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Jersey Shore Devastated Again; D.C. Wage Increase Bill Vetoed; First Lady Says, 'Drink Up'; DC Mayor Vetoes "Living Wage" Bill; As Syria Looms, Troops Stand By in Turkey; Manning Bowl 3 This Weekend

Aired September 13, 2013 - 09:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN HOST (voice-over): Plus Walmart versus Washington in a living wage battle, the winners and losers this in paycheck war.

And hot holiday, Toys "R" Us out with this top toy list. Yes, I'm really talking about Christmas in September. NEWSROOM continues now.

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

The Jersey Shore just can't win, just as it was recovering from Sandy, a raging fire destroyed much of its iconic boardwalk, the pictures heartbreaking. This is Seaside Park; the fire started here and quickly spread to a neighboring town, 50 businesses destroyed or damaged.

Governor Chris Christie tweeting, "My heart goes out to everyone in Seaside." Hours later, the governor spoke.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), N.J.: This is obviously just an unthinkable situation, for us to be standing here and watching this, what's going on, behind all of you, is just unthinkable.

As I was driving in from Route 37, well before the bridge onto the Barrier Island, you could see the smoke moving rapidly north, rapidly, and that just tells you how brisk these winds are and that's what's spreading the fire and we're hoping through the digging of the trench there and the fight of the fire at Lincoln Avenue that we're going to be able to contain it there.

Also, with the front coming through, that will change the winds as well, which I think will be a help.

I said to my staff I feel like I want to throw up. And that's me. After all the effort and time and resources that we've put in to help the folks at Seaside Park and Seaside Heights rebuild, to see this going on, as I said at the top, it's just unthinkable, so I know how I'm feeling. I can only imagine how the residents and business owners in this area are feeling.

My heart goes out to them, that's why I'm here, to make sure that every resource is brought to bear to contain this problem, and listen, this is us, so as soon as this is over, we'll pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and we'll get back to work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: There is a bit of good news here, there were no reports of injuries or deaths, and we're going to hear from the governor live in the next hour of NEWSROOM. Of course we'll bring his speech to you.

Stories we're watching in the NEWSROOM: at 32 minutes past the hour, the National Guard is evacuating the entire town of Lyons, Colorado, after it was cut off by flooding described as biblical. In about 30 minutes the governor of Colorado is going to give an update on the situation. We'll bring that to you live.

Flash flood warning does remain in place for Boulder Creek as more rain is forecast across the region. In the meantime, President Obama is responding to the flooding in Colorado. He has signed an emergency order to help get federal assistance to the state.

A Georgia teen will spend the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted of killing a 13-month-old boy. Eighteen-year-old De'Marquise Elkins was spared the death penalty because he was 17 years old when he shot the infant in March while trying to rob the child's mother.

Not to be outdone by Walmart and Kmart, Toys "R" Us has announced its hot holiday list. The store also says it's bringing back layaway, which doesn't seem like such a bad idea when you hear that their top toy pick is 400 bucks.

You got to be kidding.

Alison Kosik is at the New York -- what is this toy?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: What, you don't want to spend $400 on a toy for a 9-year-old? What? That doesn't make sense?

This is called, yes, that toy by the way, I don't know if we can show you what it is, it's a $400 Crazy Cart, Razor makes it, and apparently this thing goes sideways, it spins in place, you know, it swirls all over the place, a lot of fun, I guess it's worth $400.

If you're looking to buy something for a younger kid, one of the top toys is the Doc McStuffins Deluxe Get Better Checkup Center, yes it is, that's another popular one. Walmart actually had that one on its list of hot toys as well, and that Doc McStuffins, a big, big hit last year.

Also the Uglies, yes, these are weird looking but these are interactive. They're interactive dogs, they bark, they growl, they snarl, they snore, when they're left alone, oh, this sounds like fun.

If you want the full list, by the way, check out cnnmoney.com. You know, a lot of stores are really getting their toy list out early these days, they're announcing holiday layaway; that's back. And so far we're hearing from Toys "R" Us, from Walmart and from Kmart. Kmart is even airing Christmas commercials this week.

Here's what they're trying to do. There's a $580 billion potential in holiday spending on the line for retailers and the earlier stores can tap into that, the better.

And guess what? There's a market for it, this early shopping I'm talking about, the National Retail Federation says 19 percent said last year they started holiday shopping in September or earlier.

Forget Halloween, forget Thanksgiving, just go right over to Christmas and don't forget Hanukkah, Hanukkah is coming, as I said yesterday, before Thanksgiving this year.

COSTELLO: I remember.

KOSIK: Yes. Don't forget. I'm waiting for my gift.

COSTELLO: I know you are. I won't be buying you one of those $400 Razor things.

KOSIK: Oh, come on, looks like so much fun.

COSTELLO: Not.

Alison Kosik, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM a plan to make Walmart pay higher wages, and Washington, D.C., has been ixnayed, but the city could still try to force the retailer to pay up. We'll talk about that next.

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COSTELLO: The mayor of Washington vetoed a bill that would have forced Walmart and other big retailers to pay a minimum wage of $12.50 an hour. That's about $4 more than the city's regular minimum wage. Mayor Vincent Gray, a Democrat, called the bill a job killer. That's because Walmart had threatened to drop its plan to build several more stores in the city if this bill became law.

But come Tuesday the city council could change everything and possibly override the mayor's veto.

Joining me is David French, a senior vice president of the National Retail Federation.

Good morning, David.

DAVID FRENCH, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION: Good morning.

COSTELLO: Is this a win?

FRENCH: This is a big win. The city council, the district council gave the mayor a tough choice between jobs and special interests, and the mayor chose jobs.

COSTELLO: What it would happen if the D.C. city council were to override the veto?

FRENCH: I think several retailers would halt plans to come into the district and open up new stores in some of the neighborhoods in the district that are probably the least well served by retail.

COSTELLO: Did the workers, did the city council have any point in all at wanting people who worked at Walmart to make a bit more money?

FRENCH: Well, the crisis that many communities around the country face is really a crisis because there aren't enough jobs, and the mayor made the right decision. There were 4,000 jobs at stake in the District of Columbia and the mayor said that he wasn't going to put those jobs at risk.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, people argue this all the time. Last year Walmart made, what, $17 billion in profit; it ranked number one on the Fortune 500. A lot of people say don't you think Walmart and other retailers like it can afford to pay its employees a little more?

FRENCH: The best medicine is more jobs. The communities around the country have unemployment, real unemployment, that's closer to 12 percent, because there's so many long-term unemployed who have just given up looking for work and making it harder for employers, large and small, to create jobs is not going to solve that problem.

COSTELLO: Doesn't that make it easier for employers to pay employees less?

I mean, people are desperate. They need jobs. So why not take a low paying job where you might have to get food stamps to supplement your income?

FRENCH: There are a lot of myths about the minimum wage and there's certainly, really aren't that many employees making minimum wage. Most retailers pay above the minimum wage as it is, but let's really focus on the problem that is really keeping the economy growing too slowly and that is too few jobs.

COSTELLO: The Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz -- and I'll just give you this as an example -- How Schultz has said, quote, "Profitability is a shallow goal if it doesn't have a real purpose and the purpose has to be share the profits with others."

So that is Howard Schultz's philosophy. That is certainly not the philosophy of other retailers.

What is their philosophy, if it's not that?

FRENCH: Well, I think you're focused on the wrong question. The question is, retailers like Walmart want to open up stores and create jobs. There are 4,000 jobs in the District of Columbia that were at stake and the mayor said he didn't want to put those jobs at risk. COSTELLO: But back to my question, Walmart will make a whole bunch of money doing this, that's why it's moving into the D.C. area. So why not share the profits with others, and if that's not your philosophy, what is?

Are you just beholden to the shareholders then?

FRENCH: Well, the best solution for wage growth is to create more jobs than workers. Right now we have a situation we have too few jobs and too many workers, as I said, there are 12 percent of the U.S. workforce is really unemployed, not the nominal level of 7.5 percent.

So we need to get those workers back to work and making it more expensive to create each additional job is not going to solve that problem.

COSTELLO: I'll go back to this again, because this was the big argument in Washington, D.C., because the workers are making what they call a low wage, some experts say Walmart's low wages actually cost taxpayers millions of dollars, a study from February shows a quarter of Walmart workers in Massachusetts are in state health insurance plans that costs taxpayers $14 million a year.

So does that seem perfectly right to you?

FRENCH: Again, the mayor really hit the nail on the head when he talked about this in his veto message and he pointed out that this law would have only affected a very small sliver of the workforce in the District of Columbia and it was particularly discriminatory against just a few large employers.

That's not a real living wage, that's not a solution to any problem, and again it would have put jobs and consumers, both D.C. residents and consumers --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Right, but I mean -- I hear you.

FRENCH: -- would have been the losers if this had become law.

COSTELLO: I do and I'm sure many people agree. I guess the bottom line, if only 30 percent of America has a college degree and the rest of America doesn't and it has to find jobs in big retail stores, should they just accept what they get and that's OK?

FRENCH: Carol, again, one of the myths about the minimum wage is that there are a lot of workers making the minimum wage. There aren't. The percentage --

COSTELLO: Well, they're not making much above it.

FRENCH: The percentage of hourly workers in the U.S. workforce making minimum wage is or below is 5.2 percent.

(CROSSTALK) COSTELLO: Well, let me change that to a living wage, then.

FRENCH: In 1979, the percentage of workers making minimum wage or below was more like 13 percent. So the U.S. economy has changed.

COSTELLO: Oh, but come on, we're talking about apples and oranges.

If you made what an average worker makes at Walmart would you be comfortable raising a family of four on that salary?

FRENCH: Again, most of the workers --

COSTELLO: Would you, David French?

FRENCH: -- most of the workers -- when I started my job in the District of Columbia 25 years ago --

COSTELLO: Right now, in your life now.

FRENCH: When I started my job in the District of Columbia 25 years ago I wasn't making much more than the minimum wage.

COSTELLO: Neither was I, but I wasn't raising a family of four then, either.

FRENCH: Right and most people are not.

COSTELLO: I'd have to argue with you there, but we'll leave it there.

David French, thanks so much for being with me.

FRENCH: Thank you.

COSTELLO (voice-over): Here's what's all new on the next hour of NEWSROOM, the first lady ignites controversy again over water?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: It's as simple as that. Drink more water.

COSTELLO (voice-over): Michelle Obama says more water could give you more energy and focus but her new campaign's creating waves with critics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no good evidence that drinking extra water is going to lead to a healthier existence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Plus, two brothers with three Super Bowl rings between them about to go head-to-head on the field.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's the strategy that your mom and dad are going to use to get through this game?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's a pretty easy strategy I think they'll just root for the offense a high scoring -- a scoring game.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: It's only happened twice before and Sunday's Manning bowl could very well be the last.

That's all new in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.

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COSTELLO: Even as Washington holds off on a vote to possibly strike Syria, hundreds of American troops are standing by in Turkey ready to pull the trigger if Syria attacks its neighbor.

CNN's Ivan Watson takes you on a tour.

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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As the debate rages in the U.S. over whether or not to attack the Syrian government, it's worth reminding people that, for the past eight months, there have been about 300 U.S. soldiers stationed here near the Turkish border city of Gazantiev near Syria. And their job is to man Patriot anti-missile batteries, and they do that by running this radar device here. If it detects a threat coming from Syria, namely a missile, then theoretically the U.S. soldiers could then fire Patriot missiles from these launchers deployed here along this hillside, so basically shoot the enemy missile out of the sky with another missile.

And they've been tasked with the mission of defending this Turkish city of Gazantiev here with a population of 1.4 million civilians.

LT. COL. JOHN DAWBER, U.S. ARMY: We're protecting against any type of tactical ballistic missile or rocket attack that may come from the country of Syria. First our presence here is to deter such an attack and if that attack does come, to defeat any such attack on our assets.

WATSON: This battalion from Fort Sill Oklahoma was deployed along with similar Patriot missile battalions from Germany and the Netherlands. And they were all sent basically to help protect Turkey, an ally in the NATO military alliance at the end of last year after a series of deadly cross-border incidents in which Turkish civilians were killed by fire coming across the border from Syria.

The possibility that chemical weapons were used on a massive scale around Damascus in recent weeks has only raised the potential threat level, not only to Turkey but also to Jordan, another ally of the U.S. in the Middle East.

The U.S. officers we've talked to here they say that these Patriot missile launchers are designed also to protect against potential chemical weapons threats say if a Syrian scud surface-to-surface missile was carrying a chemical weapons warhead. And that should help the 1.4 million citizens of this Turkish city sleep a little more soundly at night.

Ivan Watson, CNN -- Gazantiev, Turkey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a lesson to all young football players out there. Hold on to the ball. It's something this college football player needs to relearn.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Thursday night, NFL, the New England Patriots hold off the New York Jets for the win but boy was it an ugly game that turned really ugly at the end.

Joe Carter is here with the "Bleacher Report".

JOE CARTER, BLEACHER REPORT: It was ugly, Carol. But you know the Jets actually had a chance to win this game but they really hurt themselves by turning the ball over four times against the Patriots. And speaking of those Patriots, this is probably as ugly as we've ever seen a Tom Brady offense play. The receivers were totally out of sync, they dropped several passes. You can see the frustration on Brady's face there. This just sums it up the Patriots offense had more punts than first downs.

Now as far as the Jets go Geno Smith did show some flashes of solid play but in the fourth quarter he threw three interceptions, the last interceptions came during a potential comeback drive.

And there you have it, the frustration boiling over at the end of the game. A big scrum after a late hit the Patriots win a sloppy game, 13-10.

Now in the college game last night it was TCU, Texas Tech, a huge mental mistake almost cost the Red Raiders the win. Runningback D'Andre Washington what does he do, he celebrates just a tad too soon and drops the ball right before he crosses the goal line. So, no touchdown.

Now if you remember, this happened a week ago in the NFL. The Broncos Danny Trevathan did the same thing against the Ravens. The Broncos would go on to win that game and Texas Tech would win that game last night. So both of those guys made huge mistakes but were bailed out.

Now trending this morning on BleacherReport.com, it's the most anticipated rematch of the college football season, number one, Alabama against number six Texas A&M. Of course last year, the legend of Johnny Football was born when the Aggies went into Tuscaloosa and shocked the sports world by beating Alabama. The challenge for Texas A&M tomorrow to prove that last year's win was not a fluke.

And believe it or not, Peyton and Eli Manning do more than just make hilarious DirecTV commercials. Peyton is Broncos, Eli's Giants -- they play Sunday in Manning Bowl III.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me ask you a question.

PEYTON MANNING, DENVER BRONCOS: It is unique. And if you take a moment to realize that it is special but you know once the game gets started and all week, I mean the focus is on their defense and you can go out there and just play.

ELI MANNING, NEW YORK GIANTS: It is neat to see your big brother there on the sideline, seeing him before the game. Those moments are the things you remember.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARTER: All right. And coming up in our next hour, our colleague Rachel Nichols, Carol, is going to sit down actually with Eli Manning. And they talked very candidly Eli basically says how proud he is of Peyton because he's doing so well after what was a very scary neck injury. And we heard a lot about the neck injuries and the surgeries but really the family kept a lot of the details hush, hush, because it was a really tough recovery process for Peyton to come back from that.

COSTELLO: Oh but now Peyton is well and I bet Eli wants to beat him. Joe Carter thanks so much.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, flood emergency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How high the creek was, how fast it was, how muddy it was. And how dangerous it was, it freaked us out.

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COSTELLO: Entire towns stranded, thousands evacuated in some of the worst flooding Colorado has ever seen.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I feel like I want to throw up. I know how I'm feeling.