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New Day

Americans say Economy is Poor in New Poll; Democrats Continue to Distance Themselves from Obama; Madonna Badger Speaks about Life After Loss; Group in New Hampshire Fills Parking Meters for Strangers

Aired October 29, 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, the White House detecting some suspicious cyber activity on its computer network. A White house official isn't calling it a hacking, but the "Washington Post" says hackers working for the kremlin are to blame.

President Obama calling on Americans to keep some perspective on Ebola, saying that health care workers on the front lines should be applauded and supported when they return to the U.S., not placed under mandatory quarantines.

Government sources are telling CNN that the police chief in Ferguson, Missouri, could resign as early as next week. However, Thomas Jackson, the chief there, says the reports are not true. Officials are trying to calm tensions as a grand jury decide if a police officer should be charged in teenager Michael Brown's death.

The manhunt for a suspected serial child rapist wanted in connection with a cross-country spree is over. Massachusetts State Police say 26- year-old Gregory Lewis was arrested in upstate New York Tuesday night.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are about to enter the besieged Syrian city of Kobani. According to media reports though, it reinforced fellow Kurds who are fighting ISIS.

We do update those five things to know, so be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the very latest.

Guys, over to you.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I have a familiar question for you in a new context. What's in your wallet? That's what's really being asked to voters because the economy is going to be your major motivation. So, will a newly released CNN/ORC poll affect what's going to happen in the elections? We'll debate it straight ahead.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, a story that touched so many of us. Her home went up in flames three years ago on Christmas night killing her entire family. How could she overcome or even get past such a tragedy to get on with her life? We will dig deeper on this story. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: New CNN/ORC polls just released this morning give us an insight into voters' motivation a week from now. They show that two- thirds of the American people believe the economy is doing poorly.

CUOMO: That's bad.

CAMEROTA: But people do see a light at the end of the tunnel, Chris.

CUOMO: Oh, that's good.

CAMEROTA: Yes. This is your read.

CUOMO: That's the way politics go. Why? Well, the economy is always the most important issue to the voter. Politicians know that, which is why they often try to distract from it. So the question is, will what we see in our polls affect what happens on Election Day? Our next guest will have something to say about this, Ana Navarro, CNN political commentator and Republican strategist, and Ms. Stephanie Cutter, CNN political commentator and was deputy campaign manager for President Obama's 2012 campaign, is now with us, which is even better.

STEPHANIE CUTTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: Good morning, ladies.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: OK, so we just showed you that poll that shows that a majority of Americans think that the economy is doing poorly at the moment. However, there's another poll that shows that 52 percent do have optimism about next year. They think the economy will be doing better. That's up. That's significant because just a year ago it was only 40 percent of respondents who thought that times ahead would be brighter.

So, Ana, does that work for incumbents or does that make you want to kick the incumbents out?

NAVARRO: You know, Alisyn, if you look at the polls that we had out yesterday, you can see that what's really prevailing out there is a pessimistic move. People are frustrated. They're disillusioned. And optimism works when it's happening at the moment of the election. Optimism about next year doesn't work much when the election is next week. And so I think that what you're seeing is a lot of voters go out and vote based on frustration and disillusionment right now.

CUOMO: Stephanie Cutter, where is the passion among Democrats? By all indications you are running scared. You even have your congressional chairman now coming forward, begging for money. Do you like the vibe?

CUTTER: Well, Chris, you know, this is, by any measure, a tough year for Democrats. Most of the battles that we're forging are being fought on Republican turf. However, Democrats are holding their own. They're running good campaigns. And it really comes down to, at this point in the campaign, it comes down to the candidates and the strength of the campaign. And this is where Democrats excel, the ground game, getting their voters out.

You know, the story that you're referencing about House Democrats seeking more money, for several of those seats that they're seeking money, it's Democratic challengers of Republican incumbents. So as - you know, as typical this close to the election, getting as much money as possible to push back on the barrage of ads that are being run against our candidates, but also trying to expand the territory against some Republican incumbents.

CAMEROTA: As you both know, the president has not been on the campaign trail much. Many Democratic candidates have not - or incumbents have not wanted him to be with them at different campaign stops. But he was there yesterday. He was campaigning in Wisconsin. And he painted a more rosy picture than either of you are. Listen to the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This country has made real progress since the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. When I came into office, the economy was in freefall. Auto industry was on the verge of collapse. But over the past four and a half years, America's businesses have created more than 10 million new jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Ana, the economy has ticked up. Does he have a point?

NAVARRO: You know, I'm glad to hear him saying that. Somebody's got to toot President Obama's horn and it's got to be President Obama because no other Democrats seem to be doing it. They seem to be running away from him as far as they can. At some point I think almost the best thing he could do to help Democrats is maybe campaign against them.

CUOMO: Look like they caught maybe a -- he's caught the bug there, the Republican bug, Ana, of constantly being negative. That is my question to you. The campaign platform for Republicans at every level right now is Obama is terrible. That is their campaign platform. How does that do anything but drive the negativity that we see in all the polls right now? Is that really the way you want to gain power?

NAVARRO: Chris, I think, on both sides, it's the same message. You know, I live in Miami, Florida. There's a very tight congressional race going there. And there's also a very tight governor's race going on in Florida. And the barrage of negative ads, I just wish they weren't that effective, because I think it really does paint the mood of the voters. It is negative all the time.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Stephanie, why aren't Democrats embracing the good things about the president more?

CUTTER: Well, I think that - well, I disagree that in terms of the things that Democrats across the country are campaigning on, increase in the minimum wage, pay equity for women, ensuring women have health care when they need it most, those are the things that the president has fought for and achieved together with many of these congressional Democrats. You know, there are a tremendous amount of negative ads out there that this isn't an election. We're used to this. You know, there's lots of a debate about whether or not these negative ads are effective. But Democrats are also laying out a forward-looking agenda, and I think that's consistent in the races across the country.

Republicans, in contrast, have made it clear that they don't want to put out an agenda until after the election because they're afraid of it being attacked or coming under criticism. So campaigns are always about the future, or at least successful campaigns are always about the future. That's why that economic data is good news. People see that we're on a path, we're moving forward, and now it's down to looking at which candidate has the path that voters want to get on. And right now, Democrats have offered a way forward. In many of these races, Republicans are trying to nationalize this race and just put Obama on the ballot rather than putting out their own ideas.

CUOMO: Well, it's working, though, Stephanie Cutter, because the Republicans are looking good in a lot of races. So we're taking one step closer to the big day and we'll need analysis every step of the way up to it. So thanks to you, Stephanie Cutter. Ana Navarro, thank you as well. Always good to have you on the show.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, ladies.

All right, a story that you have to hear, because she said that she wanted to die many, many times, after losing her three daughters and her parents in a Christmas Day fire. This woman's incredible resilience and strength can be a lesson to all of us, and her story is next.

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CAMEROTA: Three years ago on Christmas Day, Madonna Badger's Connecticut home was engulfed in a massive fire, killing her parents and her three young daughters.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA (voice-over): On Sunday, she spoke out to Oprah in a moving interview about overcoming unspeakable tragedy.

OPRAH WINFREY, TELEVISION HOST: In the beginning, though, did you just want to die?

MADONNA BADGER, LOST FAMILY IN CHRISTMAS DAY FIRE: Yes.

WINFREY: And did you ask yourself many times why didn't you also die?

BADGER: Yes, I still have those feelings. I still - - this last Christmas, I had those feelings of I just want to die, and certainly the feeling of why didn't I die, you know? And I wanted, I wanted to die so many times, you know, just to even just to be with them.

(END VIDEOCLIP) CAMEROTA (on camera): Joining us to talk about this is Wendy Walsh,

she's a CNN human behavior expert and psychologist. Wendy, great to see you this morning. I have always wanted to hear from Madonna Badger. She's doing a real service coming publicly to speak about this, because I've just wanted to know what the secret is to resilience, and her resilience, and how she's been able to go on these past three years. She even got married this year, she has moved on with her life. What is the secret to resilience?

WENDY WALSH, CNN HUMAN BEHAVIOR EXPERT: Well, I think the secret to resilience is something that she shares with many people, and that is a biological predisposition to be able to recover, first of all. Secondly, she had this great advantage. Although she lost all three of her children and her parents in one night, literally cutting all umbilical cords attached to her, I liken it to Sandra Bullock in "Gravity," being shot into space with no connections to anybody or anything.

She did have the support of great friends. One couple allowed her to move in with them for a year, and she had the resources to be able to get the best psychotherapy, the best help. She was seeing a therapist every single day. If only all of us could have that kind of support when we're dealing with tragedy.

CAMEROTA: But, see, I feel as though you are somehow downplaying her strength of character by saying that she was predisposed genetically to deal with this, and by saying that she has access to the best care, you're somehow overlooking that she, herself, had to dig deep into her reserves and maybe all of us could somehow take a page from her.

WALSH: Yes, I'm not saying that somebody who doesn't have a biological predisposition to being able to rebound won't be able to, but she may have had a better chance at it. She was brave enough to do it sort of cold turkey. At the beginning I think the doctors were prescribing her all kinds of psychotropic medications to help her with the initial trauma. But, as she says in the Oprah interview, you know, you can't recover by shooting heroin, and drinking a lot of alcohol, or taking a lot of pills. You have to feel the feelings, and that's the brave work that we can all take as a lesson, is becoming self-aware of our own feelings and being able to tolerate really awful feelings.

CAMEROTA: Yes, to tolerate the pain, that is the key to what she was talking about in this Oprah interview that I thought was so powerful. There's no way to circumvent it, there's no way to cheat the pain. She said that the fastest way is to go right through it. You have to allow yourself to feel the enormity of it, and the intensity of it, in order to come out the other side of it. But back to the umbilical cords being cut that you talked about, she talked about the not only emotional wounds of what happened to her, but the physicality of the loss. Listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

BADGER: That mother/child bond, you know, is so huge, and it's like having, you know, nerves, sort of that are, I guess, called vagus nerves, but they're emotional. And that mine got cut. WINFREY: Yes.

BADGER: And it got cut in three places, and then it got cut between me and my mom, and me and my dad.

WINFREY: Yes, which is different.

BADGER: Which is a different thing, of course, but then, you know, just that I was just basically a great big raw nerve.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA: So, these nerves got severed and left her raw, as we can imagine. Wendy, where do people even begin when they're feeling that level of pain?

WALSH: Well, of course they begin by surrounding themselves by people who are trusting and people who care about them. What she's talking about is so fascinating because it illustrates so clearly how our primary relationships are not only paramount to our mental health, they are paramount to our physical health, and in fact a toxic relationship doesn't help you in other words. So, even if somebody's watching who is in a toxic relationship, this might be a time to think that it could be hurting your health.

And when she talks about these nerves being cut, it's literally like an amputee. Imagine losing a leg and having phantom pain, imagine the same thing happening emotionally. So, the answer, of course, is to surround yourself by people who love you and friends, I say, are the family we choose. In this case, she was well aware of that and chose them. And that's really - - and then to sit with your feelings and know that it's okay to cry, it's okay to be angry, and to take every day one step at a time. I know it sounds trite, we say this all the time, but physically going through the motions of your day helps create a kind of normalcy to your mind.

CAMEROTA: No, you're so right. She talked about that. She said that she realized that thinking about getting better, and thinking about getting out of bed, wasn't going to cut it. She had to actually put her feet on the ground and get out of bed, and she said that that is what started her, literally one foot in front of the other, to go about, start to begin to - - If she could make it to the kitchen, well, that was a good sign. She had made it to the kitchen that day. If she could get dressed, then that was a good day. Very quickly, does time really heal this wound?

WALSH: Time can heal if you do the right thing with the time. I mean, if you're drinking away that time and using other medicine as a crutch, it's going to extend the time, but if you do the work, time can heal.

CAMEROTA: Wendy Walsh, great to talk to you about this and such a gift that Madonna Badger is talking about it and giving other people inspiration to get through their tough times. Thanks so much.

WALSH: Um-hum. CAMEROTA: Let's go over to Chris.

CUOMO: A little bit of a tone change here. You know who I love? Meter maids, said nobody ever, but the Robin Hooders take this sentiment to another level, saving drivers from parking tickets for expired meters. Isn't that nice? But now the self-proclaimed Merry Men are headed to court. Did they go too far? Can they go far enough? A debate with one of them live, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Alright, so there's a group of activists calling themselves modern day Robin Hooders, raising the eyre (ph) of authorities in a small New Hampshire town.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

PEREIRA (voice-over): The group puts coins in expired meters. They claim they have saved citizens some $80,000 just in 2013 by preventing at least 1,000 tickets. Money they say the city would have otherwise quote, unquote "stolen." Well, the city tells a different side of the story, accusing the group of taunting, even harassing, parking officers, preventing them from doing their job. They've actually asked the state's highest court to issue a restraining order against the group.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

PEREIRA (on camera): Joining us is one of the so-called Merry Men, James Cleaveland of freekeen.com from Manchester, New Hampshire. My friend, good to have you here. So, here's the question, are your motives altruistic, or is there something else behind all of this?

JAMES CLEAVELAND, WWW.FREEKEENE.COM: Well, there's definitely some altruistic motives behind it, but I don't agree with how the parking is enforced, and, you know, basically it's a threat and I don't think it's a criminal act, which is what the city considers it, to park your vehicle. There already is a time limit. We don't need these parking meters, and, to me, it's outrageous that they issue tickets when there is an expired meter, and there's ten empty spots around. No one is being denied parking at that point. I can understand it a little bit if it's about managing the parking at peak times, but it's outrageous if there's plenty of parking and they're out there issuing tickets. It's about revenue generation, in my opinion.

CUOMO: Why are you taking it out on the meter maids, though? I mean, nobody likes getting tickets. It's one thing you pay people's tickets, that's really nice of you.

PEREIRA: Yes.

CUOMO: But chasing around these people, they have a job to do, they have families.

PEREIRA: Bills to pay.

CUOMO: You're scaring them. What's that about?

CLEAVELAND: Well, so the meter maids, the parking enforcement officers, I never wanted Robin Hooding to be about them. So, out of necessity, I don't want to just go around randomly filling the parking meters. I only want to fill meters that would have been ticketed. My goal is not to fill meters just at random, so I kind of have to be close to them. And unfortunately, they do things like they'll divert their path in an attempt to get tickets. I've told them one idea proposal I had was if there was some kind of route, I wouldn't mind staying away from them. My goal is not go to bother them. My goal is to save people from parking tickets.

CAMEROTA: So what's been the response of everyday New Hampshire people who see that when you're loading up the meter?

CLEAVELAND: Well, of course, some people don't like it, but some people do like it. We--

CAMEROTA: Who could not like it?

CLEAVELAND: Generally try to leave a little business card.

CAMEROTA: But, seriously, who could not like you paying their meter?

CLEAVELAND: On the window. People say that they are more than happy to pay the parking tickets. What's kind of funny, though, is all that money, it doesn't go to, like, improving the streets or something. It pretty much goes to the parking department. So --

CUOMO: You've had people say - -

CLEAVELAND: It's just funny to me, but - -

CUOMO: - - don't pay the meter for me, I want to get the ticket?

CLEAVELAND: I've had maybe one or two say that in the year and a half that I've been doing it. Most people, though, I've gotten hugged. People come up and give us change, we get donations in the mail. I have a whole wall, a collage that I made.

PEREIRA: Wow.

CLEAVELAND: Just of the thank you cards. So, it's been positive, you know?

PEREIRA: Well, we know that two courts have sided with you and your fellow Robin Hooders. It's now going to the highest court there. We'll wait and see what happens with this, you and your merry band of Robin Hooding coin-depositors.

CUOMO: That's a very long title.

CAMEROTA: Might want to work on that title.

PEREIRA: I just made that up.

CUOMO: Won't fit on the back of a jersey.

PEREIRA: James, thanks for joining us to discuss it. I'm sure you have opinions, let us know on Twitter or on Facebook your thoughts about this, folks at home.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, James. And come up with a catchier phrase for us.

PEREIRA: No, that was me. They have a better - - that was me, yes.

CUOMO: I could see Mick doing that, paying for someone else's ticket. The logo thing was just terrible.

PEREIRA: Not strong on the logo.

CUOMO: Not strong at all.

PEREIRA: Not at all.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: That's great. Alright, thanks so much for joining us. Time now for "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. Hey, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, have a nice day. Thanks so much. NEWSROOM starts now.