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New Day

Money News; Olympic Swimmer's Fatal Accident; Vietnam War

Aired June 19, 2014 - 08:30   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: All right, here we go with the five things you need to know for your new day.

At number one, a political shift may be booming in Iraq. The Obama administration signaling Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki should go and that Iraq's needs a new government that is inclusive of Sunnis and Kurds.

Two U.S. citizens arrested in Texas. They're now facing terror related charges. Officials say one planned to fight in Syria and potentially join ISIS. The other to join al Qaeda linked to a group in -- an al Qaeda linked group, rather, in Somalia.

Officials say Ahmed Abu Khattalah tried to wrestle with U.S. special forces in the operation that captured the alleged Benghazi mastermind. Some form of media was found during the raid and it is now being analyzed.

CNN has learned that Shelly Sterling is headed to court today. She is looking for protection for witnesses from possible harassment by her estranged husband, L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

Oh, and I'm feeling good about number five. A no-hitter for Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers, a struck out, a career best 15 in the 8-0 win over Colorado. Would have been a perfect game if not for throwing - a throwing error by Hanley Ramirez in the seventh inning. His first no- hitter. Congratulations to a standup guy.

Always updating the five things to know. So be sure to go to newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Do I get forgiven for a little bit of the editorializing there, guys?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This time.

PEREIRA: Maybe. This time. OK.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It would be nice if you did it when you lost as well.

PEREIRA: Why would I do that?

CUOMO: You know, show a little fairness in terms of, you know, I mean you only gloat on the upside.

PEREIRA: Why would I do that? So, you know, at least we're dominating right now. Just -

CUOMO: You'll fit in well with New York fans. Only like your team when they win.

PEREIRA: I got you to back me up.

CUOMO: All right, it's CNN Money time. You know what that means, chief business correspondent Christine Romans is in our money center. No, she's not. She's sitting right next to us. We're going to talk about the firing of America Apparel's controversial CEO.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a big story.

CUOMO: But we also want to get a look at the overall markets while we have you. What do you see?

ROMANS: I see in my crystal ball - actually I see on my computer screen that shows futures, that futures are up slightly right now. Good news from the Federal Reserve, that's what's driving it. The central bank said interest rates are going to stay low. They're not likely to raise until next year. And the Fed chief actually said the job market is better -- getting a little bit bet. So that's good news.

We've got new details this morning also about what General Motors knew about ignition switch problems in millions of its cars. E-mails released in a congressional hearing show a GM engineer asked for a recall back in 2005. That particular recall, because of an ignition switch problem, only took place earlier this week.

Now, that major ouster at American Apparel. The controversial founder and CEO, Dov Charney, out. The board ousted him for cause. It wouldn't say much more than there's an ongoing investigation into misconduct, but this is a guy - I will say it's the strangest CEO I've ever covered. Really. He's called himself strange.

BOLDUAN: Right, he's said it himself.

ROMANS: He has said, I should be locked up. I am my own worst enemy. He's a very controversial guy. He's got this sort of this sex-infused advertising around the company that has been - really bothered a lot of parents for a lot of times. He's had multiple accusations of sexual harassment. In one sexual harassment claim against him, it said that he conducts his meetings in underwear - in his underwear, interviews in his underwear, numerous relationships with people who work for him. This comes --

CUOMO: Is that wrong, the underwear thing? Is there a rule against it?

ROMANS: You know -

PEREIRA: We've asked to you stop before.

ROMANS: Yes. And, Chris, you know, under threat of legal action has stopped.

BOLDUAN: It is a (INAUDIBLE), right?

ROMANS: But -

CUOMO: Time -

PEREIRA: (INAUDIBLE).

CUOMO: Because I can't believe this company waited so long. That's the thing (ph).

PEREIRA: No, but the thing -

ROMANS: Well, that's the other thing. He - they have backed him up before. They have backed him up many times. But this time the board says he's -

BOLDUAN: What's the last straw?

ROMANS: So, well, one - some people are saying the last straw might be the fact that this company is falling apart and you look at the stock, $15 a share.

PEREIRA: Yes.

ROMANS: They were back - and the board is backing him at $15 a share. At $1 a share -

BOLDUAN: Right.

ROMANS: Maybe not so much. He's got too much debt, losing too much money. He's got a lot of work to do just to survive. And now one of the board members saying it's time for him to go.

PEREIRA: But it is crazy. I was in the Los Angeles market working there for a decade and this guy - he -- the stories that came out of -- he accused these women early on in 2011 or something of colluding to try and bring him down and made it seem -- shaking -

ROMANS: Right, like bringing down his company.

PEREIRA: Shaking him down and trying to make it a scandalous thing. He's the scandalous one it would appear.

ROMANS: And he - but his defense -- he has always said, look, I'm just an odd guy. I'm a strange guy. I love my product.

CUOMO: Anybody prove anything against him?

ROMANS: No, he has been cleared but now - but now the company is saying that they're firing him for cause and that there is an ongoing investigation into matters surrounding him and that it's time for him to go. So we'll see.

PEREIRA: Is there any - ROMANS: There will be - there will be more written about this. We'll find out just what it is that they think that they have found, this board thinks that they have found. But his personal - his personal conduct. No one here alleging anything criminal, but his personal conduct against the best wishes -

PEREIRA: (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: Do you see anything that his personal conduct has anything to do with how poorly the company is doing right now? I mean they've got a lot of problems.

ROMANS: I mean, look, he -- none of this is a surprise about him. I mean from the very beginning stories have been written, business reporters have been scratching their heads about -

BOLDUAN: I mean he's the reason the stock's down?

ROMANS: Well, there's been a lot of bad choices made. They took on way too much debt, way too much debt. Sales have fallen. And he is the founder and CEO of the company.

PEREIRA: Yes. Undocumented workers were discovered there for - for, you know.

ROMANS: Yes, so one of the interesting things about that is that he had, for a time there, had been very vocal about legalization of illegal immigrants in the United States and he proudly said "made in America" on all of his shirts and he would stamped legalize L.A. on some of these shirts. And then federal immigration officials found, I think at one point, a quarter of - at least a quarter of his workforce in the L.A. -- the papers didn't match up. These Social Security Numbers didn't match up with other paperwork and so he had to fire a lot of people.

CUOMO: It happens to be a plague (ph) of a problem in the textile industry.

ROMANS: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. But here's a guy who was -- many said was getting sort of high and mighty about his position about immigration reform.

CUOMO: And, look, it's because he had all these illegal workers so he wanted them legalized.

ROMANS: Maybe. But so he's found himself -

CUOMO: That's why.

ROMANS: He's found himself on the wrong end of some of these issues several times. But now he's out.

CUOMO: He is suspect -

BOLDUAN: Where will he show up next?

CUOMO: But I'm just saying, you know -

ROMANS: Well, I think he might fight. I mean just knowing and following -- having followed his career -

CUOMO: Yes, he'll fight.

ROMANS: He started this in his dorm room, this company in his dorm room. Moved it to L.A.

BOLDUAN: This is his life.

ROMANS: This is his baby. He might - he might really fight it. He might really fight it.

CUOMO: I'm just, you know, my jaundice isn't about him and the allegations, that the company's fine when it's at 15. When they're at one --

ROMANS: Right. I've never liked the advertising. I thought the advertising was too sexualized to young people.

PEREIRA: Agreed.

ROMANS: I thought some of those kids in those advertisements look like they're 12 years old and that -- I didn't like that.

CUOMO: All right. OK.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Christine.

Coming up next on NEW DAY, an Olympians biggest battle yet. Amy van Dyken opens up about the accident that left her paralyzed and the moment that she had to tell her husband good-bye, thinking at that moment that it was the end.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Welcome back.

A former U.S. Olympic swimmer is speaking out about the near fatal accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. Six-time gold medalist Amy van Dyken-Rouen was injured in an ATV accident just two weeks ago. It was just two weeks ago. Now she's showing what an Olympic spirit truly means. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at the CNN Center with much more. Really amazing to see her talking already.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is just to see how well she's doing. I mean, Kate, she is such an incredible example of strength and grace in the face of adversity.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMY VAN DYKEN-ROUEN, OLYMPIC SWIMMER: Are you going to do any tricks for me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not today, ma'am.

COHEN (voice-over): Six-time Olympic gold medalist Amy van Dyken-Rouen was smiling and cracking joke as she boarded a plane from Arizona to a rehabilitation hospital in Colorado. In her first public appearance since her injury, she opened up about her experience, looking at everything with a positive attitude.

DYKEN-ROUEN: I'm excited to get to this new part of my life, you know? It's almost like a rebirth a little bit. I get to learn how to do everything all over again and I'm anxious to do that.

COHEN: Van Dyken-Rouen severed her spinal court in the accident. An injury so severe that she and her husband, former NFL punter Tom Rouen, were told to say their good-byes as she was rushed into emergency surgery.

DYKEN-ROUEN: There's a good chance I wasn't going to make it out of surgery. I looked at my husband and basically said, "I love you, good- bye, you know, please continue on with your life." To do that and then to be here now and to be with them is the most amazing thing.

COHEN: Paralyzed from the waist down, she copes daily with grueling pain and physical therapy, but she's not complaining.

DYKEN-ROUEN: Yes, this injury sucks and, yes, things hurt, but I'm alive and I'm so thankful to be alive. And so that's why I can be positive about it, you know? It helps get me through the pain.

COHEN: The champion swimmer became the first American woman to win four gold medals at one Olympics, the 1996 games in Atlanta, and went on to win two more gold medals in Sydney in 2000, inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame eight years later. Calling this injury the toughest competition of her life, she says through her good days and bad, it's been the support from family, friends and social media that's kept her going.

DYKEN-ROUEN: I can definitely feel the thoughts and prayers. So, please keep them coming. This is just the beginning.

COHEN: She remains positive about her recovery, even if it means she'll never walk again.

DYKEN-ROUEN: I'm going to get the best wheelchair ever. I'm going to make it so cool. I'm going to do my hair to much my chair and I'm going to rock it out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Now, when Amy and her husband said those good-byes, she said to him, "you can date other people if I don't make it through this surgery." But thankfully he doesn't need to do that. He'll be right there by her side during her months of recovery

Chris, Kate.

BOLDUAN: What a rock star. What a rock star. COHEN: Amazing.

BOLDUAN: That's great.

COHEN: She's amazing.

CUOMO: We know that Olympians are different and better than us, and we try to see it in their sport, but I don't think there's a more perfect example what makes them better and stronger than what we just saw right there.

BOLDUAN: She's going to need it. She's amazing. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for bringing us her story.

CUOMO: And when she said that to her husband, it was a test. She was just seeing what he would say.

BOLDUAN: No (ph).

CUOMO: She was ready to come back even then I guarantee it.

BOLDUAN: No (ph). No (ph).

CUOMO: That's how you knew that she was ready to make a comeback.

BOLDUAN: You just go. No.

CUOMO: I want to follow this story all the way through because I believe she's going to do things that people don't expect her to be able to do and she's going to own it in a way that few people will be able to. So we'll stay on this.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

CUOMO: And the prayers are going to keep coming.

Coming up on NEW DAY, a look at the CNN original series, "The Sixties." It returns tonight at 9:00 p.m. with a look at the Vietnam War. What can it teach us about the current situation in Iraq? More than you think. We'll discuss it coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNDON B. JOHNSON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have today ordered to Vietnam certain forces which will raise our fighting strength from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost immediately. This will make it necessary to raise the monthly draft call from 17,000 to 35,000 per month.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That was a clip from CNN's original series "THE SIXTIES". Tonight it looks at the Vietnam War and how it shaped our country today. With President Obama currently facing choices similar to those of President Johnson, is Iraq today's Vietnam?

Joining us is Philip Caputo, he wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, "A Rumor of War" about his experiences during Vietnam. His latest book is "The Longest Road".

What a delight to have you here. We know you're among the first ground combat units that were deployed to Vietnam. I have to say when we talk about the fact that it's been more than 50 years --

PHILIP CAPUTO, AUTHOR: Yes.

PEREIRA: We know that we are still feeling the effects of that war especially when you look at where we are now with Iraq and the rest of that area.

CAPUTO: Yes. I think of it this way, is that Vietnam was often called the quagmire, and it was, but I think Iraq is kind of proving that sand is stickier than mud. So it's certainly similar in that way. And as well is that you've got in President Obama as in LBJ, you've got two presidents whose hearts and passions were in domestic policy, who suddenly found themselves completely tangled up in foreign wars.

CUOMO: Continue the metaphor for us, because the way we got into Vietnam very different obviously, the hunt for communism and what's going on in Iraq.

However, there became a similar dynamic in each which is, are you there to occupy, if not how do you extract? When is it really over? We struggled with that in Iraq as well. What should we have learned from Vietnam? Because clearly we didn't follow that lesson.

CAPUTO: The best statement I heard about the lessons of Vietnam was given by John Kenneth Galbraith, about 25 years ago, when he said the lesson of Vietnam was you should never get involved in a land war in Vietnam.

But as far as Iraq goes, and I would even include Afghanistan, is that these conflicts tend to be analogously speaking kind of like the domestic disputes that police officers like to stay out of, in the sense that those tend to be the most dangerous for police officers. And these civil wars are usually the most dangerous for the outside power that intervenes, which has proven to be the case other and over again, especially I would say in Iraq even more than Afghanistan. There was a real justification I think for going to Afghanistan, because of the 9/11 attacks, but not so much with Iraq.

BOLDUAN: Now for those who have not read your book, I mean, so many people have read it, Pulitzer Prize winning. I want to get your take, telling your story over and over again is probably what people always ask to you do.

What changed in you? What did you think going when you were sent to Vietnam and then what changed in you? Because that is a lot of the crux of what I got a sneak peek of this episode of "THE SIXTIES" and that's what you see in this. You see just the view coming from the public, the view even within the Oval Office, just changing so quickly on a dime of what they thought they were doing in Vietnam and what they realized was happening.

CAPUTO: Well, when I went over there in the mid 1960s, we were still living in the afterglow of World War II. and I think I and most of the Marines that I went over there with kind of thought this was going to be a bit like World War II. We would be welcomed as liberators. We were fighting against an oppressive foreign invader, never considering that North Vietnamese are as much Vietnamese as South Vietnamese were, and that perspective changed a lot faster for us than it did for the American public. I think that after we've been there about six, seven months, we realized how delusional we had been, but I don't think that the American public really questioned what we were doing there and why until about 1968.

BOLDUAN: And those protests are so striking to see how passionate they were.

PEREIRA: Absolutely.

We want to say big thank you to you for coming in to share this with us. I have a feeling a few more people will seek out your book now and hopefully they'll also tune in tonight on "THE SIXTIES". It airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific. Be sure to tune in. Set your DVR. You don't want to miss this. This is another episode as Kate was telling us, she got a sneak peek of it, it's really powerful.

Philip thanks so much for sharing your stories and also your wisdom with us.

CAPUTO: Thanks for asking.

CUOMO: And thank you for your service and reminding us that veterans need to be concerned with the rest of the population when they're at war and when they come home.

CAPUTO: Thank you.

CUOMO: Appreciate it, sir.

Coming up, a seven-year-old psyches up a pro football player for the fight of his life. The amazing video that will make you think anything is possible. That's why it's "The Good Stuff".

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: He has an interesting name to go --

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Thank you very much. And it's spelled weird, too, right.

BOLDUAN: Come on. CUOMO: Anyway, it's time for "The Good Stuff". You know how we often say out of the mouths of babes? Well here's why it is too true. Texas offensive tackle David Quessenberry. Great player but he recently got some really rough news. He was diagnosed with Non- Hodgkins lymphoma. Quessenberry promises he's going to beat it and guess what, he's getting a little help along the way.

Help is in the form of a Texans fan, pint-sized powerhouse Jake Daniel. He's only seven but he's already faced Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and he beat it.

PEREIRA: All right. So he decided to send some words of encouragement David's way. Take a listen.

JAKE DANIEL, TEXANS FAN: Here's some tips. Number one, keep praying. Number two, keep your head up. Number three, never give up. Number four, when you get the mouth sores always eat Jell-O. Number five, always flirt with the nurses.

Good luck, buddy. I will be praying for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: OK, I'm in love with this child; a seven-year-old with the sweetest, sweetest disposition. I love the Jell-O tip. That's good to know.

CUOMO: It is good to know. God forbid you ever need the tip. But I'll tell you he was inspired Quessenberry because of the kid's infectious enthusiasm and that spirit that he was going to make it. So he tweeted back to Jake --

PEREIRA: Oh he did?

CUOMO: -- "You just made my day, my friend. Wise words, young stud. Can't wait to meet you." And boy, I can't wait for that to happen.

PEREIRA: That's going to be special.

CUOMO: And hopefully Quessenberry will have the news that he, too, is following Jake and he's getting over it.

BOLDUAN: The fact that he had it, beat it, and is so strong at such a young age to give that advice.

PEREIRA: Phenomenal.

BOLDUAN: Amazing kid.

CUOMO: And hopefully he's already had to deal with the worst that life has to offer him. And from here on smooth sailing.

BOLDUAN: We'd like that.

CUOMO: All right, little man. Thanks for being "The Good Stuff". We appreciate it. Lot of news this morning what's happening in Iraq and here at home as well. So we take to you the "NEWSROOM" and the one, the closest to perfection we have, Poppy Harlow.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, if that were true, Chris. Always flattering. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Good to see you.

Welcome everyone. "NEWSROOM" starts right now.