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Democrats on Edge About Obamacare; Chris Christie Most Talked About 2016 Republican Candidate; Autism And A Baby's Gaze; Undercover Detective Resigns

Aired November 07, 2013 - 08:00   ET

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


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN HOST: A stunning meteor shower over the West Coast the same day scientists reveal the risk of meteors hitting Earth is greater than previously thought. Neil deGrasse Tyson joining us live this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your NEW DAY continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: What you need to know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing I can conclude is that it's impossible to do something in this administration that gets you fired.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you just have to see.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is "NEW DAY" with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome back to "NEW DAY". It's Thursday, November 7th, 8 o'clock now in the east.

New this morning, a break in the ranks over Obamacare. The website still broken.

It is getting worse? We'll tell you the cause for that concern. Even Democrats on edge loudly complaining about it, concerned Obamacare will hurt them at the polls. And now we have the first head to roll for the roll-out fiasco. Who is it and why?

CNN's Brianna Keilar is following it all for us from the White House.

So what's the answer to the question, Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, it's the chief information officer for the website, really the agency that's in charge of running the website, which has obviously been the most visually troubled part of Obamacare during this roll-out.

But we also saw really tough questions for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius yesterday on Capitol Hill. She conceded that the early enrollment numbers are going to be very low. She said there are a couple hundred problems with the website that have been identified that workers are trying to hammer out. And she was also questioned a lot about security, both of the website and of Obamacare in general. These questions obviously coming from Republicans, but Democrats as well. They're very concerned.

And President Obama, before heading to Texas yesterday, actually invited 15 Senate Democrats over to the White House to address their concerns. We know at least one of them urged him to push that deadline for signing up for insurance back and also pressed him about questions on security -- Chris and Kate.

CUOMO: All right. Well, so let's talk about the security.

What was actually the allegation?

What came out in the testimony? Because that's going to matter to people. That's not just timing and efficiency.

KEILAR: Yes, that's right. One of the concerns is about problems in the actual website, that there is, I guess, a deficiency where, if you put in your personal information, and obviously health information is very sensitive, that that could be compromised.

One of the other, I think, eyebrow-raising points in this hearing was when a Republican asked the secretary about the navigators, these so- called navigators, who are people that help Americans enroll in Obamacare, asked if it was possible that a convicted felon could be a navigator and gain access to this personal information.

She conceded that it was, but she said contractors are in charge of screening and training those navigators, trying to assure the folks in the hearing that that's unlikely to happen.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Brianna, thanks so much for that.

Now, Chris Christie flying high this morning, but he might need to keep an eye over his shoulder after handily winning re-election as New Jersey's governor, he is now the most talked-about potential 2016 candidate in the Republican field.

So why do some members of his own party now seem to be taking him on? Deborah Feyerick has more on that.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Of all the races in all the states, there was arguably only one that had political pundits pondering the viability of one possible presidential nominee.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris Christie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Chris Christie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chris Christie.

FEYERICK (voice-over): New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a leading 2016 Republican contender, despite his repeated denials that he's even in the race. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody's talking about you running for president. The question is how do you keep that from becoming a major distraction over the next couple of years?

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), N.J.: Yes, I don't get distracted very easily. It takes a lot to distract me. And I think the way it won't be a distraction is I just simply won't let it.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Yet coming off his landslide victory in which he won a majority of votes among women, Latinos, Republicans, conservatives and Tea Party voters, the now-seasoned governor certainly sounded like a man looking to the future.

CHRISTIE: I think every day that you do a job like this one makes you a better executive, whether that would apply to me being a better president or not, I just don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, good luck.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Christie's broad appeal earned him praise from outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent.

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: The lesson for this whole country, whether it was Christie or McAuliffe, both of them were centralists. They could work across the aisle.

FEYERICK (voice-over): But not everyone is ready to embrace him as the face of the GOP. Tea Party favorite Rand Paul seemed to take a swipe at him for spending federal dollars on these Superstorm Sandy ads.

CHRISTIE: We're stronger than the storm and open for everyone.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KY: People running for office put their mug all over these ads while they're in the middle of a political campaign. That's just offensive.

FEYERICK (voice-over): As if to get ahead of other possible Republican competitors like Senator Marco Rubio, Christie made sure to emphasize his victory in Rubio's crucial voting bloc.

CHRISTIE: We won the Latino vote last night. Now, find another Republican in America who's won the Latino vote recently.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Rubio congratulating his fellow Republican but making clear New Jersey is not the nation.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLA.: We need to understand that some of these races don't apply to future races. Every race is different. It has a different set of factors.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: All right. Deborah, thank you so much for that. Michaela's got all the other news.

PEREIRA: Yes, let's take a look at these headlines in this hour, Twitter set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange. This morning the price $26 a share for its initial public offering, meaning Twitter is worth $18 billion despite never turning a profit in its seven years of existence. It is the most anticipated IPO since Facebook's debut last year.

CNN has been investigating the death of a Georgia high school student who was found rolled up in a gym mat. New surveillance video leads to only more questions.

Kendrick Johnson is seen in the very gym where he later died. Another more blurry angle shows the lights out in a gym, but a mysterious person can be seen walking towards the mat where Johnson's body was ultimately found. Johnson's family believes someone is covering up foul play in the teen's death.

The scene of the carnage at Fort Hood, Texas, will be torn down. A base spokesman says the building where a former Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan killed 13 people back in 2009 is slated for the wrecking ball. The Fort Hood massacre is the worst mass shooting ever at a U.S. military installation. Hasan was convicted back in August and sentenced to death.

We're getting a closer look now at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Reporters were taken inside that complex for the first time and allowed to see some of the damage from the meltdown more than two years ago. Plant operators now plan to remove the fuel rods from the worst damaged reactor.

Want to tell you to tune into CNN tonight at 9:00 pm Eastern for the film "Pandora's Promise," it's about the controversies around nuclear power. That is 9:00 pm Eastern, right here on CNN.

Obamacare not getting any love at the Country Music Awards. Show hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood turned the website's troubles into a bit of a punch line. Take a look.

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PEREIRA: (INAUDIBLE) funny. They also pretended to sign up for the site, saying it made their computer start to smoke. A little fun at the Country Music Awards. And I made myself a bet. Will we or will we not mention the Country Music Awards because I wanted to stay up late (INAUDIBLE) but I couldn't because of my bedtime and we did. (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: You got a little taste of it.

PEREIRA: I did. A little taste. BOLDUAN: Let's get a check now of the weather with Karen Maginnis, in for Indra Petersons this morning.

Hi, Karen.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning to you, everyone, as we take a look at what's happening weather wise. Some delays expected because of the frontal system sweeping across the Eastern Seaboard.

Already we're adding another city, and that is Newark, affected by the low visibility and what will be a very gusty afternoon. Fast-moving weather system not expected to produce much in the way of wet weather, at least in those coastal areas. Interior sections, the rainfall is going to be adding up to a little bit more than that, maybe on the order of an inch or so.

But as I mentioned, this is fairly fast moving. And behind it, a lot of that cold air filtering in. And that cold air dipping all the way across the Southeast. We've seen 20-degree temperatures across the Midwest.

Also, I mentioned not a lot of wet weather associated with this from Washington, D.C., to New York to Boston.

But as you go back towards the Adirondacks and into the Finger Lakes, you might expect some snowfall. Eastern Great Lakes region, snow effect expected there as well and into the upper Great Lakes. Now, when I come back in about 30 minutes, we'll tell you about the super typhoon and what's headed towards the Philippines.

Back to you guys.

BOLDUAN: All right, Karen, thank you for that.

CUOMO: Coming up on NEW DAY, a promising breakthrough in the early detection of autism. The key may be right before your eyes. We have the important details for you.

BOLDUAN: Plus, bullying or best friend? We're hearing for the first time from some Miami Dolphins players about that scandal that's engulfed the team and the NFL. A live report just ahead.

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BOLDUAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY. Best friends or a bully and his victim? The teammates of Dolphins players Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin now say the two were actually very close, even though Martin has accused Incognito of harassing him.

Well, now the NFL is stepping in to investigate as the team's quarterback weighs in. CNN's John Zarrella is at the stadium in Miami Gardens with much more on this.

Good morning, John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kate, that's right, the NFL announcing that Ted Wells, a prominent attorney, has been assigned as the special counsel to investigate what went on in Miami.

And meantime, as you said, the story now gets stranger and stranger by the minute as Dolphin players, one after another, saying these guys weren't enemies. They were best friends.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZARRELLA (voice-over): Dolphins head coach, Joe Philbin, surrounded by more media than any 4-4 team usually gets, defended his team.

JOE PHILBIN, HEAD COACH, MIAMI DOLPHINS: I have full faith and confidence that we will stick together as a team.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): But Philbin refused to address whether he or any of his coaches instructed Richie Incognito to toughen up another player, Jonathan Martin. When asked, did Martin need toughening up --

PHILBIN: Jonathan Martin came in here and worked hard every single day.

ZARRELLA (voice-over): The storm swirling around the Dolphins is getting worse by the day. It began over allegations offensive lineman Incognito bullied Martin, another lineman, so badly he left the team.

Now a report that at least one coach told Incognito, the anointed leader of the offensive line, to get Martin toughened up. While Philbin had little to say, his players had plenty and it was startling. Incognito wasn't a bully, they said, but a best friend, like big brother-little brother.

RYAN TANNEHILL, QB, MIAMI DOLPHINS: I think if you would ask Jon Martin a week before who his best friend on the team was, he would have said Richie Incognito. The first guy to stand up for Jonathan when anything went down on the field, any kind of tussle, Richie was the first guy there.

TYSON CLABO, DEFENSIVE TACKLE, MIAMI DOLPHINS: If there was a problem, Jonathan Martin didn't show it. And I've been here long enough to know that off the field, that those two guys were thick as thieves and that they went out together and they hung out together. They did a lot of stuff together. So if he had a problem with the way that guy was treating him, he had a funny way of showing it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know they're good friends, best friends.

ZARRELLA: The players all insisted they had no idea Martin was about to leave the team and no idea there was any problem between Incognito and Martin.

BRIAN HARTLINE, WIDE RECEIVER, MIAMI DOLPHINS: People that can hurt you the most in this world are the people that are closest to you. And when you mistake one for the other, that's when you find problems.

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ZARRELLA (on-camera): Now, ESPN has been reporting that Martin was briefly hospitalized here in Miami for emotional distress after all of this went down. But now, he is reportedly back in L.A. -- Chris.

CUOMO: What he says to fill in the facts in this situation, very important. We take bullying seriously, but we needed facts here as well. John, thank you for the reporting. Moving the story forward.

ZARRELLA: Sure.

CUOMO: Now, we want to talk to you about a promising new study on autism. Scientists say they've detected signs of the condition earlier than ever before. Senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is at the CNN Center. Now, Elizabeth, let's just get to the bare bones here. What are the signs? How early have they been detected?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, in this study, Chris, they detected it really early at just 2 months old. And the way they did it, Chris, was absolutely fascinating. So they had these little babies. Watch a video of an actress kind of playing a mommy figure. And then they tracked how closely the babies watched the actress' eyes. Now, what you would expect is that over time, a baby would get better and better at doing that as the baby got older.

But there was a set of kids within this group that didn't get so much better at it. They weren't getting better at it the same way the other children were, and those children who didn't get better at it, they were much more likely to develop autism. So being able to detect this at two months versus at, say, 18 months or a year or two years, which is often when autism is diagnosed, that's a big difference.

CUOMO: All right. Now, you know what we're doing right now, Elizabeth. Parents all across the country are going to start looking at their kids and kids do lots of weird things. Parents are all paranoid. What should you be looking for? Should you be looking at all, if you see something that is so obviously this, what should you do?

COHEN: I know, Chris. I have four of them, so I know that babies, you know, babies do weird things sometimes. First of all, you can't detect these subtle little eye movement differences like they did in the study at the Marcus Autism Center. They used all this technology. A parent couldn't figure it out. But, having said that, if you as a parent feel that your baby or toddler is just not responding in ways that you would expect, go talk to your pediatrician.

And if your pediatrician says don't worry about it and you're still worried, if it seems unusual for you, it is worth pushing it and saying, look, I'm the mom or I'm the dad. Something feels not right to me. The earlier autism is diagnosed, the better.

CUOMO: Hey, there's definitely something in mother's intuition, but I think the takeaway here is you are not going to see it the way they see it over time in the study. Always just go to your doctor before you panic about what you --

COHEN: Exactly. That's right, Chris. CUOMO: But it is an interesting breakthrough because the spectrum gets broader and boarder all the time with the autism. And the more early detection, the better they can help those kids along.

COHEN: Exactly.

CUOMO: Thank you very much. Appreciate the reporting.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on "NEW DAY", a detective accused of botching an undercover investigation, get this, by falling for the man she was trying to bust. Now, she has found herself in a whole lot of hot water. How bad could it be? We'll tell you.

CUOMO: Plus, remember the meteor that exploded over Russia earlier this year? You know, was that just space's idea of a warning shot? We have an expert who says the big one could actually be coming.

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PEREIRA: Welcome back. It's time for the five things to know for your NEW DAY. We start at number one.

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PEREIRA (voice-over): Another grilling on Capitol Hill today for Kathleen Sebelius. The HHS secretary says the Obamacare website still needs hundreds of fixes, and now, there may be security risks.

It's come a long way in 140 characters. Twitter making its public stock debut today. It will start trading on the New York stock exchange, priced at $26 a share for the initial public offering.

We're getting our first listen to 911 calls made from inside the Garden State Plaza Mall during Monday's shooting. Shoppers and workers clearly shaken, telling operators they were scared to death and just wanted to leave.

Number four, the barge mystery of San Francisco, Portland, Maine, solved! They belong to Google. The company says they are interactive spaces where people can learn about their technology.

And at number five, what a comeback. Seven months after that gruesome leg injury, Louisville's Kevin Ware was back on the basketball court last night, and he got a standing ovation, well deserved. Promptly hit a three-pointer helping the Cardinals to an exhibition win over Pikeville. Congratulations, Kevin. Way to go.

Always update those five things to know, so be sure to go to NEWDAYCNN.com for the very latest -- Kate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Michaela.

A shocking story for you now that really reads like a movie script. An Arizona cop now stands accused of having an affair with a drug dealer and blowing her own cover and putting her colleagues in danger. Well, she has now resigned and even could face charges. Stephanie Elam is live in Los Angeles with the latest on this. My goodness, Stephanie.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I know, Kate. And what's even more bizarre is the police believe that she outed herself on purpose.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM (voice-over): It sounds like something out of a made-for-TV movie, an undercover detective sleeping with a suspected drug dealer. That's allegedly what former Tempe, Arizona police detective, Jessica Dever-Jakusz, did. Seen here in a European reality show called "Trading Places" where she swapped jobs with a Swiss officer, Dever- Jakusz's behavior compromised a five-month investigation, police say.

HARRY HOUCK, RETIRED NYPD DETECTIVE: Well, of course, it's shocking. She crossed that blue line. You know, once you become a police officer, you cannot cross that blue line, all right? If you do, you're in jeopardy.

ELAM: Dever-Jakusz began investigating her alleged drug-dealing lover in June. Soon after that, the police report claims Dever-Jakusz began sleeping with the suspect. And eventually, the pillow talk turned to confession, police say. She not only told him that she was a cop but that he was the subject of her investigation and she also allegedly outed some other undercover officers.

HOUCK: She put other officers' lives in danger as a result of her actions. All right? These police officers, you know, could have been killed.

ELAM: In October, Tempe police got an anonymous tip about Dever- Jakusz intimate relationship with the suspected drug dealer who according to the report showed police numerous sexually explicit text messages he swapped with her. When approached by police about the investigation into her activities, Dever-Jakusz who is married, chose not to speak and was placed on administrative leave.

Just over a week later, she resigned, ending her 14-year tenure with the Tempe Police Department. In an internal memo, Tempe police chief, Tom Ryff, confirmed that Dever-Jakusz voluntarily resigned for personal reasons, writing, "Additionally, I can confirm that an active criminal investigation related to the crime of hindering prosecution was undertaken based upon evidence discovered."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ELAM (on-camera): Now, the case is in the hands of the Maricopa County attorney who will decide if any charges will be filed against her. I should also note, Kate and Chris, that we did try to reach her for comment to no avail.

BOLDUAN: All right. Thank you so much, Stephanie, for that.

CUOMO: Let's take a little break here. When we come back on NEW DAY, the meteor that exploded in Russia back in February, now, streaks in the sky all over L.A. Is it a cosmic warning sign? Good news. We've got somebody who knows the answer. Neil deGrasse Tyson will join us on the show. BOLDUAN: Plus, you know the name Zuckerberg, of course. Well, now, the famous sister of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is joining us to talk about what it means to be dot complicated. Interesting conversation coming up.

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