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Dolce & Gabbana on Uproar Over IVF Comments; Poll: Double-Digit Lead for Hillary Vs. GOP; Death Threats Against Caroline Kennedy. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired March 18, 2015 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The designers behind the luxury brand told an Italian magazine that babies born from in vitro fertilization are synthetic, coming from wombs for rent.
[07:30:13] Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce defending their views, saying they are personal beliefs based on their upbringing.
STEFANO GABBANA, FASHION DESIGNER: I think in a different way from Domenico. But not by this, I start to instill to him, you know, the tolerance. I think there is --
COREN (on camera): In a different way, in what way?
GABBANA: I believe in in vitro, for example. I don't have anything about this.
COREN: So, you support IVF?
GABBANA: Yes. But --
COREN: Domenico, you don't support IVF?
GABBANA: It's a personal --
DOMENICO DOLCE, FASHION DESIGNER: I think today, we don't need to support or don't support. You think what you think. I think today --
GABBANA: It's not supporting, it's just your belief.
DOLCE: Yes.
COREN (voice-over): Singer Elton John did not agree, posting on his Instagram, "How dare you refer do my beautiful children as synthetic." John vowing never to wear their brand again and calling for a boycott.
The fashion duo fired back, calling for a counter boycott, and defending the freedom to speak.
Dolce and Gabbana also took aim at same-sex parents, saying, quote, "You are born to a mother and a father, or at least that's how it should be."
This morning, they have a different tune. DOLCE: I love Elton John. I sing every day.
GABBANA: We love gay couples, we love gay adoption. We love everything, it's just an express -- Domenico expressed --
DOLCE: My point of view. It's my private point of view. I am -- I talk with you. I'm Sicilian. I grew up in the family. My company is a family company. And I believe in the traditional family.
COREN: The duo themselves prominent in the gay community, romantically involved until 2005.
(on camera): What would you say to Elton John and other celebrities who --
(CROSSTALK)
GABBANA: I would say life is long. Life is happy. You don't need to be angry for nothing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COREN: Dolce and Gabbana calling for peace with Elton John. They once again reiterated they did not mean to offend anybody, apologize if they did, purely sharing their own personal views, Michaela?
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Anna, thanks so much.
To be angry about nothing -- it is something to parents of children who are born via IVF.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, it always when you have public figure who is say things out loud and are surprised when people react to them. They say no, no, these are my private views I spoke out loud as a public figure that millions of people know.
PEREIRA: You have to face the consequences of your views.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: It sounds like this has been a clarifying exercise for them. To --
PEREIRA: I wonder.
CAMEROTA: I think so. I mean, to try to define his old-fashioned values with his market and the customers and how all of that is going to reconcile.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Dick Cheney raising eyebrows in a "Playboy" interview, accusing President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder of playing the race card. CNN's John King tells us more on "Inside Politics."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:36:54] BERMAN: Right now, to "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY with, Mr. John King -- John. JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mr. Berman, good morning
to you. Got to take a deep dive.
A brand new CNN poll looking at the 2016 presidential race -- yes, it's early. But important numbers, let's get right to them with CNN's Jeff Zeleny and CNN's Peter Hamby.
Shocking breaking new: Hillary Clinton is way ahead among the Democrats. No one has heard that before, right? But let's look at these numbers because they do tell you something, especially this poll taken in the middle of her email controversy.
Hillary Clinton, 62 percent, Joe Biden, 15 percent, that's the wrong one. We'll get the right one up for you there.
Hillary Clinton, 62 percent, Joe Biden, 15 percent, Elizabeth Warren 10 percent, Bernie Sanders 3 percent, Martin O'Malley 1, Jim Webb 1. The most significant part to me is one no significant damage from the email controversy. That's about where she has been for some time.
But there's been this very significant Draft Elizabeth Warren Movement. Liberal groups have been raising money off of it. People who support her have had big high-profile events in Iowa and New Hampshire. Now, these are national numbers, but not moving the numbers at all if you're Hillary Clinton you're not worried.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I think that's right. I mean, I think a lot of her movement is on social media, on Twitter, Facebook. This reflects the reality of American out there. There's room for her to grow, obviously, but there's a not a groundswell for her.
PETER HAMBY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, I mean, there's always going to be a vocal slice of the Democratic party that's either more progressive than Clinton or they don't like Hillary Clinton, that's always going to be there, that doesn't mean there's room for her to grow past Hillary. What's interesting is if you take Warren out, Hillary's support actually jumps. It jumps among Democratic women as well.
So, it's not like her numbers would move to Biden or O'Malley. Sanders gains two points.
KING: A more than formidable battleship, the Clinton campaign.
And here's an interesting, why we often say don't pay too much attention to national poll when it comes to the presidential horse race. That's true. Don't pay too much attention. We've elected presidents based on the Electoral College. We go state by state.
But do pay attention if the leader is five or six or seven points ahead. Because if you're five or six or seven points ahead nationally, you're probably going to win the Electoral College. Again, it's march 2015.
But look at Hillary Clinton versus the Republican candidates at this point. If you're the Republicans, this makes awe little bit nervous. Rand Paul comes closest at 11 points, Marco Rubio, 13. Mike Huckabee 14 points behind Hillary Clinton. Jeb Bush 15 points behind her. Chris Christie, 15 points, Scott Walker 15 points. Dr. Carson, 16 points.
Again, it's early and President Rudy Giuliani can attest to the fact that be careful about these early polls. But 11 points is the closest any Republican comes. Again, she is formidable.
ZELENY: No question about it. President Giuliani, also President Hillary Clinton from 2008.
KING: Right, right.
ZELENY: She was also leading the polls. I think the Rand Paul number was interesting to me. He definitely is getting out there. He's getting you know a stronger in name identification. He's growing a broad popular base of support. So, he is someone who Jeb Bush is certainly watching, but it's so earl early.
HAMBY: Yes, ands the upside for Republicans, and we've seen this for many years now, Hillary Clinton is so defined. I mean, her -- she's polarizing, her favorable numbers, 53. Unfave, 44. The don't know or unsure is like 1 percent.
[07:40:03] So, on the Republican side, they've got to litigate the Republican primaries and introduce themselves to American voters.
KING: Right. Let's look at the Republican primary race, national numbers, it tells you do not have a big front-runner. We looked at polls in New Hampshire and Iowa, they're close as well.
Look at these numbers. Jeb Bush at 16 percent. He leads the Republican pack up a little bit from our poll of February. Scott Walker, 13 percent, he's pretty much Walker/Bush have been the people getting most of the buzz. Rand Paul at 12 percent. Relatively stable for those three guys. Up a little bit from the last poll.
This is an interesting one. Mike Huckabee now at 10 percent, dropped from 16 percent. Now, he ran it before. So, I think in the early polls, it was mostly name identification. And again, it's early, there's a lot of time to get out there.
But if you're Dr. Carson or especially if you're Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, you're elected officials, your names are known as you're in single digits.
ZELENY: I was surprised by that, especially Marco Rubio and Chris Christie. We talk about them so much here. But it's a pretty small number across the country. Again, early, it shows room for growth.
But the Jeb Bush number was smaller than I thought it would be as well. People should know him.
HAMBY: That's a good point that Jeff raises, sort of not to say that we live in a bubble, in political journalism. But we talk so much -- ZELENY: But we do.
HAMBY: OK. I am saying that, sorry. We talk so much about Scott Walker. And then you look at the numbers and most Americans have no idea who Scott Walker is.
ZELENY: Which is good and bad for him, he can define himself.
KING: Right, and let's dig deeper on that point. And we asked favorable and unfavorable opinion of all the Republican candidates. What we're going to show you here are the numbers that the American people say they're not sure, or they don't know enough to form an opinion.
Dr. Carson, 57 percent of Americans say they don't know enough, or they're not sure about him. Look as you go down, 55, Marco Rubio, 40, Rand Paul 35. And again, Governor Christie, Governor Huckabee, Governor Bush a little bit better known. So, you get down into the 29 percent, a little bit lower.
But it shows number one, they still have a lot of time to introduce themselves. And number two, to your point about Hillary Clinton, about 99 percent of people think they know who she is her numbers will move marginally. These guys have a chance for better or worse to swing the numbers dramatically.
ZELENY: No question. That's why they're out campaigning early. That's why they're in the early stages, are now trying to make the impressions or change impressions, but mainly to make impressions, first impression.
HAMBY: What I'm fascinated by is how bad Chris Christie's numbers are among Republicans. His unfavorable in the poll is 44 percent. The NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll that came out last week they asked the question, could you consider voting for this person, 57 percent of Republicans said flat-out no. It was closer to Donald Trump than other Republicans, how he fixes that is going to be pretty interesting to watch.
KING: Ouch.
HAMBY: Yes.
KING: The closer to Donald Trump --
(CROSSTALK)
HAMBY: Republicans have to like him.
KING: Politely said, point taken.
Let's move on. There's an interview, former Vice President Dick Cheney in "Playboy" magazine, which he repeats a lot of things he said before about the president's foreign policy. He's not a fan of President Obama. He thinks he's weak when it comes to the war on terrorism, and projecting U.S. strength around the world. But he also responds to criticism that comes sometimes from the White House and sometimes from allies of the Attorney General Eric Holder, that a lot of the Republican criticism of those two leaders, the president and the attorney general, are based on race.
Listen to Dick Cheney, "I think they're playing the race card in my view. To say that we criticize or that I criticize Barack Obama or Eric Holder because of race, I just think it's obviously not true. My view of it is the criticism is merited because of performance or lack of performance, because of incompetence. It hasn't gotten anything to do with race."
ZELENY: Certainly interesting, always interesting to hear from the former vice president.
He speaks for himself there. So I think that you know, we shouldn't question what he says. But I think there's no doubt some of the criticism at least against this president from some in the Republican base, is related to his race. I mean there's no question. We've all talked to voters out there who have said so.
So, I'll take him at his word. But I think he doesn't speak for all Republicans.
KING: You make a good point. When Cheney says something, again, agree or disagree, I'm not taking sides here, he usually attaches it to a policy issue and makes his case against what the president is doing. Where with some people it's more reflects a reaction, visceral reaction.
Alisyn, as we come back to New York, some people might take offense at this, but I want to give Governor Mitt Romney a lot of credit. He's about to get in the boxing ring against a former heavyweight champ, Evander Holyfield, this is to raise for charity, and Jimmy Fallon finds it funny.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": Mitt Romney is going to fight Evander Holyfield in a charity boxing match in Utah, it turns out they're trying a bunch of nicknames to hype up the match. Take a look at this. First, they considered Vanilla in Manila. Next up, they tried Lean and Mean versus LL. Bean. And then, there was Ebony versus Very Ivory. And finally, Mitt Romney loses to another black guy. And --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Wow.
KING: You know, some might take offense, but I think you should: (a), give Governor Romney, again, give him a ton of credit for getting into the ring for a charity match. And number two, humor is a good thing.
CAMEROTA: Those were some funny slogans. Vanilla in Manila. All right. John, thank you very much for that levity. We appreciate
it.
[07:45:00] Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring a decisive victory in Israel's elections. If the prime minister gets another term, as it looks like he will, can he and President Obama overcome their differences?
The White House joins us live.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PEREIRA: All right. Time for CNN Money now, chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, in our money center.
What do you have for us today?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there.
All eyes on the Fed today you guys. Any clue: how quickly the central bank raises interest rates, it comes down to one little word, the word "patient". If the Fed makes no mention of the word patient, it could signal a rate increase as early as June.
Goodbye, Ma Bell. Today is the last day AT&T will be included in the Dow. Apple, the world's most valuable company, will take its place at the close of trading today. It's already the biggest company in the S&P 500. You can still trade Ma Bell, it just won't be in the Dow 30.
And hackers stealing a huge amount of information from health insurer Premera Blue Cross.
[07:50:00] The company still investigating, but up to 11 million customer records were compromised. So, what was so what was taken, birthdays, e-mails, Social Security numbers, insurance claims. Premera is offering its members two years worth of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection, but cold comfort for another one of those big breaches, John.
BERMAN: Yes, indeed.
All right. On the subject on business news, Christine Romans getting ready for a huge productivity slowdown. Why? March Madness finally here, getting underway last night with two of the play-in games. One ended with an epic rally, the other with a coach reaching for a higher power.
Andy Scholes with more on the "Bleacher Report".
Good morning, Andy.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, good morning, John.
Yes, the opening match-up over the first four games featured Hampton taking on Manhattan. And the roar for winning this one, a date with undefeated Kentucky in the round of 64. Now, Hampton, a team with a losing record going into this game, pretty much dominated from start to finish beating Manhattan 74-64. They get extra points for mimicking the movie "Major League" after each made free throw. Pretty cool stuff from the bench there.
Now, Hampton, they will be massive underdogs against Kentucky. Their head coach, well, he's looking for a little divine intervention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD JOYNER, HAMPTON HEAD COACH: Hold on. I told you I had Jesus on speed dial. So, hey, Jesus, first of all, you can't play so I ain't worried about you being hot. OK. Fine. They want to know how much of a mountain and what our odds are.
Hello? Hello? I guess he will get back to me so I will get back to you. It's a heck of a mountain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Now, the other game last night looked like it was going to be a snoozer. BYU led Ole Miss by 17 at the half, but the Rebels went on a huge run in the second half, 2:00 to go, Stefan Moody hits the three in transition. That gives Ole Miss the lead. They would hold on to beat BYU 94-90. They will now meet Xavier in the first round.
Tomorrow, the play-in games continue on TrueTV starting at 6:40 eastern. Robert Morris is taking on North Florida, and that game followed by Dayton playing on the home floor against Boise State.
All right. Great news for Cincinnati Bengals player Devon Still and his daughter Leah. Devon has been documenting on social media, Leah's fight against pediatric cancer since last year. And yesterday, he posted this awesome picture on Instagram saying, that moment you get the best news you've ever received and don't know what to do. We've got Leah's scans back and the doctors told us they didn't see any active disease in her body.
So, just awesome, awesome news for the Still family right there.
You have one day to fill out your brackets. They're not due until tomorrow morning before the games get underway. Of course, go to CNN.com/bracket. Play alongside us at CNN.
Guys, I'm looking forward to beating all of you once again in this year's bracket.
PEREIRA: I'm taking a different tact this year. I'm not going to do a lot of talking about it beforehand. I'm just going to quietly do my thing.
SCHOLES: Stealth?
(CROSSTALK)
PEREIRA: I'm stealth mode.
BERMAN: Andy, is anyone not picking Kentucky? Is there any justifiable reason not to pick Kentucky?
SCHOLES: You pretty much have to. I mean, Vegas is giving them almost even odd. It's Kentucky or the field to win this. If you want to win your bracket pool, you almost have to pick Kentucky because everyone else is.
CAMEROTA: Sometimes I pick based often the color of their outfits.
PEREIRA: Right.
CAMEROTA: I'm not sure I would pick Kentucky.
PEREIRA: Not a big blue fan. Let the madness begin.
All right. Andy, thanks so much. Can't wait. It will be fun.
So, we're following some breaking news. Death threats have been leveled at U.S. ambassador to Japan, Caroline Kennedy. The threat is happening in the wake of you recall, of course, that knife attack against the U.S. ambassador to South Korea? We have the very latest details just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[07:57:28] CAMEROTA: Japanese police are investigating death threats against Caroline Kennedy. Phone calls have been made threatening to kill Kennedy who is the U.S. ambassador to Japan.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Indicted for allegedly trying to join ISIS.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A U.S. Air Force veteran stopped in Turkey.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His experience in the private aviation sector disturbs me the most.
CAMEROTA: A dramatic fall for Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was a celebrity more than he was a politician.
CAMEROTA: New allegations of lavish spending come to life.
REP. AARON SCHOCK (R), ILLINOIS: You know, as Taylor Swift said, haters are going to hate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police raid Robert Durst's home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are they good? I'll call them brilliant, brilliant attorneys sitting over there fighting for him.
ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY. It is Wednesday, March 18th, 8:00 in the East.
Chris Cuomo is off today. John Berman joins us. Great to have you with us.
We do begin with breaking news for you because police in Japan investigating death threats made against U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy. We're told the threats were phoned into the U.S. embassy in Japan.
PEREIRA: These threats come as First Lady Michelle Obama has just arrived in Tokyo. You'll also recall that just two weeks ago, a knife wielding man seriously injured the U.S. ambassador to South Korea during a speech.
Let's get right to Michelle Kosinski at the White House for the breaking details.
Obviously, the White House is going to be very concerned about this.
MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, so far they're not making any comment, neither is the National Security Council, neither is the embassy in Tokyo. But we do expect to hear from the State Department this morning possibly confirming these threats.
Because what we know right now is what's being reported in Asian news outlets, saying there were multiple threats phoned in to the embassy in Tokyo and that this happened last month. Allegedly they were made by an English speaking man threatening to kill Ambassador Carolyn Kennedy. Threats allegedly were also made against another consul general of the U.S. based in Okinawa.
So, that's what we know at this point. We're also being told by the White House that we don't expect this to affect the first lady's travel. She just landed in Japan. She's going to be spending the next two days there.
But, you know, if these threats are confirmed and we're hoping to hear that sometime soon from the State Department, you have to expect that they're taking security of U.S. officials in general there very seriously, especially since you mentioned the attack just this month on the South Korea -- the U.S. ambassador to South Korea -- Michaela.
PEREIRA: All right. Those are the pictures there of the first lady arriving there in Tokyo. We're going to keep watching that situation. Thanks so much, Michelle.
