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A Look at the Dow and Nasdaq; Massive Toyota, Honda Recall; George Zimmerman Case Examined; Pushing for Rear Cameras in Cars
Aired April 11, 2013 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALSION KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Part of it is the improving economy. Most of it, though, is the Fed stimulating the economy with billions of dollars. Plus, you've got investors seeing these headlines of these records every day. They want to jump on the train before it leaves the station.
Also, this is the tail end of what's historically the best six months for stocks, between November and April. Coming into summer, though, the market historically doesn't do as well.
Sam Stovall, he's the chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ puts it this way. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAM STOVALL, STANDARD & POOR'S EQUITY RESEARCH SERVICES: The market has outperformed itself, November through April compared with May through October, almost 75 percent of the time.
So it's averages plus batting averages that cause people to say, you know what? In the summer, investors focus more on their tans than their portfolios.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KOSIK: And there goes the adage to sell in May and go away.
Brooke?
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN: Their tans, huh?
What about cars? Tell me about this massive recall, millions for foreign carmakers. What's that about?
KOSIK: Exactly. This is actually a recall that circles the globe, Brooke. It affects countries, North America, Europe, Japan, China, 3.4 million vehicles are recalled.
Look at the breakdown, most of them Toyota models, Honda models, more than one million at each of those companies, popular cars, too, Corollas, Tundras, CRVs, among other.
One analyst says, guess what? This could spread. Ford and Chrysler say they're not affected, but GM, 48,000 Pontiac Vibes are included. They're made by Toyota through an old joint-venture, though. The issue with this recall is that the passenger air bag can deploy with too much pressure. Look at how. The pressure causes one plastic part, the inflater, and that's its casing, it can burst sending pieces flying.
Now Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, they all use the same manufacturer. That is sort of the weak link in this recall.
Brooke?
BALDWIN: OK, and if you missed any of this, you want to run through some of these cars again, CNNMoney.com has it all for you.
KOSIK: That's right.
BALDWIN: Alison Kosik, thank you.
KOSIK: Sure.
BALDWIN: And now this war of words between the "Material Girl" and the country of Malawi.
Madonna is shooting down accusations from the government that she demanded royal treatment on her recent visit to the African nation, the government saying this in a station.
Madonna had asked to meet the president and believed the country should, quote, "should have abandoned everything, rolled out the red carpet, blasted a 21-gun salute."
Remember, Madonna adopted two kids from Malawi in 2006 and 2009.
And now let me show you some pictures. Look at this. You can see multiple lightning bolts here, right?
Well, scientists have just discovered that lightning isn't always visible. It's this phenomenon called dark lightning and, apparently, it's just as powerful.
Chad Myers, dark lightning, what is it?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: More powerful in a different way.
For a long time we've know that thunderstorms can produce gamma rays and x-rays. We just didn't know where they were coming from. Where are these rays coming from?
And obviously for a long time, we've known about lightning. Lightning strikes, amps, volts, it'll kill you. You can see it.
We know about those, but if you get hit by a dark lightning strike, you won't die, at least not immediately, because it's a radiation strike, not a lightning or bolt strike.
And the main way that you would ever get hit by this is if you're flying through a thunderstorm. Now most airplane pilots and airplanes fly around the storms, so there's no real risk, but if your plane gets hit by one of these dark lightning strikes, it's about one out of a thousand strikes would be dark strike.
You would see maybe a small purple haze around the plane, and you would get a lifetime supply of radiation in less than one second.
So we're going to do more research on this. Obviously the researchers there at FIT, Florida Institute of Technology, going on this.
Also, even up into the parts of the Northeast where some of this radiation has been seen before by some of these gamma detectors. We'll figure out what this is all about. Probably might take us a year or two, but we're figuring it out right now.
BALDWIN: So that's dark lightning hitting the plane. I found out today something that I didn't know. Two gals on my show team have been in planes hit by regular lightning.
I said, well, what happened? And they said, there was a lot of smoke.
MYERS: Oh, there was?
BALDWIN: (Inaudible), I'm talking about you. And they had to make an emergency landing, which I would be very frightened over.
Chad, thank you.
MYERS: You're welcome.
BALDWIN: They're off at Augusta, the first round of the Masters teeing off this morning. World number one, Mr. Tiger Woods at two- under-par, about to finish up round number one here.
Take a look at who was cheering them on. Nope. There he is. Let's see her. Here she is, new girlfriend. Lindsey Vonn.
How about Bubba? How about last year's champ, Bubba Watson, having a tough first round. He is hitting three-over-par with a couple of holes to play.
And a lot of people watching this 14-year-old amateur. You heard me, one-four. Tianlang Guan, he's the youngest player in Masters history, 14, in eighth grade, holding his own. He's one-over par through ten holes.
And today marks one year since the arrest of George Zimmerman on a murder charge. His case got national attention when he was accused of killing an unarmed teen.
To mark the anniversary, his mother has some harsh words. She's penned this online letter calling out anyone who thinks he's guilty.
And this isn't the first time a family member has made news for speaking out. Remember that? "On the Case," next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: George Zimmerman's mother releases this scathing letter on the first anniversary of her son's arrest in the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
Gladys Zimmerman writes, the Zimmerman family will always remember April 11th as, quote, "the day the justice system failed us as Americans and as a consequence, an innocent man was arrested for a crime he did not commit, solely to placate the masses. George was charged with murder."
Criminal defense attorney Drew Findling is here. And, you know, we haven't heard from her at all. She has totally stayed out of the spotlight.
She's not here. I can't ask her why she's coming out now and penning this letter, but what would -- why would one do this?
DREW FINDLING, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, I have to tell you I'm a little confused by the letter, and I'll tell you the reason why.
Having tried so many homicide cases and murder case, one of the things I always tell young lawyers is never forget that somebody died. No matter what your defense is, there is a loss of life.
And to publish the letter and never recognize the loss of Trayvon's life is really unfortunate and it's not a good move. I'm not talking about just as a humanitarian, but as a lawyer.
As a lawyer, if I'm representing Zimmerman, if she wants to write the letter and go public with it, at least acknowledge that you're sorry that a life was lost, you believe your son was justified because of self-defense, but you still grieve for any parent that lost their child.
BALDWIN: She's obviously very, very angry. She's also blaming media. She's blaming Congress. She's lashing out. She says there's no reason her son should have been charged with murder, but I want to read this. These are two passages here from this letter.
Quote, "It is astounding that despite the vast amount of information and evidence now available that supports George's self-defense claim, the majority of the media avoids its publication."
She goes on. "Even members of Congress and self-proclaimed activists used and routinely use this to this day the term 'murderer' when they speak of him. In effect, they're reinforcing the only acceptable outcome in their eyes."
Has there been a proverbial rush to judgment here in this case from your perspective?
FINDLING: I don't really believe there's been a rush to justice. I think there's been a rush to publicize the case in, as much as it's attracted the national media, and a national and even international interest, is another self-defense case.
As we sit here right now in this city and in cities all over the country and even in some rural areas, there are self-defense trials that are going on that are very similar to this one in which somebody has been, unfortunately for them, indicted and charged with murder for a jury to decide their fate.
This type of scenario is more commonplace than one would think. It just happens to have garnered national attention.
BALDWIN: I want to move on.
I found this little zinger here from the ACLU. This is what -- the ACLU says it requested and got, actually, these documents from the IRS that suggested the Internal Revenue Service reads people's e-mails without getting a search warrant first.
So, Drew, when it comes to snooping -- I mean, there have to be boundaries here if you're looking at e-mails or Facebook pages. What are the boundaries?
FINDLING: Well, the boundaries were defined in 1986 with the Electronic Communication Protective Act, which is antiquated. It didn't in any way fathom that we'd have e-mails stored by Google, Yahoo!, and, you know, all these other organizations.
BALDWIN: Time to update that.
FINDLING: Time to update that. And that's exactly what's happening.
And what's so fascinating about this is traditional -- the demarcation between liberals and conservatives isn't happening here. We're seeing bipartisan support. We're seeing Republicans and we're seeing Democrats.
As a criminal defense lawyer, I'm on the board of directors for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, we're buddying up with the Heritage Foundation on issues like this.
We are getting together and all saying, hey, no matter our political differences are, one thing we value is our privacy.
BALDWIN: Privacy.
Drew Findling, thank you.
FINDLING: Absolutely.
BALDWIN: The White House, have you seen this today? The White House reporters Jay-Z lyrics.
I'm not making this up. Listen closely.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had suggested that he got (inaudible) and that he personally spoke with the president.
I'll just quote. "I turned Havana into Atlanta. Boy from the hood, I got White House clearance. Obama said, quote, chill, you gonna get me impeached. You don't need this expletive anyway. Chill with me on the beach."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Cue the laughter.
So that was the voice of, obviously, a White House reporter asking Jay Carney, White House spokesperson, about Jay-Z and Beyonce's recent trip to Cuba, quoting some of the lyrics.
This guy, Jake Tapper, he's been in just a few of those White House briefings. In his whole time there, I want to know if he's ever seen anything like that.
Jake's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: In today's world, it doesn't take very long for a celebrity to respond to any criticism and Mr. Jay-z becomes just the latest here.
The rapper just recorded a song taking on critics who are blasting Jay and Beyonce for this recent trip to Cuba. Listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
JAY-Z, RAPPER: (Inaudible)
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Never thought I'd be talking rap beef with Jake Tapper, but, Jake, there's always a first for everything.
So White House press ...
JAKE TAPPER, ANCHOR, "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER": I don't know why you say that. I'm straight up hip-hop.
BALDWIN: I mean clearly, but I just wasn't sure if Jay Carney was.
Let's talk Jay Carney because, you know, here he is. There's a reporter quoting these lyrics, talking of this visit to Cuba.
Have you ever seen that in your trips to the briefing room?
TAPPER: I don't recall anybody reciting lyrics from a rap song in the briefing room.
BALDWIN: Lyrics of any kind.
TAPPER: And I have to say -- I don't know who that was. It must -- it sounded like Queen Latifah. I mean, that was some serious free- styling going on in the press room. I was very impressed.
BALDWIN: Do you have more on this? What do you have more coming up at the top of the hour?
TAPPER: First of all, just so you know, Jay Carney had a great rejoinder of that. He said that maybe he thought Jay-Z only said it was because of the White House that he got permission to go to Cuba from the White House because he couldn't come up with a rhyme for treasury.
So that was a pretty good response from Mr. Carney, I have to say. I've had my exchanges with him, but you have to give him props for that.
BALDWIN: OK. Props for that.
TAPPER: We have a good show coming up.
We're going to be talking with Senator Joe Manchin, who came up with -- he's one of two partners who came up with that bipartisan background check bill in the Senate. We'll talk with him in studio.
We'll also talk with the Pentagon press secretary about the latest from North Korea.
We'll be looking at the success of the app, Vine. I don't know if you -- are you a Viner?
BALDWIN: I'm not a Viner, but I know all about it. To me it's like a video tease. I don't quite ...
TAPPER: Six seconds. It's an art form. But we'll be looking at that. It's the number one app. It only launched in January, the number one app, and actually the co-founder of Twitter will show me how to use Vine.
And we have a ton more. We'll obviously be talking about Mr. Z whose knowledge of communism and totalitarian government seems unparalleled, I have to say, just unrivaled.
BALDWIN: Jay-Z and Jay C. on "The Lead" today. Jake Tapper, thank you. We'll see you at the top of the hour.
TAPPER: Thank you.
BALDWIN: Coming up next. It is a story you may never forget, a mother accidentally backs her car over her 19-month-old son. He dies.
She is in Washington today trying to get every single car in America equipped with a camera. She will share her heartbreaking story with me, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: It is the tragedy every parent prays never to experience, burying a child. Karen Pauly has had to endure that along with the knowledge that she was the one who accidently backed over her 19-month-old son.
On April 17th, 2011, she was pulling out of her driveway not realizing that little jack had gotten out of his seat and had gone behind her car.
Now she is part of a band of parents gathered today in Washington with this unified call of action. But here's the thing. Action has taken quite a while to see.
A 2008 law required the federal government to establish a standard for rear visibility in cars, specifically rear-end cameras, by 2011. That was the deadline set by President Bush with this law.
However, the law still has not gone into effect. That is why this group has gathered, including Karen Pauly, pleading for the final step to happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPRESENTATIVE JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D), ILLINOIS: Since the bill passed, 400 children have died from rear back-overs.
You'll hear from some of those families who have suffered losses that could have been prevented if we had a rule requiring cameras.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Karen Pauly joins me now from Washington. My condolences of course to you. I know you're coming up on two years since Jack's death.
I want to ask why you're in Washington. First I just have to ask, you had a hand in his death. How is it that you have the strength to come on national television and talk about this?
KAREN PAULY, MOTHER PUSHING FOR REAR CAMERAS IN CARS: I just feel like I could -- I had two choices -- to crawl into a ball and never leave my room or do something to help prevent other families from having to go through what I went through. It was a no-brainer.
BALDWIN: So here you are in D.C. You want these cameras, these back- up cameras, in all cars.
PAULY: Yes.
BALDWIN: As we mentioned, this was supposed to be handled by the federal government two years ago. Nothing has happened.
What is your message today to members of Congress to change that?
PAULY: I just think it's important for them to know how many accidents are happening. Four hundred children have died in the two years since this was supposed to be issued by back-over accidents. That's just senseless. Fifty kids a week are hit in back-over accidents. Two of them are usually fatal. We just can't keep putting it off.
BALDWIN: And what do you say to people who might be watching or hearing of these stories who think, well, why do I need a camera? I can just turn around and look behind the car. What's your response?
PAULY: That's just not enough. There is a huge blind zone in the back of your car.
We have a picture where there are 63 children behind an SUV and, if you look in the side mirror, you can't see any of them. That is how big of a blind zone there is behind the car.
You may think that it's sufficient without a camera, but that's not the case.
BALDWIN: The bigger and bigger the cars are, the tougher it is to see the blind zones.
Just finally on a personal note, in these last two years since losing Jack, has it at all gotten more bearable for you?
PAULY: Nope. Just different. It's still a daily struggle, but I have a great family and great friends and being involved with kids in cars really helps to try and make sure that these accidents stop happening.
BALDWIN: We will follow up with you and make sure that they do, that you can help enact change in Washington.
Karen Pauly, thank you.
PAULY: Thank you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: A hermit in the state of Maine is under arrest and accused of some 1,000 burglaries. Here is surveillance video.
This is a man breaking into a camp kitchen. It led to the arrest of 47-year-old Christopher Knight also known as the "North Pond Hermit."
Police say Knight lived alone in the woods, stole from lakeside homes and camps to survive. He told police he had only spoken to one person, a hiker, in the 27 years he lived in the woods.
And now to this video. OK, keep your eyes on the left hand side of your screen. Oops. Let's do it again. Let's do it again.
It was a tiger shark, wanted the same tuna that this Hawaiian kayaker was apparently trying to snag.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISAAC BRUMAGHIM, ENCOUNTERED SHARK: That shark made a circle, came around, and (inaudible) under the boat, hit the kayak.
Then it kind of hit me, what just happened, and then I had a react reaction to all of that.
Yeah, I did get the shivers a bit on it, just thinking about the whole thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BALDWIN: Yeah, I think I'd get the shivers, too.
So he was shaking, not totally spooked. Told affiliate KHNL that after his close encounter, he caught three more fish in the very same spot.
"THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" starts now.