Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

RNC Member Rallies Against Trump; Dow Drops at Open; "The Nation" Backs Sanders for President; New Videos Show Officer Killing Black Teen; Couple Claims to Hold Winning Powerball Ticket. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired January 15, 2016 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00] ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: The question is, is can the U.S. economy continue to shoulder the pressures of weak economies elsewhere? Actually "The Wall Street Journal" just conducted a survey of economists finding there's a 17 percent chance the U.S. will go into a recession this year. That's actually the highest percentage in three years. Kind of stunning.

All right, so we've got the opening bell ringing and we are seeing stocks tank. The Dow down 126 points. We are watching the S&P 500 down 25 points. All the major indices are in a correction. That's at least a 10 percent drop from a recent high.

Obviously a rough day on Wall Street. And oil prices, as well, watching those fall almost 5 percent lower. Below $30 a barrel.

Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, I know you're going to keep an eye on things on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. We'll get back to you. Alison Kosik, thanks so much.

KOSIK: OK.

COSTELLO: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

It was a showdown for the ages as Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz traded punches during last night's Republican debate. In some ways it felt like a free for all. And while many agree Trump delivered his best performance yet, one Republican National Committee member is urging the party to rally against the frontrunner Donald Trump. In an exclusive video obtained by Politico, you can hear Holland Redfield (ph) telling a group of fellow Republicans, including the RNC chair Reince Priebus, the party is being held hostage by Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLLAND REDFIELD, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE MEMBER: When I see the tenor of the discussion amongst these candidates reusing our label and professing they are either conservative or liberal, and the disrespect in many cases for ethnic minorities in the United States, and also religious factions in the United States, you have to draw a line. Because sooner or later somebody has to pick up the pieces. We're almost terrorized as members of our party. Shut up. Toe the line. Embrace each other. And let's go forward. I understand that. But there is a limit to where loyalty is. And I am loyal to this party by speaking out on these very issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: With me now to talk about this, former RNC communications director Doug Heye. I'm also joined by Republican political consultant Mindy Finn. She's also the president of Empowered Women.

Welcome to both of you.

DOUG HEYE, FMR. RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thank you.

MINDY FINN, REPUBLICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning.

So, Doug, Holland Redfield, have you ever heard an RNC member talking like this about a GOP frontrunner?

HEYE: You know, there are 168 members of the Republican National Committee. Having worked there, I've heard a lot of them say a lot of things. And while I agree with what he says, here's the challenge. The Republican National Committee can't get involved in primaries. It has to treat every candidate, whether it's Donald Trump or Ben Carson or Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush exactly the same. And while I would be very sympathetic to efforts to, you know, really expose Trump for the emperor without any clothes and the emperor without any answers, there's nothing the RNC can do about it. It's just not allowed in their rules.

COSTELLO: So, Mindy, in light of what Doug just said, and Redfield said to his fellow RNCers, is it now conceivable that no Republican candidate will arrive in Cleveland with a majority of delegates to claim the GOP presidential nomination? In other words, will it be a brokered convention? Could it be?

FINN: Well, it is possible, but it is very unlikely. I mean you have to remember that it's still seven months out. We haven't even had any votes cast at this point. And so when you have, you know, say, if one candidate wins eight states and another candidate wins eight and another candidate wins several states, then talk to me about a brokered convention. Obviously the RNC has to prepare for all scenarios and it looks more likely at this point that it maybe would have been - and, obviously, that it would have been in 2012 when it was - it was Mitt Romney. But at this point, without a vote cast, I don't think we can predict that that will happen. There's still a lot of time.

COSTELLO: But, Doug, it's clear, Donald Trump isn't going anywhere. You don't support him. I know that. Many Republican - establishment Republicans don't. So it doesn't come down to a brokered convention. What's your prediction?

HEYE: You know, I have no predictions. As Mindy alluded to, before the NCAA March Madness tournament starts, you can't really speculate about what's going to happen in overtime of the final game. We haven't cast a vote yet. We still have another debate before we get to Iowa. There's a long way to go. Obviously, Donald Trump's the leading candidate. He's the frontrunner. I would love to see an effort to take him down.

But here's the challenge, Carol. There's not really any - despite all the talk that we've heard - some monolithic establishment that's going to come and set order amongst the party. If that were the case, that would have happened already. When Donald Trump, as one example, told Chuck Todd that he gets his military advice on watching TV, if there was a monolithic establishment, it would have come down, run massive TV ads of Donald Trump and Gomer Pyle and shown him to be a not serious candidate. That, obviously, hasn't happened and meanwhile Donald Trump gets better and better in debates.

[09:35:07] COSTELLO: Yes, and he - he continues to draw large crowds because he's going to speak later today and we understand at his event there's already a large crowd gathering. We'll go to that event in our 10:00 a.m. Eastern Hour of NEWSROOM. There you see it. You see the crowd assembled to listen to Donald Trump.

Mindy, back to you. So is it possible that a well-known name could suddenly enter the race as an independent, like, say, oh, Michael Bloomberg?

FINN: I mean, I think, obviously, some candidate could enter as an independent. That's happened before and it could happen again. What the Republican Party wants to do is avoid that scenario. Because if they're keeping their eye on the target, it's on Hillary Clinton or, at this point, potentially Bernie Sanders. And I think that's where voters need to be looking right now. I mean we can analyze this up and down, but ultimately this comes down to the voters. It is in their hands. It's not in the hands of this, you know, establishment, as Doug said, that is kind of imaginary and made up. It's in the voters. And if you're a voter right now, you obviously want someone who's in line with your values. You want someone who's strong. But look across that stage and there are several candidate that meet that test. But you also have to be asking, who's going to be in the best position to beat Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders? And that has not been Donald Trump to this point.

COSTELLO: So, if it's not Donald Trump, but he gets the nomination, why is it so strange to believe that we could have a brokered convention, Doug?

HEYE: Well, it's a fantastic scenario that we haven't seen truly in generations. Is it possible? Sure. But before we've had any votes cast, that kind of speculation for what - you know, we're still in January. What may happen in July in Cleveland is such a long way away. Let's let people vote in Iowa at the caucuses, in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, the SEC primaries, and go through that whole process. And we'll start to see colors and shapes to tell us if that's a real possibility.

COSTELLO: All right, Doug Heye, Mindy Finn, thanks to both of you. Still to come in the NEWSROOM -

HEYE: Thank you.

COSTELLO: You're welcome.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Republicans might be slamming Bernie Sanders' liberal message, but it just got him another endorsement. I'll talk to the editor and publisher of "The Nation," next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:40:34] COSTELLO: All right, we want to head to the New York Stock Exchange because, as you can see, the Dow continues to tank this morning, down 366 points.

Alison Kosik, can you make us feel better?

KOSIK: I'm going to try to sugar coat this, but there's not a lot of sugar to throw on this market at this point.

You know, the losses, yes, they're big, but the accelerations of the losses, they don't seem to be going gangbusters at this point, though now that I'm saying that, you're seeing the Dow go lower. We did see the Dow - and we are seeing it now - dip below that psychological milestone of 16,000. You know, there's a pile of worries on Wall Street. For one, you're looking at what happened in China overnight. China entering a bear market, which means its stocks are off 20 percent from a recent high there. We're watching oil prices fall, down almost 5 percent today, below $30 a barrel. That's a level we haven't seen since 2003. We're also seeing economic data come in, that's just, to be quite honest with you, isn't good. Retail sales numbers fell in December and that's a crucial shopping time for consumers and retailers just couldn't pull out a win for the holiday shopping season. That's a huge worry for Wall Street. Even a regional manufacturing index that came out showed that it's at levels that we haven't seen since the recession during 2009. So you're just not seeing investors find any sugar, anything good, any real reason to buy into this market at this point.

Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. So we've got to cut away, because I don't want to see that - that it's down 400, because it's close to that right now.

KOSIK: Yes.

COSTELLO: Alison Kosik, thanks so much.

KOSIK: Yes.

COSTELLO: All right, back to politics. Republicans had the stage, but Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders made his voice heard via Twitter last night, firing back at the GOP frontrunner Donald Trump over campaign messages some have called racist, tweeting, quote, "no, we're not going to hate Latinos or Muslims. We're going to stand together." Earlier in New Hampshire, Sanders courted the African-American vote, calling out racial inequity in marijuana arrests.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And let's also be clear about the racial implications of this. And that is, it turns out, according to a bunch of studies, that whites and blacks end up doing marijuana at about equal rates. But in the black community, four times as many people are arrested as in the white community. That is wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Messages like that led liberal magazine "The Nation" to endorse Sanders, writing that, quote, "Sanders and his supporters are bending the arc of history toward justice."

So let's talk about that with the editor and publisher of "The Nation," Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Welcome, Katrina. Thanks for being here.

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, EDITOR & PUBLISHER, "THE NATION": Thank you. Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: So you talk about Bernie Sanders and a political revolution. What do you mean about that?

VANDEN HEUVEL: Well, first of all, I just want to - you know, what Bernie Sanders said last night is very powerful coming on the heels of that debate last night, which was about fomenting division. Bernie Sanders lifts up a message, not about division, but about solidarity, about how we need to turn to each other, not on each other. "The Nation" endorsed Bernie Sanders, Carol, because he has been a truth teller about the rigged system which is damaging this country's democracy. He says, we are a country of, by, for the people, all the people, not of by the billionaire, the banks, the pharmaceuticals companies. And in that spirit, as you heard last night, Bernie Sanders is an ally and a champion of the movements that are animating this country now, Black Lives Matter, Climate Justice, Fight For Fifteen. And it's a spirit that we want to see live on, whatever happens to Bernie Sanders. And that political revolution -

COSTELLO: So - so why Bernie Sanders and not Hillary Clinton?

VANDEN HEUVEL: So Hillary Clinton, in our editorial, Hillary Clinton is a candidate of great experience, of intelligence, of grit, but she is a candidate - in many ways a transactional candidate, not a transformational candidate. She has been moved by the populist temper. There's no question. But the idea of the political revolution, call it a political transformation, requires mobilizing millions of people to be part of our democracy. Bernie Sanders, by the way, has animated a younger generation, which is notoriously difficult. He has support among those 45 and under two to one compared to Hillary Clinton. Listen, at the end of the day, Hillary Clinton is far, far preferable to those men we saw last night on the stage. There's a Supreme Court which will reshape our country in these next years. But Bernie Sanders has a vision, has a vision. He's unbought. He's -

[09:45:05] COSTELLO: Well, let's talk - touch on that, because Hillary Clinton was brought up a lot during the debate last night. Bernie Sanders' name wasn't really mentioned, but the fact that he's a socialist was. And I just want you to listen.

VANDEN HEUVAL: Yes.

COSTELLO: Listen to the reaction during last night's Republican debate to Bernie Sanders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What does it say about our country that a candidate who is a self avowed socialist and who doesn't think a 90 percent tax rate is too high could be the Democratic nominee?

GOV. JOHN KASICH, (R-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, if that's the case we're going win every state if Bernie Sanders is a the nominee. That's not even a issue.

And look -- and I know Bernie, and I can promise you he's not going president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VANDEN HEUVEL: You know what, they can mock Bernie Sanders, but millions of people are meeting Bernie Sanders and his issues, are looking beyond the labels. Some of them say Democratic socialism. There is more room in this country today, I would argue, to discuss capitalism...

COSTELLO: But still -- but still, free college, you know, some of the things he's talking about.

VANDEN HEUVEL: But Carol - Carol, here, you know, for too long the corporate media has policed the parameters of the possible. Bernie Sanders' issues are majority issues. Medicare for all, free college tuition, increasing Social Security, raising the minimum wage. These are mainstream issues which are marginal.

COSTELLO: ... cost enormous amounts of money. So, how are they going to...

VANDEN HEUVEL: And so does the military industrial complex, so does big pharmaceutical. We can find the money. Tax Wall Street to rebuild main street. That is one of Bernie Sanders' ideas. I think we have to open our imagination. This country has too many challenges to limit it. And so Bernie Sanders, "The Nation" endorses his issues and ideas are ones that have been marginalized for too long, that are in sync with the nation's. I think inequality is the existential crisis of our time, and he speaks to it.

COSTELLO: All right. Katrina vanden Huevel. Thank you so much for stopping by.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I appreciate it.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Any minute now the former Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham will throw his support behind Jeb Bush. The announcement is coming from Charleston, South Carolina. That would be Senator Graham's home state. And it's a critical state in the opening round of the primaries. We're going to keep an eye on the announcement and we'll tell you Lindsey Graham has to stay.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, three years later, video released of the officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenage in Chicago. A judge now calling the teenager's death disturbing. The latest next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:50:03] COSTELLO: A new demand for justice in Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Protesters calling for the city to take action and fire Mayor Rahm Emanual for yet another police shooting death of an unarmed black teenager. A judge agreed to release several new videos overnight showing 17-year-old Cedrick Chatman's final moments.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

COSTELLO (on camera): Rosa Flores is in Chicago amidst the protesters. Good morning.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The protesters this morning have been asking members prominent members of this community to boycott the MLK breakfast that Mayor Rahm Emanual organized this morning. That's why you're seeing them here in front of this hotel, because the breakfast is happening actually inside.

So what they've been doing is they have been screaming to every member of the community who has been walking in. They've been screaming at them saying shame on you for going inside and participating in this event. Now, what are they protesting? They're protesting the shooting deaths of black teens in the community at the hands of police. These shootings, of course, caught on tape. The latest one was released yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (voice-over): It's yet another deadly shooting caught on camera. An unarmed black teen shot and killed by a Chicago police officer. The videos released after a judge's order to show the final moments of Cedrick Chatman's life three years ago. At 1:46 p.m. surveillance cameras capture Chatman, a car jacking suspect, getting out of a car and running away from police. That's Chatman running between two parked cars and onto the sidewalk, a police officer close behind. Two seconds later, a second police officer, Kevin Fry is seen in the

middle of the street with his weapon drawn. Chatman disappears out of frame, still running away from police when Fry opens fire. Officers say Chatman was pointing a dark object at them and shot in self- defense. The object turned out to be a black iPhone box. The camera pans over and shows Chatman lying on the street, and then about a minute later a police officer is seen with a foot on the wounded teen's body.

BRIAN COFMAN, CHATMAN FAMILY ATTORNEY: You have a 17-year-old kid that's shot and killed, bleeding in the street in the city of Chicago, hand cuffed face down on the ground, and for him to essentially step on him, on top of it, it's just totally unreasonable.

FLORES: Unreasonable and disturbing according to the judge that ordered the video to be released. The judge also called the city irresponsible for what he called an age of enlightenment.

FLORES (on camera): The judge is referring to the city's motion to drop its opposition for the release of the video made late Wednesday afternoon after a three-year fight. The city's explanation, transparency in the public's interest.

COFFMAN: I would say it's more of a political move than anything.

FLORES (voice-over): Attorney's for the officer sent CNN a statement saying they had reason to believe that the suspect was armed. The police officers have not faced criminal charges, but instead Chatman's two accomplices who were ten blocks away were charged with the teen's murder. They later pleaded guilty to lesser crimes.

The police officers kept their jobs, but are facing a wrongful death suit from Chatman's family.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (on camera): And as we take another live look here in Chicago, you can see protesters protesting the MLK breakfast organized by Mayor Rahm Emanual. They've been asking leaders of this community to boycott this breakfast. So, Carol, the big question, did their boycott actually work? Well, CNN producer Bill Kirkoks is actually inside that breakfast and he tells me that there's hundreds of community leaders inside having breakfast with Mayor Rahm Emanual.

COSTELLO: All right. We're looking inside right now to see what that looks like. It's a lot calmer inside than it is outside. Rosa Flores, we'll get back to you. Thanks so much.

[09:54:53] I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Two people in Tennessee claim to hold one of the three winning tickets of the $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot. The ticket has not been verified by Lottery officials, but the couple feel confident enough that they broke the news this morning on the Today Show with their attorney in tow.

Polo Sandoval joins us now from Munford, Tennessee to tell us more. Good morning.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Speaking to neighbors in this small town just north of Memphis who tell us that at this point they believe that the house you see behind me is home to Tennessee's newest millionaires, according to what this couple is saying. John and Lisa Robinson calling Munford home here for several years now. They said that they obviously wanted to stay under the radar until yesterday, turning to NBCs "Today Show" to blow the lid right off. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

LISA ROBINSON, POWERBALL WINNER: I wrote the numbers down and I got to looking and I saw it, and I was like, looked again, they're the same, looked again and the third time I went running down the hallway, John, John, you got to check these numbers. And I startled him because he was asleep on the couch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John, what did you think when you first woke up?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you believe it?

JOHN ROBINSON, POWERBALL WINNER: She said check these numbers, and I said okay. I looked at them and I was like, yes, they look like they're the numbers, so I checked them actually four times and I said well, I'll believe it when the news comes on in the morning and they say hey, there's a winner been in Munford.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

SANDOVAL: All right. Taking you back out to Munford, very quiet middle class neighborhood. Again, the Robinson family calling this place home. Finally, before I let you go, Carol, let's show you a bit of the odds. You have the couple that calls this place home matching all of those Powerball numbers, and then, well, the lovely lady that we spoke to, Linda, who calls this place home, she didn't match any of the numbers and the ticket was bought at the same store.

So, again, one in 292 million, those odds at play on this quiet street in Tennessee.

COSTELLO: Well, congrats to the new billionaires in town. Polo Sandoval, many thanks.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello.