of the season calling it a deliberate disregard for player safety. Commissioner Roger Goodell may respond to the union's concern at his news conference later today.

Las Vegas stands to profit from Super Bowl wagering, not just on who wins the game, but from those who lose prop bets. Here's one of the few sillier ones. How long will the national anthem take? The over/under is 2:15. How many times will CBS broadcasters mention Harbaugh bowl or some form of it? The line is 2.5. And one more Harbaugh wager. Which brother will be shown on camera first? All bets are off if they're in a split screen.

That's a quick look at sports this morning. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a quick break.

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