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New Day

Seahawks Defeat Broncos; Missing Hospital Patient Report; Drug Cases Compromised?; Woody Allen Abuse Claims; Christie's Office Slams Accuser; Super Game, Not So Super Ads?; "Jeopardy" Controversy

Aired February 03, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY. Let's take a look at the stories making news. We start with the Seattle Seahawks and their legion of boom defense dismantling the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. Final score, 43-8. Denver's Peyton Manning, I think it's fair to say he was manhandled, throwing two costly first half interceptions to send the Seahawks to one of the most lopsided wins in Super Bowl history.

A state investigation says errors were made at the San Francisco hospital where a woman disappeared last fall. The 57-year-old Lynn Spaulding was found dead weeks later in a hospital stairwell. The report says staff ignored a doctor's order to, quote, "Never leave the patient unintended." Spaulding was suffering from an infection and she was disoriented at the time. The report also cites errors by the San Francisco Sheriff's Department.

Developing this morning, growing concerns that thousands of criminal cases in Florida could be compromised all because the law enforcement chemist who allegedly stole drugs from an evidence room over a seven- year period. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirms the suspended unnamed chemist is linked to over 2,600 cases since 2006 and in many of those cases drugs that were confiscated as evidence have simply vanished replaced by over-the-counter medications.

Woody Allen responding to renewed claims that he molested his adopted daughter, Dilan Farrow. Allen calls accusations, quote, "untrue and disgraceful." Farrow wrote an open letter in the "New York Times" over the weekend saying the abuse started when she was 7 years old. Allen was investigated back in 1992, but was never charged.

Reporters used to getting pushback when covering a story in the field, but pushback turned into pull over Friday night when a woman -- Friday rather when a woman in Tampa, Florida, stole a news vehicle.

<07:35:13>

Yes, she just drove off with it. The reporter for CNN affiliate, WWSB, was investigating an alleged rental property scam. But when he refused a neighbor's demand that he move his car, she got in it, and moved it for him. Just got in it, drove away, bye-bye.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, she's not going to have the last word on that one.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It's a precarious situation where she's now going to be dependent on the media having a big heart because that was a crime.

PEREIRA: Yes, it was.

BOLDUAN: All right, it's time now for our political gut check of the morning. Chris Christie firing back at his former ally, insisting again that he had no knowledge of a politically motivated traffic jam, this after the Port Authority official who set in motion the bridge closure suggests evidence exists the New Jersey governor did know.

Joining us now to discuss, CNN's chief national correspondent, John King and adding to his resume, host of "INSIDE POLITICS," which airs Sunday mornings. Good morning, John.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And I'll steal your car if you want me to.

BOLDUAN: It's happened before. We've been in that garage together. So what do you make of this latest round? I would argue substantively this doesn't really move -- this is not a smoking gun. This doesn't move this forward much.

KING: Not much but it's very important what has happened. Number one, to your point about David Wildstein's letter, he says he can prove the governor is not telling the truth. He hasn't proven the governor hasn't told the truth and he hasn't produced the documents his lawyer now says he has. David Wildstein has reason to show (inaudible) against the governor. The governor kind of trashed him in that marathon press conference.

David Wildstein wants immunity from prosecution. He wants the government, meaning the Port Authority, to pay his legal fees. So we have to be -- big question marks here about David Wildstein, but the governor's response, first it was a lawyerly he's not telling the truth, then this very pugilistic e-mail to supporters where they question his behavior back to high school.

They say he's been a radical his life. That sends a signal saying to others involved in the investigation. If you turn on the governor, watch out. A lot of people are kind of leaning back with that tactic, saying, was it the right tactic. I used to cover Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas running for president.

If you criticized him and a lot of people did, they were tough back at you, the Clinton machine. He did the same thing to Ken Star and the Republicans when he was being impeached. So it's not a new tactic, but it raises some significant stakes as we go forward in what is a big week in this investigation.

The legislative committee is expecting to get documents starting today from all the aides that have been subpoenaed, the governor's campaign, the governor's office. what do those documents tell us and remember, David Wildstein did not act alone. The governor's deputy of chief of staff who has since had to quit, Brigitte Kelly, she was communicating with him.

And the governor's campaign manager allegedly was in some communication with him. Bill Stepian is his name. The governor has pushed him aside, but he's taking the fifth now. So what does this tell us, an aggressive investigation and an aggressive political response and this is probably going to drag on for a long time.

CUOMO: The main question of the type of people that the governor put around him, what does it say about his judgment, is going to be in focus no matter what the investigation reveals, I think. But do you think, John, that the tactic that you're referring to is somewhat explained by the fact that he is fighting for his life.

And the media has been given tremendous credibility without necessarily backed up proof from the mayor of Hoboken and now from Wildstein who has every reason to be incredible on these issues, right? Whenever you're suspected yourself, it reduces your level of credibility. So does that give us a little context for why they are pushing back so hard in this type of blood sport?

KING: Absolutely. Both at the state and the national level. Look, national Democrats, remember, if we're having this conversation a month ago, Chris Christie is the only guy who is running closed to Hillary Clinton when you list a dozen or so potential 2016 Republican candidates. National Democrats see an opportunity to knock down the guy who after his big re-election victory was the new face, the new brand of the Republican Party.

They see a chance to put him out of the 2016 race. So Chris Christie is sending a message not only to David Wildstein and his critics within the borders of New Jersey, he's sending a message to national democrats, fine, I don't want this fight, I didn't start this fight, but you want to have a fight, let's have this fight.

Again, thought, the dangerous part for the governor is if perception can become reality in politics. If one of the questions here is, is he a bully, does he push too hard, the question is, what's the risk? But they have decided clearly in Team Christie, that this is a risk they needed to take to fight back here.

I will say, one more thing, in Washington over the last several days, a lot of people were saying give this guy a couple months, give him some slack. There's all of a sudden a sense here in Washington that this is going to go for a really long time and that maybe even if he is telling the truth and even he comes out of it clean, it's going to cost him valuable time and hurt him perception wise.

BOLDUAN: It will leave a mark. All right, John, thank you very much.

KING: Thank you.

CUOMO: Coming up on NEW DAY, you know, we've heard about the prices for these Super Bowl commercials, $4 million for 30 seconds. So the question is, did they get their money's worth? We're going to take a look at some of the commercials and how long the impression they made, the identify with the product? We'll see which ones worked from the experts.

<07:40:08>

BOLDUAN: And he's the latest sensation on "Jeopardy," winning three shows in a row so why are viewers so angry about the way this champion is playing the game?

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He says when something's good, why change it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Exactly. What if you were to try something different? Yes, it's Mr. Butterfinger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, what do you want to do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a whole new way to love peanutbutter and chocolate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: That was naughty.

PEREIRA: That was naughty. Butterfinger's eyebrow raising ad that ran last night during the Super Bowl. Sure, people watch the game, but come on. We all know that all of us are tuning in just for the commercials, right? So were they worth the hype and the steep price tag?

We bring in Peter Shankman, branding and social media consultant as well as Barbara Lippert who is ad critic with "Media Post." Good to have you both with us to talk about this. Let's talk about the real ad winners. Who do you think came away feeling like we scored one last night?

PETER SHANKMAN, BRANDING AND SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT: I think Maserati definitely had a nice hit. Wow, they're back! That was really impressive.

PEREIRA: I love that little girl.

SHANKMAN: Radio shack, my God, that made he so happy. I was so a geek growing up. I was at that store all the time. How do you improve on a store that has "radio" in its name? You rebrand and poke funny at yourself by bringing in Hulk Hogan and Mary Lou Retin and I thought that was phenomenal.

BARBARA LIPPERT, AD CRITIC, "MEDIAPOST.COM": I like the self- deprecating Tim Tebow ad. I think people like when you make fun of yourself and you're making fun of this huge production and the money it costs because everyone is so aware of it. PEREIRA: We want to talk, too, about the online and Twitter and social media component as well just the ads running realtime. Esurance literally trended all night. That was a pretty big success, was it not?

<07:45:14>

LIPPERT: It was a brilliant commercial. It ran after the Super Bowl and John Krucowski came out to say, we just saved $1,250,000 by running it now and I've got this big bunch of money on my coffee table and we're going to give it to you if you tweet our hashtag.

SHANKMAN: The problem you have with that is that when you give things away for free, you don't really necessarily get new customers, you get people that want stuff for free. But on that type of a game, it was a great idea.

LIPPERT: And very memorable. As we said before, so many -- there was so much in there, so packed and it goes by so quickly, it's very hard --

BOLDUAN: Does memorable equal money?

SHANKMAN: Not necessarily. Memorable equals people talking about it the next day. The real question comes six months later, is it worth it? But again, a Super Bowl ad, for a lot of companies is really a resume booster. We have a Super Bowl ad.

LIPPERT: Go Daddy made its bones on the Super Bowl and every year I hated the commercials and every year I wondered how they were so successful because -- they get the clicks -- and they listened to women. Women were really upset about being objectified when they're business owners. This year they had two commercials aimed at women business owners. It probably didn't have the shock value.

SHANKMAN: I would say it was the smartest move of the night for a business and also did you notice that Danica Patrick was wearing a muscle suit?

LIPPERT: She took one for the team there.

PEREIRA: And speaking of ads that did something completely new, I want to show you the Coke ad, if you didn't get a chance to see it. This one forged new ground, especially in a year or two when we've seen these families, a gay couple and their daughter, make it the first time a gay family was included in the Super Bowl, according to GLAAD. This was Coke.

LIPPERT: -- which was wonderful, and of course, it got horrible tweets, toxic tweets from people. I actually tweeted, you know, every time some racist tweets about this, Coke gets its wings because that was another commercial.

CUOMO: I often used to get caught in looking at these as a strictly economic proposition. Then a buddy of mine who is in the business said to me, no, you have to remember that it's about your brand being cool, being registered as acceptable with some kind of an edge so that even if it's not that they go where they click and they go where they buy, Coke is now identified in a way with a theme that they hope is somehow attaching significance.

SHANKMAN: Look, the fact of the matter is that, you know, (inaudible) and the people who were online criticizing it and the racists and all of this, they're going to be gone. They are not going to be talking about this in three weeks. The people that it resonated with are the people who actually spend the money --

BOLDUAN: And also saying that the companies use the Super Bowl as a way to launch their rebrands.

LIPPERT: And if you have something new, like 1984 I think was the best commercial of all time for Apple because it really did revolutionize the world. It led to the iPhone, which was a true revolution. A soda brand or a sneaker is not going to revolutionize the world. So that's the problem.

PEREIRA: Speaking about another thing that we saw new is on Twitter, I don't know if you followed Super Bowl commercials on Twitter last night, but there was this kind of interesting Twitter war going on between brands.

SHANKMAN: There were several.

PEREIRA: There was Cheerios tweeted to Budweiser. I don't know if we can show that tweet, which I thought was fantastic playing up the fact that, you know, the Budweiser puppy and the Cheerios little girl working it with dad, saying that now they're expecting a child, they also get a puppy.

SHANKMAN: And tide showed when you take Cheerios, put them in milk and then made a mess and said don't worry, tide will get it out. And then of course, JC Penney was drunk and then we realized they weren't drunk, they were tweeting with mittens. It wasn't funny, but people were talking about it. It was funny, though.

LIPPERT: It wasn't cold enough for mittens.

SHANKMAN: And Joe Namath's coat.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: How about Joe Namath's coat? I say Broadway Joe is so great, his coat stood out and he stepped up to show us.

LIPPERT: He was ready for Eskimo weather -- and he's from the 70s, that's the brand. The thing that was the most popular thing all night was Joe Namath's coat.

SHANKMAN: That was from "Love Actually."

BOLDUAN: A lot of connections between that and the Ikea monkey.

LIPPERT: Exactly. The New York -- put them together. CUOMO: That is sacrilege. Broadway Joe is the man. He showed why last night. He brought style to a game that had none.

SHANKMAN: Although Bruno Mars re-enacting the "Enchanted of --

<07:50:12>

LIPPERT: The thing with Bruno Mars also was that it was more family friendly --

SHANKMAN: On the ten year anniversary of --

LIPPERT: A lot of kids were watching. There were only two crotch jokes where in past years there were ten or 12.

BOLDUAN: I was going to say this for everyone. David Beckham can take his shirt off in any commercial.

LIPPERT: That's the only naked person.

CUOMO: I'll say the same thing about a female.

LIPPERT: One reason people complained this year because, you know, there wasn't the usual cleavage.

CUOMO: It was fine.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

LIPPERT: And a lot of commercials were --

BOLDUAN: It was wonderful.

LIPPERT: Acknowledging, you know, everybody like the Coke commercials that had the different languages.

BOLDUAN: Barbara, Peter, it's great to see you guys. Thank you.

CUOMO: Let's take a little break here on NEW DAY. When we come back, cracking the "Jeopardy" code. Meet the man fans are calling a mad genius. Can he game the system? We are going to show you how we believe he is doing it. Will his techniques put the game show itself in jeopardy?

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PEREIRA: A contestant on the hit show, "Jeopardy," shaking things up with his non-traditional tactics much to the dismay of some viewers and loyal followers of the program. Some are outraged over his hunting of daily doubles. He's been dubbed by some, a mad genius, his math strategy toward the game has caused quite a stir.

<07:55:13>

Some fans say it makes the show much less fun to watch while others call him a hero. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARTHUR CHU, "JEOPARDY" CONTESTANT: It's a game. I'm there to win. It's more interesting to everybody if I'm trying to win rather than just going through the motions. I'm certainly not the first person to think of taking the categories out of order. There's still a chance the second place person sue and you're in the first place.

It makes more sense to bet for tie just because of the math involved because you can technically win the game if she bet everything and tied up with me because I'm betting for the tie and not the win. That gives her a reason to bet big. It increases the number of ways I have to come back the next day and everything else is secondary.

It's not sportsman like or respectful to my contestants if I had to play anything less than the best came I could possibly play. If you think it makes the game much less fun to watch, change the rules.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: He's won three times in a row and he's jumping on his buzzer quickly. He knows all the answers too, taking the daily doubles. He's not doing searching them out --

BOLDUAN: He's not breaking any rules. This is like the etiquette of how other people had played.

PEREIRA: That's exactly it.

CUOMO: Spirit of the game is what the charge would be, violating the spirit of the game.

BOLDUAN: When it involves him making some money, you know.

PEREIRA: The ultimate spirit of the game is to win, isn't it?

BOLDUAN: Yes! One more time.

PEREIRA: No. Ow!

COUMO: We're going to take a break now on NEW DAY. We're going to change our tone here a little bit and get back to Phillip Seymour Hoffman. You've heard the tragic news by now, I'm sure. That he was found dead in his Manhattan apartment with a needle in his arm. We are going to talk about the struggles with addiction, a reminder that it is an illness with an often fatal outcome. We're going to have Dr. Drew here to help us to do that.

BOLDUAN: And also growing outrage over school lunches. Another school is now accused of throwing away students lunch because there's not enough money on his account. How could this keep happening?

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