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Welcome To Obamacare, Ted Cruz; Hillary's "New Relationship" With The Press; Angelina Jolie Sparks Tough Choices Debate; Two Americans Killed In French Alps Crash. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired March 25, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. Let's get you right now to "Inside Politics" on NEW DAY with John King. Good morning, John.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Alisyn, good morning to you, Chris and Michaela as well. A busy day in politics, a lot of fun things to talk about, with me to share reporting and their insights, Julie Pace of the "Associated Press" and Ron Fournier of the "National Journal."

Here's a sentence I thought I would never speak. Ted Cruz is joining Obamacare. He's the conservative Texas senator. He just announced his presidential campaign. His wife, to her credit, is taking a leave from her job to help him in his campaign.

So she's giving up her health insurance. Listen to Ted Cruz, remember, the big government shutdown two years ago was over trying to defund Obamacare. Ted Cruz was a central player. He says repeal it. He says throw it away and here he tells CNN's Dana Bash, I'm about to sign up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: We'll be getting new health insurance and we'll presumably do it through my job in the Senate. We'll be on the federal exchange like millions of others on the federal exchange.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So you will be getting Obamacare effectively?

CRUZ: It's one of the good things about Obamacare is that the statute provided that members of Congress would be on the exchanges without subsidies, just like millions of Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I'm almost speechless. I'm almost speechless because he said one of the good things. By his view, look, I'm going to defend him for a minute. Like I said, to her credit, his wife wants to commit to the campaign that she's giving up her job. He's got two young kids, of course, he needs health insurance. He's signing up and saying there's a good thing in here. It's t-ball if you want to beat him up. Guy says repeal Obamacare, now going to join Obamacare, you have the floor.

RON FOURNIER, "NATIONAL JOURNAL": You're right. It's the right thing for her to do it. It's a wonderful thing for her to do. He's got to take care of his family. They could do Cobra through her former employer. They could not have insurance. Do it privately if he wanted to. He could pay the tax or the penalty.

But he's decided to take Obamacare, which is you know, rich in irony and one of his supporters told me, it's better than nothing. And I said well, that's the point. Obamacare is better than nothing. I think it's great.

We should have as many people as possible sign up for Obamacare and really judge, is this better than nothing or not? What could be done it make it better instead of demagoguing and saying everything is wrong with it, it's lawless, it's good to have him on board to say, OK, is this better for my family or not.

KING: He's for repeal effective after the election.

JULIE PACE, "ASSOCIATED PRESS": It is striking to hear him say, one of the good things about Obamacare, because he has been one of the sharpest critics in basically saying there is nothing good about it.

Often you have critics who point out provisions that cover people with preexisting conditions or cover kids while they're under 26 and a lot of them can stay on their parents' insurance. He's been all repeal. There's nothing good about this law.

I'm actually curious to see whether he walks this back, does find another option because I think that it will be difficult for him to continue to maintain this full repeal argument on the campaign trail while he is -- for Obamacare.

FOURNIER: Apparently, he's doing this to follow the law, well, that's B.S., can I say that on the air?

KING: You just did.

FOURNIER: Because there are other things he can do. He doesn't have to sign up through Obamacare.

KING: I don't know if he could get Cobra because she's technically on leave, not unemployed. But he could sign up for a private -- just go and buy a policy.

FOURNIER: Sure, sure, yes.

KING: So we'll see how this plays out --

FOURNIER: It's not like Obamacare took away options for him. He would be facing the same choice without it, but now he's able to go through the exchanges and negotiate for a price that's best for his family.

KING: It will be interesting to see if he explains why, if he walks it back or see if the explanation plays out. Another thing we couldn't get to yesterday because of the tragedy overseas, Hillary Clinton the other night here in Washington, D.C. gave two big events actually.

One event during the day, which she talked about her economic agenda and another event at night, it was a press dinner in honor of a great late political reporter, Robin Toner, of the "New York Times," who had this gift of figuring out the politics of policy.

She cared mostly about the policy and covered (inaudible). We lost Robin a few years ago, there's now a foundation set up in her name and Dan Balz of the "The Washington Post" won the prize the other night.

Hillary Clinton came to give the keynote speech at this dinner and she says, look, I know I have rough relations with the press, maybe we should start anew.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: My relationship with the press has been at times -- shall we say, complicated and when Peter asked if I wanted to spend an evening with a room full of political reporters I thought to myself -- what could possibly go wrong?

[07:35:00] A new grandchild, another new hair style, a new email account, why not a new relationship with the press?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Here the question, is it genuine or is it forced?

FOURNIER: Yes. Of course, she wants a better relationship with the press. She wants to be president. It would help if the press validated her message or at least didn't discredit it, which is what we've been doing lately because of her actions.

Look, as you know I've covered her for a long time. Her coverage has expanded, has gone from the range of fawning to viciously unfair and cruel. And the problem is she takes the fawning coverage for granted and internalizes the negative coverage.

And it is created this culture around her, of mendacity and disingenuousness and the ends justify the means attacking the media. If she wants to have a better relationship with the press, she's going to have to --

KING: Take risks.

FOURNIER: Take risks.

KING: Not only to the people and she has evolved in so many ways. I met you when were you in Arkansas as the A.P. state house reporter, covering the Clintons back then. In fact, she was the first lady of Arkansas. She had a tough ride in the Arkansas press over her maiden name.

Then she became the first lady, then she was a senator, then she was a presidential candidate, secretary of state, she has evolved several times, as our business has. She doesn't like on the right she's viewed as polarizing, viewed as horrible.

FOURNIER: You were there for the tea and cookies thing.

KING: Yes. I was in the room for the "60 Minutes" interview. I had an interview the same day, Super Bowl Sunday, which he she did the not just the Tammy Wynette standing by my man.

She's also very effective at press when she wants to be. This is not taking a political side. The Twitter-sphere is going to blow up. John King said this about Hillary Clinton.

She's actually charming and engaging. She's a great conversationalist and she is really funny. She has that Midwestern sort of David Letterman funny when she wants to be, but she became paranoid after Whitewater, Ken Starr --

PACE: And if you talk to her as people who covered her as secretary of state, they tell a very different story about their dealings with Hillary Clinton than political reporters tell. She was steeped in policy. She was friendly. She was warm.

If you talk to her people who are starting to sign up for her in this campaign that's going to announce in the next couple of weeks. They're saying all the right things about dealing with the press.

The question is going to be what the message from the top is going to be. Is she going to be comfortable with her campaign putting out a little more detail, putting her out enter more publicly? Are they going to revert back to the old style from 2008?

Things have changed so much since then. We saw with this email controversy, how quickly something can really spiral.

FOURNIER: She frankly needs an intervention of a spokesman who understands the media, that can explain to her, they're not your enemy. They're also not your friend. If you want to get the benefit of the doubt from the media you've got to be honest, accessible. You got to flood them with access and with initiatives and as you say, take some risks. You --

KING: Trust yourself. Yes, she has to get that.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: She's the CEO of the campaign now. She's the boss. She has to listen to all that advice. If she's going to do this, it has to come from her consistently. Alisyn, as we get back to you in New York, think email controversy when you think about this from David Letterman and talking about Secretary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST, "LATE SHOW": The President Obama and Hillary Clinton had lunch, they had lunch and of course, Hillary had a private server.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Got to laugh.

CAMEROTA: I get it.

KING: That will test her new relationship with the press, can she laugh at the jokes?

CAMEROTA: She's making it a little bit her own. She should be able to laugh at that one. All right, John, thanks so much.

Well, Oscar winner and megastar, Angelina Jolie, once again sparking a women's health debate following her very personal revelation that she removed her ovaries and fallopian tubes to keep cancer away. Was her decision extreme? Is it an option for other women? We'll debate that.

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[07:43:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It could be the most important thing that a woman ever does in her entire life in order to preserve her life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: That was Angelina Jolie-Pitt's breast cancer surgeon, Dr. Christy Funk, discussing the actress' revelation that she has removed her ovaries and fallopian tubes. Jolie-Pitt opted for the preventative measure because she carries a mutation of the BRCA-1 gene, which increases a woman's chance of developing breast or ovarian cancer.

Now her decision is really sparking an important conversation about women's health and some of those very difficult decisions. Want to turn to Dr. Seema Yasmin, a former CDC disease detective, now a staff writer for the "Dallas Morning News" and also with us our colleague, Elizabeth Cohen, CNN senior medical correspondent.

Good morning, Ladies. Such an important conversations for us to have and I'm glad we're doing it. Dr. Yasmin, I think we should talk off the bat, talk about how common this BRCA gene is and even the cancers that Angelina Jolie is trying to avoid.

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, FORMER CDC DISEASE DETECTIVE: Well, we know breast cancer in itself could be quite common, affects one in eight women in the U.S., but this mutation, this faulty gene that puts women on much higher risk of getting breast and ovarian cancer. It's actually quite rare, Michaela, about 2 percent, maybe 3 percent to 4 percent of women will carry the kind of mutation that Angelina Jolie has that increases their risk many, many times compared to the general population.

PEREIRA: I think it's so interesting, what one writer has called this Angelina Jolie effect, Elizabeth. That it is seemingly has launched. We have a graphic here that sort of highlights what has happened since Angelina made her announcement back in 2013.

The number of people that have gone in to get the BRCA gene testing done in America was about 350 per week after her announcement in 2013, up 40 percent to 500 women per week. It's so interesting to see the effect that this is having.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, it's very similar to actually years ago when Katie Couric got a colonoscopy, and then we saw other people following suit. So the doctors I've talked to, top experts in cancer and genetics, they're glad to see that more women are aware and are getting testing.

[07:45:08] But they are also saying look, only get the testing if you have a family history of breast and ovarian cancer. Not all of us need to run out. For example, myself, I don't have that history, I haven't been tested. You only want to get tested if you have the family history.

PEREIRA: Well, that's the thing that we should bring up, Dr. Yasmin, because you are concerned there's going to be a rush to overtreatment. We often see that knee-jerk reaction. It's one based in fear so we have to give a liberal dose of facts here.

YASMIN: Absolutely. Over-diagnosis is really, really important to talk about because it can lead to over-treatment. It's great that we have screening tests for things like breast cancer, but you want to be so careful that you're not diagnosing things so early on that wouldn't actually cause any symptoms, pain or even death and then you run the risk of putting women through surgery and treatment that they may not need and may be harmful to them.

PEREIRA: We look at the surgeries that Angelina Jolie has already had. She's had both breasts removed, her ovaries and fallopian tubes. Some people would think that maybe having her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, it would be the most difficult decision. But I know you've written an op-ed, Elizabeth, that you don't necessarily think that's the case.

COHEN: No, the experts that I've talked to, Michaela, they said she was right on the mark. That this was not an extreme thing to do, it was a right thing to do. She has an incredibly high risk of getting breast cancer.

So if we look at it this way, Michaela. Any woman without these terrible mutations has about a 12 percent chance of getting breast cancer in their lifetime. She has an 87 percent chance of getting breast cancer. So removing your breasts and removing your ovaries, they say, are a really good thing to do. Now it's interesting, the doctors said look, you don't have to remove your breasts, can you do MRIs frequently, that's an alternative. You don't have to remove them.

But the removal of the ovaries, they said, is extremely important and should be done as soon as you're having children. If you're at a high risk like Angelina Jolie is. As a matter of fact, they wanted me to get the word out that they felt like she waited too long.

PEREIRA: Interesting.

COHEN: Yes, she waited too long. She was concerned about going into menopause because that's what happens when you remove your ovaries. As long as she was done having children, she should have done it, you know, very, very quickly and not waited several years.

PEREIRA: I really want to get to the point that Elizabeth brought up, Dr. Yasmin because I think this idea of putting a 39-year-old into menopause strikes fear in the bodies of most women. We know it's coming, can't avoid it. But this is a different kind of menopause, correct? Explain that to us.

YASMIN: It is a different kind of menopause, Michaela. It's very abrupt. Think about it happening to a woman in her 40s, maybe 50s, it happens over time. Women have the symptoms, they gradually become worse and they go into menopause.

This is removing the ovaries, the organs that produce the hormones and overnight women sometimes will develop symptoms of menopause, it can happen a lot quicker.

PEREIRA: I'm really curious how you think this is now going to change the dialogue, Elizabeth, the final thoughts as we move forward with the revelation that she's made, a bold decision, a challenging decision at 39, she has many children. She has a partner.

We know the testing was expensive. She is a woman of great means, do you think this is going to sort of change the dynamic and dialogue for us here in America?

YASMIN: You know, I think it will change the dialogue. I want to be clear, yes, she's very wealthy and has access to all sorts of things. But really this genetic counseling and the testing, the prices are coming down all the time, insurance does typically cover it if you have a family history so many of us do have access to the kinds of services that she got.

Now what we don't always have access to is, you know, Angelina Jolie can pick up the phone and call anyone and get an opinion and talk to them. So we can't all do that. But we can follow her model. Think things through.

Be an empowered patient. Talk to as many people as you can. Think through your decision and do it at what I liked about her op-ed piece, it showed that she wasn't emotional about how she directed this. Very pragmatic, thought it through and got good people on her side to help her think it through.

PEREIRA: We have good people on our side to help us, that's what we do have, our excellent medical team here at CNN, Dr. Yasmin, we appreciate your expertise as well. Elizabeth, thanks so much -- Chris.

CUOMO: All right, we'll take a quick break, Michaela, but we do have breaking news on Flight 9525. They just released more information about the victims on board and there were Americans. Stay with us.

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[07:52:51]

CUOMO: We have learned more about the victims on this doomed flight 9525. Let's get right to Fred Pleitgen. He is in Germany. That's where they just had a press conference from the airline. Of course, many of the victims from Germany, but what else did we learn, Fred?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Chris. We certainly learned a lot more about the nationalities, about the breakdown of the nationalities of those who were killed. This comes directly from the CEO of Germanwings, Mr. Thomas Winkelman.

He said, and this is by far the most important fact for us, there were actually Americans also on board this flight, two Americans apparently perished on board this flight.

The breakdown of the other nationalities is 72 Germans, 35 from Spain, one each from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Denmark, Japan, Belgium and Israel as well as two Australians, two from Argentina, two from Iran, two from Venezuela and then of course, two Americans as well.

So this is information that we're just getting right now from the CEO of Germanwings. Of course, it's very sad news that's coming out there from the headquarters of Germanwings in Cologne, Germany -- Chris.

CUOMO: Well, the obvious reaction is what an amount of diversity was on that plane, 15 different countries involved and new information there about that including Americans.

PLEITGEN: Yes.

CUOMO: That information only as good as it is to the families of those 150 souls on board. What is the latest on any chances at recovery?

PLEITGEN: Well, certainly at this point it still is very difficult. We've been hearing that the terrain in that area is one that's very difficult. It's hard to get to. The process of that recovery is taking quite a while. The weather conditions, of course, are a big factor as well.

It's something where Germanwings is saying this is simply going to take a bit of time. Nevertheless, they say they are out there in force, there is an operation going on. They want to do this as fast as possible, of course, also for the sake of the family members of the victims.

And of course, Chris, you know, right now, I am standing in the town of Haltern, which was very badly hit by this catastrophe where 16 high school students were killed as well as two teachers.

The people saying they want this recovery effort to happen as quickly as possible. They want to know that the bodies of their loved ones will be taken away from the mountain side as fast as possible -- Chris.

[07:55:13] CUOMO: Fred, of course, in Haltern where you are, these high school kids, over a dozen of them and two teachers lost. It's a small town. It's a huge hit for them. I know it's very emotional there.

Thank you for giving us the information including that there were two Americans on board. Who they were, we're going to have to wait to find out. Fred, thank you very much. Fifteen different countries involved.

CAMEROTA: Right, from Barcelona to Dusseldorf.

PEREIRA: Mourning around the world.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. So we now know the breaking news, two Americans were on board and we will find out what we can about their ages, identities, where they were from. So please stay tuned to NEW DAY. We do have continuing coverage of the recovery effort for Flight 9525.

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CUOMO: Good morning. Welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Wednesday, March 25th, 8:00 in the east. And we do have breaking news this morning about the plane crash in the French Alps. Two Americans are now among the 150 passengers and crew killed in that doomed Germanwings flight that crashed mid-flight yesterday into a mountain side. Fifteen different countries involved.