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New Day

AirAsia Flight 8501 Fuselage Found; John Podesta is Ready for Hillary; Rand Paul Seeks 2016 Spotlight Attacks Rivals; Radical Extremists Versus Islamists: What's In a Name?

Aired January 14, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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


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MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: It's 7:30 in the east. Here's a look at your headlines, beginning with breaking news, an official in charge of the search efforts for AirAsia Flight 8501 says the plane's fuselage, the main body of the plane has been found, and this is photographic evidence of it from the bottom of the Java Sea.

Let's bring in David Molko live in Jakarta. We're seeing that wing attached to that fuselage -- David.

DAVID MOLKO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Michaela, day 18 of the search efforts, and this is the day search officials have been waiting for. Not a celebration by any means, when you see those pictures, they are difficult to look at especially when you realize that there are people most likely inside that aircraft.

We have to pause and remember 162 passengers and crew on board that flight, a 100 -- more than 100 of their bodies have not been recovered. When you look at the passenger manifest, Michaela, five, six, seven from the same families, all headed to Singapore, some to celebrate the New Year.

The search chief says the section of the fuselage is most of it about 100 feet. They say the plan is to put divers down in the morning. See if they can recover a lot of those bodies. If not, he says they may have to lift it out. Families have been waiting for answers. It appears now their wait may be over -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: More than 100 remain missing. All right, David, thank you for that update.

This morning, a leak in a cooling system has forced the evacuation of the U.S. portion of the International Space Station. Russian media reports harmful substances were emitted, the crew is not in danger we're told. And they're now housed with the Russian crew members while they assess what needs to be done.

ISIS has expanded its reign of terror into Southern Afghanistan. Afghan officials say ISIS fighters have clashed with the local Taliban and are recruiting new members in the country. More than a dozen people have reportedly been killed in fighting between the Taliban and ISIS. A new study reveals that you may be able to lose weight by lowering the thermostat. This is not something you should be telling my father. It's a study published in the journal "Cell Metabolism" reformers found being in a room as cold as 53 degrees, produces cells that rev up your body's calorie burn. Shivering for like 10 minutes could be just as effective as weight loss and exercise. Why are we telling the world this?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: This is great news for me, our furnace broke last night. I woke up this morning and it was 57 degrees in my house, which accounts for the new svelte Alisyn you're seeing -- 57, I've got to get that fixed.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: What do you keep the house at normally?

CAMEROTA: I like at least 68, but I prefer 70.

PEREIRA: Thrifty husbands around the world are cheering. I can lower the heating bill. This is great and wives are rolling their eyes.

CUOMO: Science. Time for "Inside Politics," our political scientist, now here on NEW DAY, Mr. John King, how does that segue you, better?

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": I'm a 70 degree guy, but I'm going down to 58 now, save a little money, lose a pound or two, why not, right?

CUOMO: Put on a sweater.

KING: Now that is the great segue as we go "Inside Politics" this morning. Put on a sweater with me this morning in his sweater, Jonathan Martin of the "New York Times," Julia Pace of the "Associated Press."

We were joking before we came on the air, yesterday apparently was the day to decide it's time to advance your presidential campaign and you'll get the point in a second.

Let's start with reason number one. John Podesta, the former Bill Clinton chief of staff, now President Obama's climate change adviser, senior adviser, he's leaving next month, to be there, the question is if Hillary Clinton runs for president.

But you don't leave a senior job at the White House unless you have a little private information that she's going to run for president, right?

JULIE PACE, ASSOCIATED PRESS: I mean, this has been the plan for a while. John Podesta came to the White House, said he would stay a year and then until after the state of the union. I think what's most interesting is the plan is in action now.

You still talk to people and hear them say, well, I'm going to work for Hillary, if there's a campaign, if she decides to run for president. At the same time, people could not start coalescing around a person like Hillary Clinton unless they know that this campaign is going to move forward. It's a matter of when she makes this officially official.

KING: Officially official. But John Podesta leaving, Jonathan Martin, tells me he has a better understanding of the calendar when she will make it official than we do.

JONATHAN MARTIN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": And there's this drawn-out bit of sort of theater in terms of all of us having to pretend that this is all hypothetical and you've got actual pieces in motion. The news I think and the Podesta move, it's been long expected is that they signal to the Democratic Party is that this Hillary campaign is going to be different.

We're going to have more structure. We're going to have somebody on top of the chart, who is a pro, who has been in politics for really 40 years, working on campaigns.

And I think that's what this is John Podesta is known around Washington, known among Democrats nationally. This is not going to be the sort of faction-driven campaign of '08.

MARTIN: A lot of credibility with the liberal base. He founded the center for American progress, think tank here in town. The questions about Hillary Clinton have come from the liberal base, and to that point, Elizabeth Warren, we also say there's the draft Elizabeth Warren movement. There's rallies planned in New Hampshire in the next couple of days.

Let's try to get Elizabeth Warren into the race. Sometimes when she's asked the question, the answer seems a little squishy, or we think aha, she was asked the question by "Fortune" magazine. So, are you going to run for president? Her answer, no. I take that as a no.

PACE: I take that as a no for now.

KING: For now? You just did it.

PACE: I do, if we've learned anything from Mitt Romney over the last couple of days, no, might not really mean no when it comes for running the president. I saw that one of the groups, who is doing the draft Warren Movement said, we're not surprised that she said no. She's currently not running for president because if she were running for president, we wouldn't have to have a draft Warren Movement.

So there will be people around her, pressure still. She seems pretty definitive. But I don't think that's going to stop this liberal wing of the party from at least continuing to make an argument for her and then make an argument for their policies.

KING: In fact, it helps just about everybody involved including her international profile that she keeps getting asked this question.

MARTIN: This is news because in the past she's used the future tense I'm not going to run for president. This is more curt and to the point. But she could also tomorrow come out to move on and say, guys, take down the draft movement, I'm for Hillary Clinton. It's time to fall. She's not doing that the reason she's not doing that is because she wants to use the white building behind us, the capital to leverage her standing, to move her party towards a more populist orientation and use her stance to move Hillary towards a more populist orientation.

KING: Go to our politics page today on CNN.com, how do you rate your candidates, and Crowd PAC, an organization CNN partnered with for the ranking, uses financial contributions as well as your positions on the issues and as well as what you've said to sort of build an ideological spectrum.

It actually shows Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton much closer together by this standard than you might think otherwise. You can also look at the Republican candidates as well. One of them yesterday, A, did something very important back home, delivered his state of the state address.

But B, also sent a pretty clear signal he's thinking of moving beyond. Number one, Chris Christie, is about to form, we are told, a leadership pact. Number two, in his state of the union address, he talked about a New Jersey renewal.

Said there needs to be an American renewal and then said you know what Washington needs some new leadership.

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GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: We are a nation beset by anxiety and it's understandable. Economic growth is low by post war recovery standards. America's leadership in the world is called into question because of a pattern of indecision and inconsistency. During this time of uncertainty it seems our leaders in Washington would rather stoke the vision for their own political gain.

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KING: He's a uniter, not a divider.

MARTIN: It's not exactly road projects in Jersey City, either. It's a very national orientation there. It's not a secret, he's running for president and my colleagues have a story today in the paper that he is going to create a PAC to help him towards that end.

It's not an announcement. I don't think that will come until later. But all the action around him, he wants to make clear to donors that, yes, in fact, he does still want to run.

PACE: I think it was the timing that was most significant when you have Romney and Jeb Bush, who are making actual moves. He wants to be part of this conversation. He doesn't want to be the guy that's left behind. There are going to be fighting for a pool of donors that has a lot of overlap. It's important for him to send a clear signal that I am serious, I am moving forward.

KING: What looks like a very crowded Republican field, "Politico's" Manu Raju has an interview with Rand Paul in which he essentially says the rest of them, they're all bums. He said you need a candidate. He said you need a candidate who reaches out to new constituencies, is able to bring new people into the party. If we do the same-old, same- old candidates, we're going to get the same old result.

MARTIN: It's a bit self-serving.

KING: Occasionally politicians are self-serving. He criticizes Romney. Said he would have been a good leader of the country, he's had his chance. Jeb, he goes after on common core education standards. He's running. He's hired a campaign manager. He's got some people out there.

George Pataki, the former governor of New York, we talked about this a couple of months ago when he made a trip up to New Hampshire, he told Channel 11, that he's close to making his decision to get in to framed it a when to get in, not if I get in. Who else?

MARTIN: I think you're going to see a now more governors look at the race and I think you're going to see the possibility of folks who aren't in politics looking at this. It's January of 2015. It's the season. To borrow the cliche that I heard from senators yesterday talking about Mitt Romney, the more, the merrier, and I think you're going to see that sort of approach.

KING: To the more the merrier, how much of that was a genuine, the more the merrier, which a lot of them do think, you get eight or ten candidates in there, a mix of governors and senators, might benefit the party. Healthy debates, but how much the more the merrier when it comes to the specific Romney question, is a dodge. Like really, don't -- a lot of anxiety. They like the guy, but going to do it a third time?

MARTIN: That was the recurring refrain. When I talked to senators the last couple of days was first of all, look in the eye of why are you asking me this question? I don't want to answer this question.

And then secondly, it was some kind of a euphemism or a dodge about he's a great guy, it's going to be a big field. Look, there's no great love for Mitt Romney. There's respect for him as a kind and decent man.

But there's no huge appetite among a lot of Republicans that aren't tied for him to him to run for a third time because the same challenges he had in the last campaign, he still has.

KING: We'll watch in the weeks ahead whether all of those phone calls he's making now convince him, maybe not the third time.

Alisyn as we get back to you, we'll see who else joins the Republican field and during this segment, did Mr. Cuomo get up and turn the thermostat down there?

CAMEROTA: He continues to question whether or not men and women feel temperature the same way. I smell a future segment for us, John, we'll get back to you on all that.

KING: Have a good day.

CAMEROTA: So what should we call the Paris attackers? That's a big debate this morning. Do we call them Muslim terrorists, extremists? Next we talk to an expert who says it's not any of those terms I just said.

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CAMEROTA: What should we call the terrorist attack in Paris? Was it Islamic extremism, violent jihad or maybe radical Islam? Well, listen to all the different ways officials categorize terrorists.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will only win the fight against violent extremism in the Middle East.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In standing up against these extremists.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Efforts by terrorists and violent extremist groups anywhere in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Address the threat posed by extremist organizations.

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CAMEROTA: We want to bring in now Dr. Quanta Ahmed. She is the author of "In the Land of Invisible Women" who has written an article just out this morning, in London's journal "The Spectator" about the need to name this beast.

Quanta, great to see you. Why are they struggling so much with what to call this?

DR. QUANTA AHMED, AUTHOR, "IN THE LAND OF INVISIBLE WOMEN": The reason is there's a tremendous fear that they avoid impugning all Muslims. And we understand that as Muslims, but we also are concerned for instance, me personally, to use the word, the phrase "radical Islam" suggests that all of my faith might be somehow radical, which I disagree with. But to identify a distinct ideology, that borrows from Islam. Islamists I think is the best term and that's what they call themselves.

CAMEROTA: Islamists with an S, not a C. You like the word Islamists because there's a long history to it. Explain why.

AHMED: That's right. Islamists created a manifesto in the 1920s, Egypt developed in prisons with certain ideologues, the most famous of whom is Hassan Al Banner. The use of the word Islamists is a deliberate decision on their part. They've set out to deceive us and portray what is an authentic religion. Borrowing language and metaphors from our religion, but for an express it totalitarian ideology.

CAMEROTA: The White House has not adopted the word Islamists. It's close to the word Islamic. But listen to josh earnest, the White House press secretary, just yesterday answering a question on why he won't call this radical Islam.

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JOSH EARNEST, CNN WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have not chosen to use that label because it doesn't seem to accurately describe what happened. We also don't want to be in a situation where we are legitimizing what we consider to be a completely illegitimate justification for this violence, this act of terrorism.

CAMEROTA: Doesn't he have a point? That he doesn't even want to dignify it by bringing Islam into the conversation because many of the things that these terrorists say they're fighting for, cannot even be found in the Koran.

AHMED: I do understand that. But I think there is a couple of deficiencies, by avoiding the term Islamists we are committing ourselves to identifying only terrorists or physically violent acts, I call them Jihadism.

The United States has an array of phrases for it but also, therefore that leaves out nonviolent Islamism ideologies that are also being propagated and that's what's come to play with the "Charlie Hebdo" crisis.

This contraction on freedom of speech under the aegis, the false aegis of blasphemy is an Islamist, nonviolent assault and in a different kind of war. So I think we are very limited in the United States when we avoid using this phrase.

And we are using the word "Islamist" has been identified by Muslim political scientists reading Arabic literature from their original manifestos. So the correct word if you look at Muslim political scientists is "Islamists" even though it gives everybody, Muslims and non-Muslims tremendous discomfort.

If we don't get beyond that discomfort, if we don't name the beast, which is my word that that I use for this ideology, that dares to portray itself as my religion, it's distinct, we're already hampering our approach in it.

CAMEROTA: And to your point about what's in the Koran and what they claim -- blasphemy, the idea that these terrorists in Paris, use the fact that the prophet was blasphemed, is not in the Koran.

AHMED: The Koran actually does not identify blasphemy to be a punishment that a mortal exacts on another mortal. If it is a crime at all, it is to be judged between a man and his maker. That's absolutely right.

CAMEROTA: I want to read you something that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote about all of this, a famous basketball player and a Muslim. He said when the Klu Klux Klan burn a cross in black family's yard, prominent Christians are not required to explain how these are not really Christian acts, most people realize that the KKK does not represent Christian teachings.

That's what I and other Muslims long for, the day when these terrorists praising the Prophet Muhammad's or Allah's name as they debase their actual teachings are realized as thugs disguising themselves as Muslims. Is it possible to separate what they're doing from Islam?

AHMED: I understand. That's an intelligent assessment that they made. There is no getting away from the fact that Islamism would never exist without Islam. I do see them as very separate. Islamism would not exist without it. They have come within us. That's been identified by President Cisse, the leader of Egypt in a recent speech to Islamic clerics in Cairo.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Quanta Ahmed, it is always wonderful to talk to you. People can find your article online on the "Spectator." Thanks so much for coming in.

AHMED: Thank you, Alisyn.

And of course, we want to know what do you about all of this, what do you believe this violent phenomenon should be called. You can tweet us @newday or you can go to facebook.com/newday. I'm @alisyncamerata -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, Alison, very important conversation you were having there. It's not just about language. It really about the concepts involved as well.

All right, another topic for you when we come back. I don't have to tell you, it is tax season again. If you have plans to spend that refund, you may want to wait. We'll explain why in a second.

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PEREIRA: All right, time for CNN money now. Christine Romans here in the money center here with big news. Good news for jobs.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Job levels are at the highest level in 14 years, 5 million job openings, the most since January 2001. Add that since 1999 last year. Some economists say the job market is almost back to normal believe it or not.

Health insurer, Aetna, raising the minimum wage to $16 an hour. That means at Aetna 1500 workers are getting a pay raise. They want to keep their workers from leaving as the job market improves.

Get ready for delays in the tax rushes. Budget cuts. People who file paper tax returns could wait an extra week or longer, the same thing for anyone with extra questions. Good news for audits.

CAMEROTA: Al Qaeda in Yemen releasing new video claiming responsibility for the "Charlie Hebdo" attack, an ominous warning. We will have more from Paris. All the latest next.

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