Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Paul Filibustering Brennan Nomination; $732M Microsoft Fine; "Dukes of Hazzard" Reunion; Dow Continues Record Run; Hockey Player Hit By Puck; Police: Star Dancer Confesses; Italy's Mt. Etna Erupts; Breaking Bread Over the Budget

Aired March 06, 2013 - 14:30   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Republican Senator Rand Paul, here he is, standing up and talk, talk, talking. That's how filibusters go. Filibustering President Obama's choice for CIA director, John Brennan. Senator Paul says he will talk until he no longer can. Our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash is live on The Hill.

Walk us through. I mean filibuster, first, just filibuster 101, this is when you talk and you talk and you talk because you're trying to prevent a vote.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right and he's been doing that since 11:47 a.m. Eastern Time, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Wow.

BASH: Yes. So, about two and a half hours. Look, he knows that -- and he's said this a few times as he has been talking, that he doesn't have the votes to stop the Brennan nomination from going through. He doesn't have the votes to stop him from being confirmed.

But he wants to make a point and obviously the fact he has been talking, the fact that we're talking about it, it is blowing up on Twitter, he is making a point. And the point is that from his perspective, the idea that the administration, the use of drones.

And more specifically John Brennan saying that he can't say for sure that the U.S. would not use drones on American soil to target American citizens, he says is just appalling.

This is one of those situations where the far right sort of meets the far left in the middle on the political spectrum, Brooke, because you're hearing some of the same criticism from liberals on the same issue.

But, when it comes to what we're seeing, the theatre we're seeing here, he is not saying anything, you know, particularly over the top in terms of his rhetoric. He's trying to be polite and explain his position. And he says he's going to keep talking.

One funny thing, if you see there the bottom of the screen, he's got a glass of water. I don't think I've actually seen him drink that, maybe it is because he knows he can't leave the chamber.

BALDWIN: He's been going for hours and hours and hours without a sip of water?

BASH: Yes, because, you know, if you drink water, you maybe have to leave to do something else so --

BALDWIN: Wow. OK. Well, we'll watch and we'll see how long the filibuster and the talking lasts. Dana Bash, watching that for us, on Capitol Hill. Dana, thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Technology, sports, business, health, science, showbiz news, all over it. The power block beginning with Microsoft. Did you know that Microsoft is now being fined for a cool $730 million because Microsoft broke a promise?

The European Union says Microsoft made a legally binding commitment to let users choose, which internet browser to use, but here's the thing. Investigators followed up and they found Microsoft's windows operating system defaulted to the company's explorer browser for more than a year. Whoops. So the EU is tangling with Google over its search engine rankings and privacy of users' information.

Hop in a hot rod, big, big news here, the "Dukes of Hazzard" reunion happening this weekend in Byron, Georgia. Several original characters from the TV show will be there including Bo, Luke, Daisy Duke herself. CNN affiliate WMAZ is reporting that organizers hope to have 10,000 people, but it looks like the number will be closer to 60,000. That's 60, 60,000. They sold tickets in every U.S. state and nine countries.

The Dow, we watched this rocket to a new record high just yesterday, but now what? Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange. Alison, is this a case of what goes up must come down or does it continue going up, up, up?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That is kind of unspoken rule, you know, what goes up must come down. But you know, in times like this, Brooke, we like to look back, to look forward. Take a walk with me, but I'll warn you, the picture isn't pretty. Look what happened just two years after the Dow peaked in 2000. It tumbled because of the dotcom bust.

Then in 2007, the Dow peaked again, but in one and a half years it came crashing down. You can blame the financial crisis for that. And both cases the declines were big, 40 percent to 50 percent.

Well, guess what now we are at a new record high, the big question, should we expect the same kind of drop off and thankfully probably not. The good news is a majority of analysts expect a smaller pullback this time around, closer to 10 percent to 15 percent. We shall see -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Alison Kosik, thank you.

Hockey fans, heads up. I want you to take a good long look at this video here. New York Rangers versus the Philadelphia Flyers, this is last night. Puck goes flying off a hockey stick, watch with me, and, boom, hits Mark Staal right in the eye. That will leave a mark. He had to skate off the ice, leave the game. The accident is sparking a push for mandatory visors in the NHL.

Real life drama at the renowned Bolshoi Ballet, remember the disfiguring acid attack by a masked man against the artistic director of this Russian ballet? It turns out this was an inside job. The alleged mastermind, this star Bolshoi Ballet dancer, who confessed in video, shown on Russian television.

CNN's Phil Black is in Moscow for us. And, Phil, what happened? What was behind this?

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, just in case there was any doubt about this dancer's confession, the police made Pavel Dmitrichenko stand in front of a camera and say it again before distributing that material, making it available to the world.

His statement and the clip itself is pretty brave, and there is a qualification. He confesses to organizing the attack, but he says not to the extent that it actually happened. What happened was back in January the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet was outside his Moscow apartment building when someone approached him, called his name, he turned around and someone threw a jar of sulphuric acid in his face.

The police say they have caught the man who actually threw the acid as well as another man who helped plan and execute this attack as well. As for motive, the police are only saying that Filin and the dancer had a hostile working relationship, which is kind of stating the obvious, given the circumstances, given the fact that this theatre has a long-standing reputation for very passionate rivalries.

And the fact that Filin himself has always said he believed it was a colleague, probably a dancer, who had tried to use violence to drive him out of his job. We hope to learn more details about specifically what was the issue that caused the dispute here when this dancer appears in court in Moscow tomorrow -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: To lead this person to use acid, Phil Black in Moscow. Phil, appreciate it.

Now this -- pretty spectacular images here, you are looking at Italy's Mt. Etna, red hot lava shooting into the sky. Experts say no one's in danger from these massive eruptions. But there will, however, be a shower of ash falling on local towns after this eruption ceases.

Well, guess who is getting together for dinner tonight, Republican leaders and the president. But here's the thing, some Republicans, they want to take away tax dollars for the president's golf outings. Why? Because the White House is now officially canceling public tours. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: What a difference forced spending cuts make in Washington. Listen to this. President Obama set to meet with Republicans in Congress, not once, but twice, in the next week. The president has invited just about a dozen Republican senators to dinner tonight at a Washington, D.C. hotel, dinner.

Next week he will head to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans in the House and the Senate. According to Republican sources, tonight's dinner guests will include some of the president's harshest critics including Senator John McCain, Arizona, Kelley Ayotte, New Hampshire, Tom Coburn, Oklahoma and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Gloria Borger, our chief political analyst who is working up a column that will hit cnn.com here joins me live. Here it is for Obama and GOP, much to chew over. So speaking of chewing and breaking bread, Gloria, why dinner? I mean, this is certainly not the way the president did business with Republicans during the first term. Why this way?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, or with Democrats, I might add, not -- you know, didn't do business by like this with much of anybody when you -- remember when the president had that first press conference after his re-election, he was asked about why he didn't have more people over to the White House to socialize.

And his answer was, you know what, I played golf with John Boehner. We had a lot of fun on our golf game, but it didn't get a budget deal done in 2011 so it didn't work. I just recently spoke with a senior administration official who said to me, you know what?

There is this myth in Washington that if we all sit down around a table, somehow, something miraculous is going to occur and Republicans are going to start working with us. So clearly it was something he thought was pretty absurd.

So lo and behold, Brooke, right, now we have the president making these phone calls and inviting people to not the last supper but maybe the first supper. And so he's clearly changed his attitude towards this. Maybe because he believes he's got nothing to lose.

BALDWIN: Who does want to lose? So perhaps this is the beginning. I'd love to know what's on the menu, but perhaps it's something we can report tomorrow. I mean, the beer summit kind of worked for him. Go ahead.

BORGER: I think what's going to be on the menu here is this notion of if we can get past these so-called forced spending cuts that we're now in, what can we do over the summer to come up with a grand bargain. The president really sees, Brooke, that public opinion by a 2-1 margin today in "The Washington Post"/ABC News poll, public opinion for spending cuts.

He may be losing the PR battle over this was going to be Armageddon or not. So I think the president's own popularity has gone down by an average of four points over the last couple of weeks. So maybe he's finally sitting down with these Republicans to see if there is some way to get to some kind of big deal by the fall, and not stand in the way of the rest of his agenda.

BALDWIN: Down the road, gun control, gun control issues, immigration issues and unrelated, but --

BORGER: Climate change.

BALDWIN: We also know that I think it is this Saturday that the White House is now no longer doing the public White House tours, right? And a couple of prominent Republicans are coming forward and saying we don't like that. Why don't you stop playing golf, right? Quickly, what is the real story there with the golf?

BORGER: That's just more junk, you know. It's just more stuff that gets thrown out there. OK, you're -- we're giving our tours, by the way, the Republicans are, like, we're giving our tours on the capitol. You should keep giving your tours in the White House.

Mr. President, you shouldn't be out there on the golf course, because every time you play golf, it is not just the greens fees. It costs a lot more than that. So, you know this is just more of this tit for tat that people kind of roll their eyes and say, OK, boys, let's talk about the big stuff and stop acting like babies.

BALDWIN: Hopefully dinner goes well tonight. Gloria Borger, thank you very much.

BORGER: Wish I were there.

BALDWIN: I know, me too. We'll look for your piece on cnn.com.

Coming up next, hot topic panel, face-off, flight attendants livid over passengers being able to bring certain types of knives on the plane. Does this mean we're getting over our fears post 9/11? Perhaps.

Plus, as we hear college tuition making a record jump, is higher education, is college worth the cost? My panelists are revealed next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Soon you will be able to carry knives on a plane. Take a look. Roll on over and take a look at this table because this is what you now officially can take. Certain types of novelty baseballs, two golf clubs, a lacrosse goalie stick.

Remember you still can't take anything over three ounces of liquid. Certain kinds of knives are A-OK, small folding knives, the blades about 2 inches long, that's OK. The TSA basically is relaxing some of the carry on rules to allow previously forbidden sports items like the golf clubs and the bats and the hockey sticks and the ski poles.

The TSA says the changes bring the U.S. in line with international standards and allows them to focus on bigger threats, like explosive devices, for example. So let's talk about this with our hot topics panel today.

We have therapist and relationship expert, Tiffanie Henry joins me. Columnist, radio host and salon.com contributor, David Sirota in Denver, TV personality and radio host, Tanya Hart is in L.A. and alwaysalist.com editor, Jawn Murray back with the panel today in Washington.

So welcome, welcome to all of you. David, let me just begin with you. I don't know how often you fly, I fly all the time, are you going to feel less safe?

DAVID SIROTA, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: No. I'm not going to feel less safe. I do think that the flight attendants have a real grievance in the sense that they're on the front lines of keeping that cabin under control. So don't think it is right to say their outrage is coming out of nowhere or unacceptable.

It makes some sense, but in terms of the entire plane, I think that those who have been quoted in the news saying that essentially that the cabin door has been secured, I think they're absolutely right.

I think the Department of Homeland Security and the regulations that the FAA have put out have secured that cabin to the point where I think it's fair to say that a small pocket knife is probably not going to be a threat that the box cutters were before and on 9/11.

BALDWIN: And let's be clear box cutters still absolutely not allowed. Let me just jump in, you bring up the flight attendants that's part of the story. They're furious. Let me just quote the union here. Calling the new policy dangerous, short sighted, saying this was designed to make the lives of TSA staff easier, but not making their lives easier. Tiffany, what do you think?

TIFFANIE HENRY, THERAPIST: Well, you know, I travel quite a bit. I would feel safer, you know, not having any type of knife on board. If you need to carry a pocket knife, what do you need a pocket knife on board for? Put it in your bag you're going to check, and then let's get on with it. I would rather be able to carry water through security than --

BALDWIN: Right.

HENRY: Exactly. Pocket knives, really, what do you need it for on board? I don't know, to open your peanuts? I don't know.

BALDWIN: I don't know. Some people say it is my right. I should be able to take it on. Jawn, at what point do you draw the line, what you can take on and what you can't?

JAWN MURRAY, EDITOR-IN-CHIF, ALWAYSALIST.COM: This is drawing the line for me. I travel a lot. So I have to chugalug my water at the security checkpoint, but some -- a pocket knife on the plane and if the flight attendant serves some cran apple juice instead of cranberry juice.

He pulls out his pocket knife. He cuts her and I got to jump being superman and restrain him so they can land the plane. I don't like this at all. It's a bad idea. And let's not talk about all that sports equipment. There is barely enough overhead space for my computer bag and a small luggage. Where are you going to put a hockey club on the plane? BALDWIN: I like your image. But, Tanya, here is maybe one way to look at it, that, look this is one way for the TSA to focus more on explosives as terrorists are sadly evolving on how they want to take people down. The same time, though, 2001 was a while ago. Is this our way of -- maybe this is our fears easing. You see it that way at all?

TANYA HART, TV PERSONALITY, RADIO HOST: Well, I think it is really complying with the international rules, but I'm more concerned about the bats and the hockey sticks to tell you the truth. Because when you're traveling, if someone is trying to come on with a bat, first of all, that's a bit disconcerting for me.

And second of all, where do you put those? If you put those things in the overhead bin and it falls out, who wants a bat on your head and where do you put the hockey stick.

BALDWIN: Another trip for flight attendants to make sure the overhead bins are locked and loaded. I'm with you all on the water. I'm telling the TSA agents, will you let me drink it? I have a nice water that I can't drink.

Let me move on here because coming up next, we want to talk about tuition. Public college students getting hit with record tuition hikes. Is higher education worth the cost here in 2013?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Is a four-year college degree worth the cost? Tuition hikes for public colleges are hitting record highs, students forking over an average of 8.3 percent more for tuition last year. Student aid is dwindling. State funding per student dropped an average of 9 percent as states are slashing education funds post recession.

In Georgia, for example, students are paying nearly 80 percent more for public colleges than they did just five years ago. Panel, I want you to weigh in. I tell you, I am proud of my four-year college degree. I hear a lot of these -- I have friends drowning in debt.

I'm curious, Tiffanie, right, right? Let's begin with you. Is the cost of college worth it right now?

HENRY: You know what? I have a lot of letters behind my name. But I also have a lot of student loan debt and I have to tell you that right now, you know, paying for college is -- coming out of college and not being able to find a job, the cost benefit analysis here, I don't know.

Is education worth it? Absolutely, but we got to figure out another way to go around doing it and maybe it means going to community college for first two years and then a four-year institution. Students and parents have to get creative. Right now people are coming out of school with a lot of debt they can't pay off because they can't find a job.

BALDWIN: It is interesting. Let me just say we talked about -- it was Georgetown University study came out last week saying some of the stunts going to two-year institutions, i.e., community college, they're out earning nearly 30 percent of Americans those with four- year degrees. Tanya, what say you?

HART: You know, Brooke, it is such a problem here in California. This used to be the state where the entire world would come in order to get an education. This past year 20,000 qualified students could not get into universities, into public universities. That's a travesty. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. We cannot afford in our society, no matter what the cost is, we need college.

BALDWIN: You look at the Zuckerbergs, the Steve Jobs, you look at the Bill Gates, right, these are college dropouts, but perhaps unless you are and who knows if you'll become one of these three guys, hugely successful, this is really the front door for -- becoming a member of the middle class, right?

SIROTA: Absolutely. I think it is an important point, the term -- the point about community college is actually people out earning regular college graduates. That's in the short-term. Still in the long-term, a college degree at a four-year public institution gets the average graduate about 84 percent more in wages over their lifetime than somebody who hasn't graduated from college.

I think we're at a tipping point here. How much debt is worth it to take on to get that? Right now the average student who graduates, graduates with an average debt of $20,000. If that becomes 25, 30, 35, $40,000, how much does the wage benefit on the other end really benefit that in the net? I think that's where we may be approaching a tipping point.

BALDWIN: Jawn Murray, you get the final word.

MURRAY: Look, I really think we need to change our approach to college in the U.S. Every kid is not cut out for it. Every kid does not need to incur the debt. Some kids need to wait later in life and determine what they want out of life.

How many people do we all know who have degrees and they're not remotely working in their field? This is something we need to really reconsider in this country and reconsider the approach. We can't afford to inherit this much debt anymore. I'm still paying my college loans.

BALDWIN: Are you? Just quickly, want to button this up with my go-to on all things college and money. Christine Romans said one solution, go to community college for the first year, save a little money and go on to get your bachelor's.

Another thing, basically, you know, take the time, maybe take a year of before you head away and do well in high school. Because you don't have to take the remedial courses the first year in college and get your money's worth.

Tiffanie Henry, Tanya Hart, Jawn Murray, David Sirota, thank you all so much here and we're back after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)