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Bullying Awareness Month; Government Shutdown Over; Monuments, Panda Cam Back to Normal; Will Congress Reach Long-Term Solution?

Aired October 17, 2013 - 08:30   ET

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

JACKEE FONNER, MOTHER OF BULLYING VICTIM: I just hope they realize their children can't get away with this.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, we want everybody to know that bullying is a bigger problem.

FONNER: Yes.

CUOMO: We know that's why you're coming out.

FONNER: Yes.

CUOMO: You got your fingernails in purple, which is the awareness color for this month, and that's why we're doing this story -

FONNER: Oh, really? Oh.

CUOMO: To keep attention on it. You see that, it's just - it's all coming together for a good cause.

FONNER: I did not know that. Thank you.

CUOMO: Send our best to your son.

FONNER: OK.

CUOMO: Let us know if we can help get him back to school because obviously that's the goal.

FONNER: OK.

CUOMO: Thank you for doing this.

FONNER: Thank you very much.

CUOMO: Appreciate it.

You know this story. You've heard others like them. What do you think? How do we deal with bullying? You can tweet us, use #newday.

We're going to take a quick break here. When we come back, fallout from the shutdown that lasted 16 days long. What is it going to mean to you? Is it going to hit your wallet? Is it going to keep doing that? We'll take a look. MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: And we'll get reaction on the government deal, the new government deal, from our very own Piers Morgan. We forced him out of bed far too early for his own good. We'll caffeinate his tea and we'll talk to him about his new book.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY, everyone. It is Thursday, October 17th. Hope you're having a good morning so far.

It was a close call but the deal is done. President Obama signing on that proverbial dotted line just after midnight. Weeks of bitter partisan rancor giving way to an 11th hour agreement. It reopens the government after a 16-day shutdown and extends the debt ceiling to avert a potential U.S. default. Federal workers were told to report for duty this morning, but another showdown could be on the horizon. The deal only funds the government into January and the deal only extends the debt cushion to February 7th.

So with only a few months to reach a longer term solution, could the fallout from the shutdown impact what happens next? Basically, what does this all mean now? Let's bring in CNN's senior political analyst and editorial director of "The National Journal," Ron Brownstein, and CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans, to talk more about this.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, we do (ph).

BOLDUAN: Politics and business. Let's talk about both of them and figure out where we go from here.

Christine, what kind of confidence -- what does this mean for the economy that they -- this is not a grand bargain. They just got a short term deal.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN'S CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Many just calling it a delay.

ROMANS: It takes away big uncertainty. You know, it's important to kick the can, but it really would be nice to have a budget deal and a budget (INAUDIBLE). We haven't had a budget since 2009. We're fighting over a debt ceiling because they haven't been able to get their act together and actually do their job, which is, you know, run the purse strings of Congress. So what it does, it takes away this uncertainty, it takes away a risk. It also probably means that the Fed keeps pumping money into the system. That's something that Wall Street likes. You know, the Fed can't pull back if (ph) Congress still - still could be having trouble in January and February. So it reduces the risk but it doesn't fix anything.

BOLDUAN: Back to at least status quo when you're talking about investments --

ROMANS: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

BOLDUAN: Which means your 401(k).

So let's talk about the politics. Three different lawmakers on this morning, Ron. All of them had a different assessment and the probability of actually getting a big budget deal done. But John McCain, just this hour, said something interesting. He said more than once that he does not think there will be another government shutdown. He thinks that's --

BROWNSTEIN: I think he's right on that. I think - I think the use of this tool and the threat of default has been delegitimized, which was the White House's highest goal. And so Republicans really got nothing out of this except lower approval ratings. Look, a big deal, a grand bargain, faces the same hurdle it's always faced. For President Obama the price of restraints on entitlements is more revenue through entrenching (ph) tax breaks and Republicans have been unwilling to do that.

But there is one change in the dynamic that might allow a somewhat smaller deal, which is that Democrats might have an incentive to accept some entitlement cuts as a way of loosening those across the board spending reductions in discretionary programs known as the sequester. So you could imagine a mid-sized deal with the grand bargain still elusive.

BOLDUAN: That should be good news -

ROMANS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: To everyone that's watching this.

ROMANS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: What could - what do you see a deal looking like?

ROMANS: Well, if you could loosen the grip of the sequester and you could realize in Washington that you can't - you can't shut down spending too much in the very near term, but you have to address your longer term debt and deficits. If they can get that balance right, it would be very good for job creation. It would be very good for the markets. It would be very good for the economy. But Congress has proven they can't get that fine balancing act, and that's - that's the only (ph) problem here that it's lacking.

BROWNSTEIN: This vote shows a pathway to agreements on some other issues, like the debt -

BOLDUAN: How?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, there were 87 House Republicans who voted for this. That was the exact same number that voted for the Violence Against Women Act. This was -

BOLDUAN: OK.

BROWNSTEIN: Again, one of these votes that majority of Republicans voted and my colleague Scott Glenn (ph) crunched some of the numbers this morning. Of the 50 Republicans in districts where Obama ran best, 34 of them voted for the deal. Of the 50 Republicans in the districts where he ran worst, 40 voted against the deal. So you could imagine a kind of coalition of the willing on issues like a debt deal, potentially immigration, but, again, it requires John Boehner to be willing to pass a bill that violates the Hastert Rule, that a majority of Republicans oppose.

The venn diagrams, Kate, just don't overlap.

ROMANS: They don't.

BROWNSTEIN: There is not - there is not -- on these big issues, there are not solutions that a majority of House Republicans would support that would also pass the Senate and get a signature from the president. So the key, I think, on all these questions is, how many times can Boehner go to the well and pass a bill that a majority of Republicans oppose?

BOLDUAN: That is a very good question.

You're in town not only to cover this mess, but also you're talking to many business leaders.

ROMANS: Oh, yes.

BOLDUAN: What has their reaction been yesterday about this?

ROMANS: Look, so I was at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Conference. I'm talking to the most powerful, successful businesswomen in the world, right, and they basically say none of these people would be able to work in their companies because they can't get something done, they can't think longer term, they can't make investments in the near term for the long term. They're worried about what this means for their own macro-economic environment for, you know, the economic growth overall. I mean they're frustrated. They're as frustrated as everyone else who's watching it.

BOLDUAN: And it's fascinating because these often -- these business leaders tend to be more Republican.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Right. Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: Right.

BROWNSTEIN: And, you know, the Chamber of Commerce has really poured tens of millions of dollars into electing this Congress and has yet expressed enormous frustration over their behavior. It does appear there's the possibility of more of a fissure. You're talking more business leaders talk about supporting more -- not necessarily moderate, but more pragmatic Republicans -

ROMANS: Traditional - traditional Republicans, pro-business (ph) candidates.

BROWNSTEIN: More -- accept the reality that we are a divided country and one branch of Congress is simply not going to be able to impose its will on a Senate and a presidency of the other party.

ROMANS: In my -- in my career, I've not heard so many people ask the question, is the GOP still the party of business? You know, that's the question you get. And it is.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

ROMANS: It is because they want low regulation, low taxes, and all these things that are the platform.

BROWNSTEIN: Right. Right.

ROMANS: But you've never heard that question asked before.

BROWNSTEIN: But you now have a big populist electoral based that is much less business friendly -

ROMANS: That's right.

BROWNSTEIN: That is much more confrontational -

ROMANS: That's right.

BROWNSTEIN: And is making life much more difficult for those guys writing the checks in the - in the - you know, in the c (ph) suites (ph).

BOLDUAN: But at least for today, the government's open -

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BOLDUAN: And we've averted another crisis.

BROWNSTEIN: Right.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk tomorrow.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

ROMANS: Congratulations, Congress, you did your job.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

ROMANS: For one day.

BROWNSTEIN: I don't think they will -- I do not think they will do this again.

BOLDUAN: I'm going to keep, as I already told John McCain.

BROWNSTEIN: All right.

BOLDUAN: Ron Brownstein, Christine Romans, thank you very much.

ROMANS: Indeed.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: All right, coming up next on NEW DAY, we're talking with our very own Piers Morgan about the new government deal. He was up until, like, 2:00 in the morning and he's up again now. My goodness.

PIERS MORGAN, HOST, CNN'S "PIERS MORGAN LIVE": Good morning. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: It was only a temporary fix, as you know, so what does Piers think about the upcoming showdown that we could be looking at again. And, of course, we've got to talk to him about his new book.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY. It is time for the five things you need to know for your new day.

President Obama speaking just after 10:30 this morning about the deal he signed to reopen the government and extend the debt ceiling. Furloughed workers are back on the job today. The prosecutor who dropped sexual assault charges against a Missouri teen is now calling for an independent review of the case. The alleged victim says she was raped by a prominent high school football star at just 14 years of age.

Opening statements beginning this morning in the trial of a Utah doctor accused of murdering his wife. Prosecutors say Martin MacNeill gave his wife a fatal dose of drugs so he could continue with an affair.

A record 9.5 million people in California will take part in a statewide earthquake drill today called "the great shake-out." Schools, businesses and the like will make sure they are prepared for a large quake.

And at number five, the final hurdle for the sale of recreational marijuana in the state of Washington has cleared. State authorities Wednesday approved rules for production and retail sales.

You know, Chris, we always update those five things to know -

CUOMO: Do we?

PEREIRA: So be sure to stay on top of it by going to newdaycnn.com -

CUOMO: What was that?

PEREIRA: For the very latest. Newdaycnn.com.

CUOMO: Thank you very much.

PEREIRA: I'm just showing off now.

CUOMO: If you haven't been here this morning, you wouldn't know that the government is back open. The debt ceiling has been increased. But the problem is, the ominous specter of facing another showdown in just a few months. So what happens then? Let's get some perspective. We bring in our friend, our man, our mentor, Mr. Piers Morgan, host of "Piers Morgan Live," and the author of -- if I only had a copy of the book. Oh, here it is.

PEREIRA: Oh, wait, you do.

CUOMO: "Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God and George Clooney."

PEREIRA: We'll ask him about that last part. Don't worry, ladies.

CUOMO: There he is right there.

So, you have characteristically, one, stepped up and come here this morning after a late night. Thank you very much, sir.

PIERS MORGAN, HOST, CNN'S "PIERS MORGAN LIVE": Oh, leaving this building at 1:30 a.m., this is dedication.

CUOMO: Thank you very much.

PEREIRA: Because you're a terrific broadcaster. That's right.

CUOMO: More reason for your celebration. And I'm at the front of the parade. And I ask you this. You have been aggressive in dealing with why this should have never happened.

MORGAN: Yes.

CUOMO: As they pat themselves on the back this morning and say, see, we did it, what message do you think should loom large?

MORGAN: Get back to damn work. Do your jobs. The idea that millions of Americans, not just the furloughed Americans, because they're likely to get their money back, what about the millions of Americans, the bar workers who work near the Statue of Liberty who have lost money for two weeks that they will never get back? What about the pain to all those families?

I think it's been a complete outrage. And I'm not sure that Washington realizes how the rest of the world looks at this. In the old days, it didn't matter, America was the great superpower. There was no rival. So a few little squabbles in Washington, shutdowns and so on, it didn't matter.

Now it's a very different global plane. Now you've got China, you've got Brazil, you've got India -- you've got other great emerging powers. They look at this and sense opportunity. They sense blood. And this is not a good time for the American politicians to be playing around with the economy.

PEREIRA: Well the fact is, so we've, you know, avoided this catastrophe now. But we've really only just delayed it until January.

MORGAN: We all know what's happened.

PEREIRA: Exactly. MORGAN: Look, look exactly the same debate's coming down. And in the end quite a few of the more experienced politicians in D.C. have said to me, like John McCain and others, the way that we're doing business is not the way we used to do business. It used to be far more bipartisan. Far more meet for dinner, have a drink, try and get stuff done.

Bill Clinton told me in an interview a couple weeks ago what he used to do was throw everybody out of the room. And get Newt Gingrich and say, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Get stuff done.

What I'm not seeing at the moment is that kind of relationship between President Obama, Speaker Boehner and the others. Look at Senator Cruz who this is not an accident. This guy planned it. He's a very smart guy. Alan Dershowitz came on my show a couple of months ago and said he was -- that Cruz was one of the most brilliant students he'd ever had at Harvard. So this guy had a game plan. His game plan I suspect is to run the Republican Party.

So they're going to have a real battle on their hands. And that could be again we come to January, we come to February, to the new row of the shutdown and debt ceiling. You watch Senator Cruz. He's going to stir this up again and again and again to see how far he can get.

CUOMO: Well Kate, you know you're down there in D.C. You heard the Speaker say that we did fight the, quote, "good fight." Right?

BOLDUAN: Yes. Well and they say, you know, that good policy is good politics. They're standing on principle. That's what they truly believe. And they are answering -- a lot of these guys ran on this. You know that's the one thing that we don't talk about very often is this isn't a surprise. A lot of people who are standing firm, this is what they ran on. This is what voters put them into office for.

I do wonder, though Piers, as you've covered this on the show day in and day out. Have you gotten a sense that anyone's really changing positions? You know everyone likes to think that we have lessons learned here. I'm not sure that's true.

MORGAN: I don't think there's been a single lesson learned by anybody. There never is. This is the 17th government shutdown. There'll be another 18th, perhaps, in January. And you know apart from my personal joy the panda cam is back up and running, which I think we're all excited about.

BOLDUAN: Thank goodness.

MORGAN: So we can now all look at that cute little panda again. And you know this is a serious business. When you muck around with the American economy, they estimate now that $24 billion has already been lost in the last two weeks. This is a ridiculous time.

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: So Piers which is better the U.S. parliament or the British parliament or U.S. Congress? MORGAN: Well we don't have these shutdowns. What we have is we had as you know, we get into these big houses of parliament and they scream at each other until they get stuff done. It can take days.

CUOMO: She said the U.S. parliament. That is how they're acting down there.

MORGAN: I actually think personally we should bring back the king and queen. It's all been downhill since the 18th century.

PEREIRA: So many more things to discuss including that last comment with Piers Morgan. We want to get to the book -- "Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God and my question George Clooney."

MORGAN: Oh yes. George.

PEREIRA: More after the break with Piers.

Wait let me read that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: What? He said what? He did what with what?

PEREIRA: And then --

CUOMO: Down, so I walk into this party last night at the Carlisle Hotel. And everybody is beautiful and powerful. And in the middle of this thing --

PEREIRA: There's a glow.

CUOMO: There is a glow. And there are laughs. And there is adoration. And there is -- dot, dot, dot -- Piers Morgan. Author of new book "Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God and George Clooney." Soft "g" on the last. It's great to have you. This reads like a diary.

MORGAN: It is a diary.

CUOMO: What was the motivation?

MORGAN: Well it is a diary. It's based around the three and a half years I've been at CNN and maybe because it's such a tumultuous period for news. I mean I came on a week before Gabby Giffords was shot in the head. And the guns debate is the main narrative of the diaries.

But there's also all that Arab spring -- Bin Laden's death. Gadhafi's death; the Japanese earthquake, the financial crises, the terrible shooting outrages in Aurora and Sandy Hook -- it's been a very tumultuous period, I think, for American life and society with all these things going on. I thought what a good way to do it but to do it in a way that other people can read it and place themselves back where they were when these things happened.

But the main thing in it is the guns debate. And you know, we've discussed this before on this show. And I'll keep discussing it. That you know I had three families at the party last night which I wanted to have -- one, the Parker family from Sandy Hook, Sandy Phillips from Aurora, and a couple called Pam and Kenny Ross from Dunblaine (ph), Scotland. And they all lost their daughters to these mass outrages.

And my little girl, she's nearly two now. I looked at them and I looked at her and I thought these are the people that lost their daughters in the bloom of their life. And the answer to these outrages cannot be nothing.

You cannot be a great power, great country like America, and simply say, we're going to keep having 100,000 Americans hit by gunfire a year. We're going to have 18,000 Americans who kill themselves with guns a year. And 12,000 Americans murdered with guns a year. You can't just keep going like that.

PEREIRA: Interesting that in looking at this book, I realize sort of you became this advocate for gun control. You also have found yourself in the seat as you just mentioned a breaking news guy. You're not -- news is not new to you. But the idea of being the face of breaking news is very much. Was that a thing you were comfortable with? It's what we do.

MORGAN: Well, it was a strange -- I think it was a strange thing for the American viewers to come to terms with. I'm used to judging piano playing pigs on "America's Got Talent".

PEREIRA: They're very important.

CUOMO: Which is not that different.

MORGAN: -- which is not that different. Or "Celebrity Apprentice" with Donald Trump. And obviously back in Britain I worked in Fleet Street, the newspaper industry for over 20 years. I actually ran one of the biggest selling daily newspapers for ten years. I was running that paper for 9/11, Princess Diana's death, the Iraq War and so on. I actually had a lot of news experience.

PEREIRA: Sure.

MORGAN: No one in America knew that.

PEREIRA: Right.

MORGAN: I think going back on to television and doing it in that way, it's a different skill.

PEREIRA: Different medium.

CUOMO: It's what Chris has done a long time. I was thrust right into the maelstrom of it. I remember after about two weeks of doing nice interviews with Oprah and George Clooney --

PEREIRA: She said it was one of the toughest interviews, by the way. MORGAN: She did. And she was terrific to me. After that suddenly it was the Arab spring. We were going live every night. But it was enthralling. And you know, CNN is such an amazing global brand. We all know that. It airs in 200 places around the world. The influence that you can have from that platform is really second to none. So it's been quite a ride.

PEREIRA: Can we get to the pressing George Clooney question?

MORGAN: Yes?

CUOMO: You got to read the book.

PEREIRA: I have to read the book -- the tease.

CUOMO: Piers Morgan, thank you for coming on. "Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God and George Clooney". Of course, you can watch Piers tonight, every night, CNN 9:00 p.m. every night over the week.

We're going to take a quick break. Next book should be how to do an interview.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: While Cuomo is busy reading, we'll toss it over to Carol. Take it away. Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I will do just that. Hey, can I get a copy, too?

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Thank you.

CUOMO: Not this one. Not this one.

COSTELLO: All right.

PEREIRA: Not a sharer.

COSTELLO: Have a great day. Thank you so much.

"NEWSROOM" starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Your government fully open again. Your Congress slightly less dysfunctional than when you went to sleep.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The motion is adopted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Just before the bewitching hour of midnight, lawmakers voted to avert a debt crisis and end the shutdown but any relief is tempered by reality. We will soon be doing this all over again. Before we get to that, first though -- for the first time we're seeing video of the horror in Kenya when terrorists stormed an up-scale mall and ruthlessly slaughtered dozens of people.

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