Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Obama to Unveil Plan Aimed at Gun Violence; GOP Field Courts Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire; Saudi-Iran Tension Growing; Stocks Edge Lower in Early Trading; Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 05, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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


[10:00:01] DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: And the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM begins right now.

FEYERICK: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, President Obama going it alone on gun control.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: These are recommendations that are well within my legal authority and the Executive Branch.

FEYERICK: Rolling out executive actions that include expanding background checks and Republicans are ready to pounce.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And when I'm elected president on my first day behind that desk, those orders are gone.

FEYERICK: Also in it for the long haul. Armed protesters who took over a federal building in Oregon say they are not budging until the government does.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What are you planning to do with this takeover?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Restore the land. Restore the land for the people.

FEYERICK: How and when will this faceoff end?

Plus Wall Street in for another wild ride? What a rough day in the market means for you.

Let's talk in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FEYERICK: And good morning, everyone. I'm Deborah Feyerick in for Carol Costello. Thanks for joining me.

Next hour President Obama is set to bypass Congress and roll out a new set of gun control measures. Critics are already blasting it as an assault on their Second Amendment rights. But Mr. Obama says that the plan will potentially save lives.

The series of executive actions will require even more sellers to be licensed and make it more difficult for people to buy assault weapons like machine guns. The plan also proposes $500 million for mental health services and calls for additional funding for FBI and ATF agents to help enforce existing laws.

In an effort to identify red flags sooner, the White House has sent letters to every state governor encouraging more information be funneled into the background check system.

Let's get the very latest from CNN White House correspondent Michelle Kosinski.

Michelle, we're about an hour and a half away from the president making his announcement. What's the expectation?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know he's going to speak for about 20 minutes. We expect this to be pretty impassioned as we've heard in the last few addresses he's done on this issue. I mean, he's described this issue as the most frustrating of his time in the presidency. And now he's kind of reached the limit of what he can do.

Remember, he enacted dozens of executive actions three years ago. They didn't really go very far. He said, well, that's about all I can do going it alone without Congress being involved. But then a couple of months ago he and his team said, well, let's scrub the law again and find any leeway where there is within existing laws, of course. Remember that's how he has to act, and see what else we can do.

So I think what really jumps out at you when you look at all the changes the administration is trying to make in a number of different areas, you really see those limits pretty strongly. I mean, this is a lot of proposals, guidance, encouraging states to do more. Obviously he's not making new laws here.

And even on the background check issue, sure, this could expand possibly greatly the number of people who need to be licensed and their buyers need to have background checks done. But really it's just a clarification of who is considered a private seller versus someone in the business of selling guns.

Big questions of course for all of these changes are enforcement. How much can the federal government really do to make sure these things happen. And in the cases of funding, Congress is going to have to approve it and appropriate it. And already we're hearing from some saying, nope, we're not going to do that, Deb.

FEYERICK: All right. Well, Michelle Kosinski, at the White House for us, thank you for that. We will be waiting for the president to speak. He's already pushing back against critics who say that he's overstepping his authority.

President Obama insisting that he is within his legal limits and that he is doing this in conjunction with the Second Amendment, that a majority of gun owners agree with, in his words, commonsense steps to save lives. Yesterday the president tweeted, "The gun lobby may be holding

Congress hostage, but they can't hold America hostage. We can't accept this carnage in our communities."

Joining me now to talk about all of this, attorney, NRA instructor and gun dealer, Lenden Eakin. We're also joined by CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Mark O'Mara.

Thanks, gentlemen, for being here. First to you, Lenden, how far does this go? Do you see this as really impacting gun owners and their ability to buy guns?

LENDEN EAKIN, NRA INSTRUCTOR: Not particularly. I think it's just as easy to buy a gun with a background check. I think the difference you're going to see is the level of enforcement. It's like the immigration executive orders where the president took away resources from enforcement. Here he's adding resources to enforcement.

FEYERICK: So, Mark, critics of the president say that he's out of bounds with this gun proposal, but listening to Lenden there, it doesn't sound that that's the case.

[10:05:09] MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, firstly, I think he has the right to do most of what he does. I know that there have been arguments about him overstepping his authority with certain executive orders, but the Executive Branch executes the laws passed by Congress. And what he's doing, I think, is trying to polish what he has tried to get through the Congress and can't. He's trying to polish it with these executive orders.

Now what effect is it going to have? This is not a perfect solution, but I think it's a step in the right direction. There's no question that we have to stem the tide of guns getting into the wrong hands. The argument that this will not do that, this may stop guns from getting into the right hands, just isn't very well placed and I don't think it's well argued.

This is -- what this is going to do is make it more difficult for guns to be in the free commerce without them being registered or identified to people who should have them. In my opinion what this really does is protect the Second Amendment right because those people who have the right to have guns legally will still be able to have them and it's a step in the right direction to stopping criminals and those who will harm us from getting guns.

FEYERICK: Yes. Part of the analogy, but when we look at gun control, there really is no sort of magic out there, no so-called silver bullet.

Lenden, President Obama says the gun lobby is holding Congress hostage. Do you believe that's fair?

EAKIN: No, that's not fair at all. It's the American public making their views known to Congress, that they want to keep the right to defend themselves and the right to bear in the Constitution.

O'MARA: That's not true.

EAKIN: And the gentleman says registration. And registration is illegal right now for normal firearms. And that's -- but that's an indication of what's being attempted. This is about trying to make a trail and keep records so that firearms can be traced, so that in the future if there's an assault weapons ban the government can know which house to go knock on the door and try to take them away.

O'MARA: Well, first of all, let's remember that 93 percent of the American public are in favor of more gun control. So to suggest that Congress is on track with people's opinion really is not quite right. 93 percent say we need to have a more commonsense approach to a very dangerous weapon.

I'm a gun owner. I have a concealed weapons permit license. Don't take away my Second Amendment right but I deal with my guns properly and responsibly. I'm not Republican, Democratic, liberal or conservative. I'm maybe of the rationalist party. We have to look at how we approach guns. We require -- we keep cars away from children because they are dangerous instrumentality in the wrong hands.

We should keep them away from those who have mental health problems, we certainly should keep them away from felons. We should keep them away from people who are on watch lists. The way we do that is to make sure that we have certain control over all weapons that we can. It is not a perfect solution.

But the idea that we must protect ourselves against the government coming into our homes and stealing all of our weapons, quite honestly, is an absurd, outdated and antiquated paranoia that unfortunately today's day and age where we are killing each other at outrageous rates with guns just needs to be rethought.

FEYERICK: All right, we're going to have to leave it there. Mark O'Mara, Lenden Eakin, thank you both.

EAKIN: Thank you.

FEYERICK: And just a reminder for our viewers, President Obama joins CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday for an exclusive one hour live town hall to discuss gun control. You can watch that right here on CNN Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

And starting at 11:30 you can watch our special coverage leading up to the president's gun control announcement right here on CNN.

Now to the 2016 campaign and the Republican candidates are trying to shore up support with voters in the key states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Among them Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush who are taking aim not only at Donald Trump but also President Obama, but will it resonate with voters?

Correspondent Athena Jones is with the Bush campaign in New Hampshire while Manu Raju is with the Rubio campaign in Iowa.

Manu, let's begin with you. Marco Rubio was on stage just earlier. Did he rally the crowd?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He did. It was a small crowd, about 75 people here in a small room so really felt like a packed audience, a standing room audience here. You know, he talked a lot about socialist, he talked about how he is pro-life, how he supports -- opposes abortion but he did say that if he were president he would sign a law, an abortion law that included some exceptions. He only said the exception that he supported is to save the life of a mother.

This is of course an issue that plays very well to this socially conservative crowd. In addition, he did talk about that issue that's been -- hangs over his campaign, immigration which he said very clearly I do not support amnesty, even though he is still open to a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.

[10:10:02] In addition, he took aim at President Obama. Something that does rile up this crowd. Here's a little bit of what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: We have a president that views America not as the greatest country in the world and a force for good, but as an arrogant global power that needs to be humbled. And the result is a foreign policy in which we betray our allies, we cut deals with our adversaries, we are gutting our military. Leaving us with the oldest air force we've ever had, the smallest Navy in 100 years. And a president that on 10 occasions around the world has apologized for America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, you know, Rubio is trying to straddle this, having this optimistic vision for America while also throwing red meat to this crowd that really does not -- really is angry at what the president has done over the last several years. You know, he's almost talking in a more aggressive tone the way Donald Trump sort of has done successfully.

Rubio is trying to do a little bit of both. As I talked to one voter here, as he's wrapping up, who talked approvingly of Rubio, he said he's sort of like a toned down Trump. So to some extent he's having some successes. He has more events throughout the state, trying to talk -- trying to show himself as a different kind of Republican but also a very hawkish Republican on national security issues. Something that he believes differentiates himself from one of his chief rivals here in the state, Ted Cruz.

FEYERICK: So trying to resonate with voters, Manu Raju. We go now to Athena Jones.

And Athena, with Jeb Bush, he's really trying to position himself more as sort of the candidate who is reflective and representative of the Republican Party. More of a conservative than some of the others who are running.

What is he saying? What's his message now?

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Deb. That's right. He's trying to say that he is one of the serious choice, a serious candidate, unlike folks like Donald Trump who of course is the frontrunner nationally and here in the state of New Hampshire. You asked last hour how big the crowd was at this event. It was about 60 people in the end, crowded into a small room here at this Chamber of Commerce event. And Bush kept up the attacks on Trump in his brief remarks. He spent most of the hour taking questions from the crowd. But take a listen to what he had to say about Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you're looking for the guy that's the big personality on the stage, that's going to insult people in a humorous way, or not even humor frankly. If you're a disabled person, it's not very funny when you get disparaged by the leading candidate for the Republican Party, or if you're a woman and you get disparaged. That's not funny at all.

If you're looking for some guy like that, I'm not your guy. I wasn't brought up that way. It's not in my heart. I'm not going to divide to make myself look better. But if you're looking for someone who has a servant's heart, who has proven leadership skills, who doesn't just talk the talk, but has actually done the things that are necessary for this country to be lifted up again, I hope you'll support me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: And so there you heard him talking about Trump. He is one of the candidates who spent the most time going after Trump. It's unclear of course whether this is going to be helping him in the polls. He's in the single digits here in New Hampshire. But as I mentioned he spent a lot of the hour answering questions, including on gun violence and how to deal with the proliferation of guns. He talked about being proud of his record as governor in the state of Florida, how it's a pro-Second Amendment state.

And he said that you're not going to solve any problems by closing the so-called gun show loophole, for instance, by executive order. So again, criticizing President Obama's moves on this.

There was an interesting moment that I should tell you, one person in the crowd challenged him on the Stand Your Ground laws in Florida. The kind of law that backed up -- sorry, that helped in the death of Trayvon Martin, some would argue, and yet he stood his ground, Governor Bush did, saying that he was proud of the way his state handled gun laws when he was governor -- Deb.

FEYERICK: All right. A lot of discussion, a lot of conversation. Athena Jones for us there, thank you so much.

And still to come, the fallout of Saudi-Iran tensions growing quickly as another country pulls their ambassador from Tehran.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:46] FEYERICK: Fallout over Saudi-Iran tensions is growing. Kuwait just recalled their ambassador to Tehran and became the latest country to side with Saudi Arabia in an escalating crisis that's threatening to further destabilize the Middle East. Tensions between modern-day in Iran and Saudi Arabia date back centuries but the intensifying situation erupted over the weekend after the Saudis executed an outspoken Shiite cleric along with more than 40 accused al Qaeda terrorists. Iranian protesters retaliated by torching and raiding the Saudi embassy in Tehran.

CNN senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen is live for us in London, CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live in Saudi Arabia.

And, Nic, first to you, the Saudis are also cutting flights and economic ties to Iran.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: They are. This is an escalation and the sense that I get from talking to Saudi officials here is that this is not going to sort of ease off any time in the near future. I mean, look, diplomatically there's a lot of international pressure on them to do this. There's the importance of the Syria talks coming up. Both sides need to be involved in that and engage in that same leader. They need to get down from the positions they're in right now.

But the Saudi officials I'm talking to here really feel that Saudi Arabia is under pressure, that its borders north and south from Iranian interests. They feel that the Iranians as well are meddling inside their country. So the tensions right now are high and continue to get higher, Deb.

FEYERICK: And Fred, you were recently in Iran. How are they responding and why now?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's very interesting to see the Iranian response because it's actually shifted since the attack on that Saudi embassy originally happened.

What you're seeing right now, Deborah, is a lot of Iranian officials, top Iranian officials, coming out and actually condemning the fact that the Saudi embassy was attacked. It's something that appears they're doing because of the international criticism that they've received because, of course, a host country has to keep the safety of an embassy even if there's a protest outside it. So the Iranians have now come out in the U.N. and said that they regret it, the incident. The U.N. Security Council itself has condemned it.

However, the Saudis are also still keeping a very strong posture towards the Iranians, they're still keeping a very strong posture towards the Saudis. Today unveiling video of a new missile base that they put inside a mountain and also heavily criticizing the Saudis as well.

[10:20:07] The president, Hassan Rouhani, came out and called the execution of the Shia cleric, quote, "a crime," and said that the Saudis, by cutting those ties, were trying to deflect attention from that. FEYERICK: And Nic, even recently there was a move to improve

relationships between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Why has it derailed so quickly, given that there were efforts under way, especially with this sort of new international community?

ROBERTSON: Well, the Saudis from their perspective feel that the Iranians were caught by surprise when they executed the Shia cleric that they say sponsors terrorism here. So that would be their perspective on it. They had -- they were in talks in the same room as Iranian representatives, to solve the Syria conflict, that was just before Christmas. They were also talking to the Houthis in Yemen. And they believe that the Iranians back the Houthis. So there were kind of talks going on, on both fronts. But they've seen significant losses in both Yemen and in Syria.

So, you know, from a Saudi perspective, that pressure, that exertion of influence by Iran that the Saudi Arabia feels it needs to fight back against, they've seen and they feel that growing. And again, they also feel that it goes on inside this country.

FEYERICK: Fred, this morning State Department spokesman John Kirby told CNN that U.S. officials are trying to avoid owning this feud. Leaving it up to Iran and Saudi Arabia to fix their differences.

Let's take a quick listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: One of the things we're doing is we're working hard to communicate with leaders throughout the region, very directly, privately. Our concerns about where this is going and the need to turn it around and to focus on key strategic issues in the region, like Iraq, Syria, ISIL, Yemen. There's a lot of things on the agenda that we want people to stay focused on.

What we're not trying to do is get in the middle of this particular issue between Saudi Arabia and Iran. We believe it's best for these two nations to work this out bilaterally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: So what are other countries doing, Fred? Is this perceived as a distraction or is this sort of just part of an ongoing conflict that cannot resolve itself?

PLEITGEN: Well, I mean, first of all, when John Kirby says the U.S. doesn't want to get in the middle of this issue between the Iranians and the Saudis, pretty much the entire Middle East is in the middle of this issue and has been for years, in the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. It's certainly something that's defined a lot of the conflicts in the Middle East.

You look at Iraq, you look at Syria, you look at Yemen, which Nic was just talking about. But the Russians, for instance, have said that they would be willing to mediate in this conflict. It's hard to see the Saudis latching onto that because they have a lot of distrust towards the Russians at this point in time because the Russians of course backing Bashar al-Assad with their bombing campaign in Syria.

You have the Turks who came out and said they would do anything to help mitigate or help mediate in this conflict. We'll wait and see whether or not any of the countries latch onto that. The European Union has come out but at this point in time, it doesn't appear as though there is one nation willing to go in between and sort of take ownership of trying to get these two countries back on track. It really does appear as though Saudi Arabia and Iran are going to have to sort this out by themselves without anybody exerting pressure on either of them.

FEYERICK: All right. Fred Pleitgen recently returned from Iran. Nic Robertson in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for us. Thank you, both.

And still to come, we are heading to Wall Street. Are we in for another wild day? What that means for your 401(k).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:27:20] FEYERICK: And let's head to Wall Street where the Dow is dipping right now about 50 points. This coming after a wild Monday.

Alison Kosik is live at the New York Stock Exchange this morning.

Alison, what's the mood there?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know what's funny, I -- not really that funny, but it's interesting to see a lot of anxious faces on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Usually you see a lot of these traders joking around but not today as we see Wall Street extending its losses. And here's why, usually after you see -- after you see such a selloff as we did see yesterday, you often see a strong bounce back the day after. The thing is, we're not seeing that today.

Also you look at how China performed overnight. China also tacked on more losses to what it had the previous session. European markets are a bit higher. Actually mixed at the moment. Still we are set with the same thing we were set with yesterday. We've got a new year, the same old worries about China.

And the worry is, is that China's economic slowdown will hurt the world economy and that the slowdown will wind up hurting U.S. companies, especially those that have decent exposure to China like Apple, Wal-Mart, Tiffany's and Yum! Brands. So investors could really be in for a rough stretch of it. In fact, we've already had some signals that stocks could have sort of a slower momentum going into 2016. You look at the year we're coming off of, 2015. The Sow and the S&P 500 ending in the red for the first time since 2008.

So everybody wants to know, what's the prediction for this year? What is the prediction for 2016? Well, many analysts are saying it's going to be a choppy year with tepid returns. Only single digit returns, something we haven't seen for several years. We got used to those double-digit returns for these indices like the Dow and the S&P 500 -- Deb.

FEYERICK: All right, hang on. Alison Kosik, thank you.

And Manhattan real estate prices are soaring and are now higher than they have ever been. The average price you're going to pay for a home, just under $2 million. That breaks a 2008 record set right before the great recession. Analysts say there are several reasons that prices are so high. Inventory is low, credit is hard to get and there's a lot of competition in the market that triggers bidding wars. Nearly half of all sales that closed late last year were at or above asking price.

And good morning, everyone. I'm Deborah Feyerick in for Carol Costello. Thanks for joining me.

President Obama is set to unveil his plans today aimed at gun violence. His expected executive action is now angering many gun owners across the country.

CNN's Gary Tuchman went inside one of the largest shows in America to get their perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Organizers refer to it as "Miles of Aisles." You can buy guns here from retail booth --