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Forced Spending Cuts Seem Inevitable; New Sex Scandal Jolts Vatican; Yahoo: Work in the Office Or Quit; BP Tries To Limit Spill Fines; Shooting Suspect on the Loose; Kerry Meets with British PM; New Oscar Host Gets Mixed Reviews
Aired February 25, 2013 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, Congress returns after a week off and facing a Friday deadline. Their mission, compromise, if they fail, forced spending cuts impacting everything from unemployment checks to pre-k, even airports.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Flights to major cities could experience delays of up to 90 minutes.
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COSTELLO: Blizzard warnings are in effect throughout the plains as another powerful winter storm is already causing headaches as it moves east.
Yahoo!'s new CEO taking a bold step. She tells workers no more working from home. You've got to come to work. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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COSTELLO: Good Monday morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for being with me.
Congress returns to session today, but hopes of avoiding forced spending cuts or sequestration fading fast as the Friday deadline looms. The blame game ratchets up. The White House says blame the Republicans and it's showing how the cuts will affect millions of Americans in a breakdown.
And Republicans are firing back. This hour, three GOP congressmen are in Norfolk, Virginia, warning that cuts in defense spending will hit the region hard, as in lost jobs. They're beating President Obama to the punch. He visits there tomorrow.
Here's the White House message in a nutshell: Americans will feel the pain of these $85 billion in forced spending cuts as part of their everyday lives. Unemployment benefits, preschool programs, national parks, heck, even the nation's airports could feel the pinch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RAY LAHOOD, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco and others could experience delays of up to 90 minutes during peak hours because we have fewer controllers on staff. Delays in these major airports will ripple across the country.
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COSTELLO: CNN's chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, is on Capitol Hill to break it all down for us. So Dana, are these just scare tactics or should we all be bracing for real impact?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think probably, to be fair, it would be a combination of both. I think that there is going to be a real impact, like you said. I mean, the transportation secretary isn't making things up. There are going to be some cuts and it will result in some pain that every day, average Americans will feel if they're going to go to the airport.
At the same time, you definitely hear Republicans saying, you know, give me a break. The White House does have the potential to do something to change this. And that's actually the kind of legislation, the proposal you're going to see this week in the Senate from Republicans. What they're going to say is instead of replacing the dollar amounts or changing the dollar amounts, and even the specifics, they're going to put forward legislation to give the White House more flexibility in how and what they cut.
So it isn't necessarily across the board. They could say, for example, border patrol agents or food inspectors, they can stay in place. Nothing will be affected and perhaps put cuts in place other places.
COSTELLO: OK. So what should we expect? Should we expect lawmakers to get together with some kind of deal or a temporary deal like on Friday, just to make it more dramatic?
BASH: That's the way -- I mean, how many times have you and I been talking on the eve of a deadline with hours to a deadline, and then suddenly, poof, they have a deal? I don't see it happening this time. I really don't, Carol. And primarily because that's there's no conversation.
And as far as we know, not even a back-channel conversation going on. And more importantly, to have that kind of deal, you need to involve the Republican House Speaker John Boehner, and he has not been talking to the president. He has not talked to him since Thursday. And before that they hadn't spoken since a couple days after Christmas.
So right now I think you see both sides really digging in with their political points. Democrats saying we're not going to do anything unless it includes increases in taxes, and Republicans saying, we're going to have to replace these spending cuts with different spending cuts.
COSTELLO: Wow. Dana Bash reporting live from Capitol Hill this morning.
Roughly 650,000 federal employees may be affected by Friday's forced spending cuts deadline. In about 10 minutes, I'll talk with the man who represents those federal workers.
Also this morning, there are new ripples of a sex scandal jolting the Vatican in the final days of Pope Benedict's rule. This morning, the Vatican says the Pope has accepted the resignation of Scotland's archbishop.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien has been dogged by accusations that he abused four men back in the 1980s, all of those men studying to become priests. The news came as Pope Benedict delivered his final public prayer ceremony announced speculation that a scandal might have affected the first papal resignation in 600 years. Here's CNN's Becky Anderson.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, bombshell at the very top of the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican is announcing today that the Pope has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Keith O'Brien. This is a man who will be 75 next month who he says had decided to stand down in November.
But the resignation has now been brought forward. And the timing -- well, you couldn't make this up, could you, just three days away from the Pope's resignation. We hear the conclave will be mid-March, possibly before March the 15th.
We won't know that until March the 1st. But this was a man who was eligible to vote at that conclave, at the election of the new Pope whether he will do that is yet to be determined -- Carol.
COSTELLO: And take a look at this. New pictures shot outside the National Weather Service in Amarillo, Texas, near whiteout conditions there causing flights in and out of Amarillo's National Airport to be canceled.
As you might expect, several highway accidents reported. This is what it looks like this morning in Denver as Colorado digs out from almost a foot of snow in some places. Looks bright and sunny there now, but people there will be seeing temperatures drop into the single digits. Brace yourself.
More change is coming to the internet search giant Yahoo! Employees who work at home will now have to come into the office or quit. Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange. Wow!
ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Surprise. You know, it's no secret, though, Carol, Yahoo! needs some serious changes. You know, sometimes the best way to get a company turned around the outside is to change the internal culture. You know, it does sends a signal inside and out that things will be different now and that the old way is not going to fly anymore.
So now guess what? An internal memo is all over the Internet. It originally was linked to all things "D." It says communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side by side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices. Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings.
Yes, there's a down side, of course. People will probably quit. But at this point, Yahoo! needs to cut costs, so it may not mind seeing unproductive employees give themselves the pink slip.
But there's a lot of harsh, negative response on Twitter from these Yahoo! employees, and there are sympathizers. You know, Marissa Mayer has taken a lot of heat, Carol, from accusations of feminism going backwards.
This coming from the woman who took two weeks of maternity leave, Carol, the bar is pretty high for her. But this certainly is causing a lot of chatter online.
COSTELLO: Alison Kosik reporting live from the New York Stock Exchange.
BP and the federal government in court right now for a big showdown and billions of dollars are on the line for those affected by the worst oil disaster in U.S. history.
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COSTELO: Our new "Talk Back" just about 20 minutes away. We're discussing three hot stories making headlines today. One of the topics, Michelle Obama's surprise appearance at the Oscars.
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MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: And now for the moment we have all been waiting for. And the Oscar goes to -- "Argo." Congratulations.
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COSTELLO: Some people didn't really appreciate that. "Talk Back": Did Michelle Obama jump the shark at the Oscars? Facebook.com/CarolCNN or tweet me @CarolCNN.
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COSTELLO: With just four days away until those forced spending cuts kick in, taking away roughly $85 billion from federal agencies over the next several months, and that could mean forced furloughs, close national parks and less airport security.
J. David Cox is the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, and he joins us from Orlando. Good morning.
J. DAVID COX SR., PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES: Good morning, Carol. How are you today?
COSTELLO: I am good. So if these forced spending cuts go into effect or sequestration, how will it affect federal workers?
COX: Number one, it would affect federal employees by requiring them to take from one to two days off each pay period that would be unpaid furloughed leave. This would be devastating to those employees and their families, but also be devastating to the services that they provide for the American public.
COSTELLO: This could affect 650,000 federal employees and when you talk about, you know, individuals, they'll -- and these are unpaid days off, right? They don't get paid, right?
COX: That's correct, Carol.
COSTELLO: So how will it affect everyone else?
COX: Well, the screeners at the airports, each day if 20 percent of them do not go to work, and that's what it would equate to, approximately 20 percent of those employees not going to work, that backs up the screening process to get onto the airplanes.
Twenty percent of the air traffic controllers would not be there for the landings, the takeoffs and to manage the planes in the air. Twenty percent of the people wouldn't be in Social Security offices to process Social Security claims and Medicare claims for those that are turning 65 or older that want their claims processed or disabled. The list would go on and on.
COSTELLO: It makes me wonder why you would want to work for the federal government because you sort of become a pawn in this political game that's being played out in Washington.
COX: People that work for the federal government, they wanted to be civil servants. They want to care for the American public. They want to perform these services. And let me make it very, very clear, federal employees want to go to work every day and do their job.
They're border patrol agents. They want to have a secure border. They're correctional officers in the Bureau of Prisons. They want to have those people behind bars protecting the American public. These folks want to work.
It's very, very unfair what's happening with the sequestration. It's madness. It's a fabricated hoax, basically, in my opinion, that needs to be stopped. Congress needs to return to Washington, pass a budget, and move this country forward.
COSTELLO: And I must say, on the other hand, there's a good number of people in this country who also think that the government's too fat and we've hired too many federal workers, and maybe sequestration would be a good thing because maybe this is the time to trim because then we'll all know.
COX: The issue with federal employees, most federal employees throughout the country take home an average pay of $500 a week. These are not fat cats making a great deal of money. What happens many times, if there are not federal employees there to do that work, the government contracts out the work and pays a much larger price.
They're the Beltway contractors, as I refer to them as, they build into their contracts $700,000 a year for the salary for their top contractors, and that's their top five contractors. And then after that, there is no limit how much the government can reimburse them for other employees.
So let's be real. We're talking about federal employees that make $50,000 a year doing work and contractors that make $700,000 a year. The government could stop a lot of its service contracting, let the work be done by federal employees, save the tax dollars, an enormous amount of money, and have better service to the American public.
COSTELLO: Mr. Cox, thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate it.
COX: Thank you so much, Carol.
COSTELLO: All eyes on Hollywood Sunday. And all of Hollywood's eyes were on Seth MacFarlane. So did the first-time host deliver a winning performance or go home a loser?
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COSTELLO: It's 19 minutes past the hour. Time to check our top stories, an army of lawyers for oil giant BP and the federal government battling it out today. Trial got under way last hour in New Orleans as BP tries to limit the civilian penalties, the civil penalties, it must pay out for the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The outcome could mean the difference in billions of dollars.
Police in Las Vegas still searching for Amar Harris, wanted in connection with Thursday's shooting and fiery crash that killed three people. Police say an aspiring rapper was shot as he drove along the Vegas strip. His car crashed into a taxi causing an explosion. The rapper, the cab driver and a passenger in the car all killed.
Secretary of State John Kerry in London right now as part of his first international trip as America's top diplomat. Today Kerry met with British Prime Minister David Cameron as he introduces himself to some of the main allies of the United States. Kerry is visiting nine countries as part of the 11-day trip. His next stop, Germany. >
Well, here's something you don't see every day. Police say a driver near Houston lost control on a curve. He hit a house, went airborne, and landed upside down on the roof of a home. Fuel leaked into the house. A crane operator had to be called in to remove the car. Amazingly, no one in the car or in the homes were hurt.
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COSTELLO: Of course, there were winners and losers at the Oscars, and that includes some of the jokes by first-time host, Seth MacFarlane.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SETH MACFARLANE, OSCARS HOST: The actor who really got inside Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth. Really, 150 years and it's still too soon? I've got some Napoleon jokes coming up, you guys are going to be so mad, my God.
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COSTELLO: It's too early for me. "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT's" A.J. Hammer joins us now, the creator of "Family Guy," he's getting mixed reviews this morning. Some of the reviews are quite -- well, they're not very nice.
A.J. HAMMER, HOST, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": Yes. No, pretty biting. And it's a tough gig, one of the toughest in all of show business, Carol. But when you think about it, in the aftermath of the show, the host always gets mixed reviews in the press. I remember some years where according to some headlines Billy Crystal, the beloved Billy Crystal, was also being called a bad host. So you can take some of these with a grain of salt.
COSTELLO: Tom Shales tweeted, "I can hear the audience throwing up now."
HAMMER: No, I have even better ones from these reviews. "The Daily Beast" called Seth's hosting juvenile and basically flat out said he bombed. There were others questioning if he was sexist or sensational.
However, I did have to sift through quite a bit to find a couple of positive reviews including one from "The Hollywood Reporter," very well respected magazine. And they were on his side saying that he wins at Oscar hosting against the odds.
Everybody's got an opinion. When the audience is as large as it is for the Oscars, you obviously can't please everybody, Carol. But, you know, I think he was tilting more towards the negative than positive.
COSTELLO: Here's what I don't understand. ABC supposedly was trying to attract more young male viewers to watch the Oscars. Personally, I don't think there's anything you can do to get more young male viewers to watch the Oscars because, number one, they're not remotely interested in fashion. They don't like Broadway performances, and this show was chock full of them, even though that one was about boobs.
HAMMER: Yes. Well, I think, you know, you take two steps forward and one step back in this situation. I really thought the efforts were going to counteract themselves here with the fact that they had all these musical numbers, which sort of nullified whatever edge that Seth MacFarlane was bringing to the show.
But I heard you make a great point earlier. You said shouldn't the Oscars first figure out what kind of a show they want to be so they can let a guy like Seth MacFarlane be himself? You know, the Grammys finally figured themselves out after all these years and realized we are a straight-ahead, entertainment show. We're going to play music and just do that.
But in fairness to Seth, he did throw everything he had at this job from his trademark irreverent humor to the traditional song and dance. But, of course, that led to people calling his performance self- indulgent. And Carol, there were quite a few suggestions out there this morning that he looked like he was auditioning for his own variety show.
COSTELLO: See, I thought he was amazingly talented at the singing and dancing. He has a beautiful voice. You know, if he had co-hosted with that little bear, Ted --
HAMMER: Yes.
COSTELLO: -- that would have been great. I'm sure Ted could have done all the dirty stuff because that's who Ted is.
COSTELLO: A.J. Hammer, thanks so much.
Coming up next, our special "Talk Back," hot topics, hot conversation and your comments. First up, "Is brinksmanship standard operating procedure now in Washington?"
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