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Obama Touts Affordability of Exchanges; "Man Caves" Hidden in EPA Building; Ex Cop Threw Out Laptop, Computer Hard Drive; Girl, 10, Moves Up On Transplant List; Obama's New Message
Aired June 07, 2013 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: So this is how it works. People will be able to sign up starting this October. The administration hopes to enroll about seven million people in the health insurance plans through these exchanges. Now, California has been a leader in implementing one of the first exchanges. Listen.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you're one of nearly six million Californians or tens of millions of Americans who don't currently have health insurance, you'll soon be able to buy quality affordable care just like everybody else. And here's how. States like California are setting up new online marketplaces where, beginning on October 1st of this year, you can comparison shop an array of private health insurance plans side by side, just like you were going online to compare cars or airline tickets. And that means insurance companies will actually have to compete with each other for your business.
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MALVEAUX: Under the exchanges the government will pay subsidies to people who earn less than a certain amount. A senior administration official tells Reuters that at least 2.6 million people on the exchanges need to be young and healthy for them actually to succeed.
Check out this story. We are looking at couches, personal photos, hair trimmers, yeah. All found in these hidden getaways set up inside an Environmental Protection Agency warehouse, or EPA warehouse. Get this -- you paid for it.
Brian Todd explains.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: How's this for a man cave? A private space with a couch, chairs, TV, a weight set. This isn't your cousin's basement. It's a U.S. government facility. A warehouse in Landover, Maryland, overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, leased and operated by a private contractor for $1.6 million of your tax dollars a year.
ROBERT ADACHI, EPA INSPECTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE: When the auditors first saw it, it was overwhelming. TODD: Robert Adachi was the lead auditor for the EPA's inspector general who just issued a report on the facility. The document looks like a brochure with pictures of other man caves in the same warehouse. Here's a space with an even larger TV, a chair, artwork on the wall. Some had personal photos and pin-ups. And --
ADACHI: They had put in a refrigerator, microwave ovens.
TODD: That black object, bottom center, that's a hair trimmer.
I spoke about all this with taxpayer advocate, Ryan Alexander.
RYAN ALEXANDER, TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE: We pay high money for these people and we paid taxpayer money for these people to manage our inventory and take care of the warehouse. And as far as we can tell from what the inspector general found, they didn't do any of that.
TODD: And the report says these personal spaces were hidden from security cameras by partitions, curtains and piled up boxes.
(on camera): The EPA said we couldn't get access inside this warehouse, but EPA officials say as soon as they learn what the inspector general found, they had the private contractors who operated this building escorted out. They prohibited them from coming back. And they began taking inventory of everything inside.
(voice-over): It's not just the little getaway spaces that raised concern. Those little specks on the box, lower right?
ADACHI: We did take pictures of places where they had taken rat traps and where they were rat feces all throughout the building.
TODD: One place the contractors did keep immaculate, their 30 by 35- foot gym, with updated equipment, including --
ADACHI: Pictures show also a computer that was attached to some speakers. And it appeared to be used for music.
TODD: There was a security breach, expired passports of EPA employees with all identity information lying there in open boxes. Oh, and did we mention the seemingly inexplicable inventory?
(on camera): Pardon my language, but what the hell do we need with pianos in the EPA warehouse.
ALEXANDER: That's a good question. Why they had pianos and why they had all this other inventory in the warehouse. Why they have all this stuff that we weren't using.
TODD (voice-over): An EPA spokeswoman says the pianos had been there for award ceremonies, receptions and other functions there, and then they were moved to the warehouse. The agency said in a statement that "It moved quickly to address all these problems." And, indeed, the inspector general gives the EPA high marks for its fast response.
We called and e-mailed several times the private contractor that operated the warehouse, Apex Logistics of College Park, Maryland. We never heard back.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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MALVEAUX: Former cop is on trial, accused of murdering his wife, and lawyers want to know why he threw out old cell phones and destroyed the hard drive on his laptop the day before she died.
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MALVEAUX: On the stand today in Kansas, a former police officer accused of shooting his wife to death and then setting her body on fire. Brett Seacat insists that he did not kill his wife, Vashti. He says she shot herself and then set their home on fire. But Seacat said today he does blame himself for her death because of an argument they had the night before she died. He says he threatened to expose her alleged extramarital affairs if she went through with their pending divorce.
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BRETT SEACAT, ACCUSED OF WIFE'S MURDER: I knew that Vashti had had an affair with the vice president. And I was suspecting she was having an affair with her boss -- or had an affair with her former boss.
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MALVEAUX: Earlier in the trial, Seacat's co-workers testified they saw him burning hard drives and throwing away his cell phones the day before his wife's death. Now, Seacat told the jury wanted to replace the items -- he wanted to replace these items and he was concerned about identity theft.
Another very sick child getting a better shot, hopefully, at a lung transplant because of a federal judge in Philadelphia. The same judge who issued a ruling in favor of a 10-year-old, Sarah Murnaghan, has issued the same ruling for this little boy, 11-year-old Javier Acosta. The judge issued another temporary injunction against the rule that prevents children under the age of 12 from getting in line for available adult lungs. The lawsuit says Javier needs a lung transplant soon or he most likely will die within two months.
Sarah's family, they have argued that the number of children's lungs available through organ donation programs is so small that young patients like her should be added to the list of people waiting for adult lungs. Meanwhile, Sarah remains in critical condition. But because of this judge's ruling, her mom says she's been moved now to near the top of the list to get a lung transplant.
Our Jason Carroll is joining us with more on how Sarah's doing.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Her mother says she's definitely a fighter, that she is a tough little girl. But the reality is, Suzanne, she's just not been doing well over the past few days. In fact, her mother said that last night was not good, even today she was struggling as well. Her heart rate was very high. Doctors were able to get her stabilized. Her mother saying this morning that this is a very scary situation for them to be in.
To put it in perspective, there's something called a lung allocation score, which basically measures how sick someone is with this type of condition. On a scale from zero to 100, Sarah is at a 78, very sick people usually rate in the high 50s.
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JANET MURNAGHAN, MOTHER OF SARAH: This is the first time Sarah -- if not number one, she's number two, for the region for her blood type. Before this ruling, she was number 100, maybe. I mean, since we talked about a difference, we have no chance, no chance of getting lungs and the odds of Sarah dying were very high. Now we have a chance. And there's no guarantee, but we have a shot now.
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CARROLL: And the chance is what, they say, is all they were really asking for.
Just to put this into more perspective for you, I have a statistic here which I think will spell things out, which gives you an idea of just how rare lung transplants are for children. Since 2008, there have been a total of 8,775 lung transplants performed in the United States. Of that, only about 1 percent, Suzanne, or just 88 have been for children under the age of 12.
MALVEAUX: Wow, Jason, our prayers are definitely with Sarah and her family.
Thank you.
MALVEAUX: He says it's one of the most difficult places that he's been to. Up next, Anthony Bourdain's trip to the Congo and the scary flight that he was on up next.
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MALVEAUX: End of first season this weekend, don't worry. Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown" going to air again in September. But on Sunday, Bourdain and the gang travel through Congo. Usually parts unknown focus on cuisine, right? But in Congo, not so much. There's a whole different set of priorities there. Watch this.
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ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST, ANTHONY BOURDAIN: PARTS UNKNOWN: Roads, forget it. Certainly, nothing even remotely safe between Goma and where we're headed.
(on camera): We'll fly to Sagati (ph). This is the preferred route.
(voice-over): So we've chartered a bush plane, formerly Queen Elizabeth's flying wardrobe. When the queen traveled presumably in her younger years, her clothes followed in this beast, or so we're told.
(on camera): I have not seen this model of plane before. It's a first for me.
(voice-over): Of course you learn to take nothing for granted in the Congo.
(on camera): Uh, oh.
(voice-over): Just as we're about to take off, thunder, lightning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything looks fine to me.
BOURDAIN (on camera): Get this thing airborne.
Wow.
(voice-over): Wait this one out a bit.
Crashes are pretty common place. Not so long ago, a plane with nearly 100 people on board went down on the same route we're taking today.
(on camera): Most planes that crash in Congo crash because of the weather, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Most of the time, yeah.
BOURDAIN: Not us.
(LAUGHTER)
Don't worry.
(voice-over): The weather clears up, sort of. So we decide to give it a go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the weather's very bad, we're on the ground.
BOURDAIN (on camera): What about rebels? Do they shoot at planes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Nobody. No.
(LAUGHTER)
OK. We'll see you after your trip.
BOURDAIN: Yeah, yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Have a good one.
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MALVEAUX: Don't miss the season finale of "Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown." He goes to Congo. Tune in at 9:00 p.m. Sunday or set your DVR. And you always make promises, right, when your candidate for president? Then reality sets in. We're talking about the moment the president gets his first intelligence briefings on the threats the country faces. Up next, we're going to talk about how that impacts the decision.
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MALVEAUX: President Obama's message about privacy and personal security has changed since I covered him during the presidential campaign. Today, in California, he said that telephone and other data surveillance programs are helpful to fighting terrorism. So I want you to listen to what the president said today and we'll play you something from a couple of years ago.
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OBAMA: I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs. My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards. But my assessment and my team's assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks.
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MALVEAUX: Now, I want you to listen to then-Senator Obama. This is back in 2005. He's speaking about homeland security and the fact that he felt that the Bush-era Patriot Act was a threat to Americans' rights and freedoms. Listen.
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OBAMA: I believe we owe it to the nation, we owe it to those who fought for our civil liberties, we owe it to the future and our children to make sure that we craft the kind of legislation that would make us proud, not just legislation that we settle for because we're in a rush. We don't have to settle for a Patriot Act that sacrifices our liberties or our safety. We can have one that secures both.
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MALVEAUX: Want to get to Nancy Gibbs here to talk about all of this, the president's message and how it changed over time.
Nancy, you're the author of a popular book that goes through and describes, explains that these presidents are part of the very exclusive club here. And they go through an evolution, from candidate and critic, to leader and president. And a lot of that happens when they get intelligence. Talk about the president's evolution here.
NANCY GIBBS, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TIME MAGAZINE & AUTHOR: Well, it is really the difference between being outside of the decision-making circle and being in the center of it. A candidate can pretty much say, argue, criticize anything he likes. But once -- and all the presidents we spoke to said the same thing. Once they get their first presidential daily brief, the world looks very different and the responsibility, the burden they feel changes the way they set their priorities.
MALVEAUX: What are some of the experiences, the common experiences that they have? Because obviously they have a lot more intelligence than any of us are aware of. But they probably also have a very different perspective on what those threats look like, and the world that we are all facing.
GIBBS: Well, they do. On inauguration day they swear an oath to defend the constitution. But the minute they're in that office, the burden is to defend the country. And they all feel it. And one thing we have seen today and the response to this news is that members of Congress from both parties, just as presidents from both parties, have acted in the way they think is necessary to keep the country safe. And that responsibility, of not having an attack on their watch, is really the most compelling issue for them. And so, you know, candidates can talk more abstractly, as law professors, they can talk more abstractly.
As presidents, this is something they all share with one another, carrying that burden of responsibility, knowing what they know, getting the kinds of intelligence that is top secret, threats they can't share but they have to respond to, is something they live with 24 hours a day.
MALVEAUX: I want to talk a little bit about the title of your book, "The President's Club, Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity," it is fascinating. We're looking at pictures here of President Obama, former President Bush there. We saw something in "Huffington Post" that caught our attention, the morphing if you will of the photo with George W. Obama as the headline there, pretty critical but saying, look, they believe President Obama morphed into George W. Bush when it comes to his policies. He expanded the Patriot Act and some of the things that we're seeing and discovering, talking about today. Do you think that's a fair ass assessment?
GIBBS: Well, you know, the argument this is George W. Bush's fourth term I think is very much overstated. But unlike in domestic policy, where presidents have more ability to set their course, presidents in some senses inherit the foreign policy of their predecessors. Dwight Eisenhower had to resolve the Korean War that Harry Truman had started. Lyndon Johnson had to deal with Vietnam that had begun under President Kennedy. And obviously, President Obama had to contend with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that were begun under President Bush.
And it isn't as though any president can take office and easily suddenly change the course of foreign policy overnight. And so, you know, in that sense, I think candidates are entirely sincere. President Obama, I suspect, was entirely sincere with his intentions to defend civil liberties, to close Guantanamo Bay. Once you're in office and the barriers to doing that, the price to be paid for doing it looks very different.
MALVEAUX: It is a fascinating look at the evolution, each one of these men, each one of the presidents as they go from candidate to leader, and to one with a second term.
Nancy Gibbs, thank you, very good discussion. Really appreciate it.
She's one of the most popular women in the world. Hillary Clinton, many are wondering if she's going to run for president in 2016. Others are asking who is going to play her in a movie about her life. Well, we actually know who the top contenders are. We're going to tell you up next.
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MALVEAUX: First Lady Michelle Obama raising some eyebrows because she's not going to be attending by the president's side when he hosts the Chinese counterpart this weekend. President Xi Jinping will be accompanied by his wife at the summit in California. It is customary for first ladies to entertain other first ladies, but she's staying home. She's attending to her job as mom in chief. Sasha Obama's 12th birthday is on Monday. Some believe it is a mistake for the White House. They're saying, look, if you're going to try to thaw tensions with the Chinese, she should be there.
Early this week, you might remember, the first lady made some moves when she took on a heckler during a fund-raiser.
The "Hollywood Reporter" says a front-runner has emerged to play young Hillary Clinton. This is in the upcoming movie "Rodham." Carey Mulligan, known for her role as Daisy in "Great Gatsby." The actress will meet soon with the film's director. "Rodham" will focus on the early years of Clinton's career, including when she met the future President Bill Clinton. These other actresses have also been rumored to be in consideration for the role. You see them all there. Pretty amazing lineup, Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain, Reese Witherspoon and Scarlett Johansson.
That's it for me. Have a great weekend. Brooke Baldwin takes it from here. CNN NEWSROOM continues.
