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Obama's Final Heath Care Push; Rent a Tesla; Economy Shows Steady Growth; FBI Criticized for Releasing Video; Oprah: I Almost had Nervous Breakdown; Michael J. Fox Returns to TV Tonight; Benches Clear, Punches Thrown; Tigers Clinch 3rd AL Central Title
Aired September 26, 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 ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.
Later this morning, President Obama will make a last-minute appeal for health care directly to you. A White House official tells CNN the president will, quote, "cut through all the noise coming out of Washington" and tell us exactly what we will get when those exchanges open next Tuesday.
Joining me now, Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the Tea Party Express, and Jason Johnson, HLN contributor and political science professor at Hiram College.
OK, so, Jason, the president says he's going to cut through all the noise. And as we know, opinion polls say almost 70 percent of Americans don't understand what Obamacare is. So what can or should the president say to, quote, "cut through all the noise"?
JASON JOHNSON, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: Keep calm. Everything's going to be fine. That's really all he can say.
COSTELLO: Oh, come on.
JOHNSON: That's all he can say because there's no way that the president can out do the carping on the left, the carping on the right. It's confusing. At this point he should say, look, this is going to become a law. I'm listening to the American people. If you guys don't like this by next June, fine, we'll talk about it again. But trying to sell it now is preposterous at this point. It's going to become the law next week. And there's no way in heck that he can clear up all the nonsense people have been hearing for two weeks.
COSTELLO: What should he have been doing?
JOHNSON: I don't think he could do anything better than what he has been doing.
COSTELLO: Oh, come on, Jason. Come on.
JOHNSON: Seriously. Because there's legitimate evidence on both sides. The Republicans have some legitimate points about the impact of jobs, the negative impact that the Affordable Care Act can have, and the Democrats have made some legitimate points about people being covered. Both of those things are true. So you can't sell people on something they haven't experienced yet.
AMY KREMER, CHAIRWOMAN, TEA PARTY EXPRESS: I think - I think he should just keep quiet about it because, I mean, you know, he's already made promises that are not being kept. You can keep your doctor. You can keep your insurance. You know, every family, it's going to -- $2,500. He just needs to keep quiet because there's a lot going on and we need to let it play out. But I do think it's good the American people are having this debate.
COSTELLO: Well, how - how can he keep quiet about something that's supposed to - I mean a major portion of his plan is going to - it going to go into effect Tuesday. Those health care exchanges are going to start up Tuesday. Nothing Congress can do about that right now.
KREMER: Well, I -
COSTELLO: Somebody's got to explain to the American people how this works.
KREMER: Look, I'll say this, no one's focused on the fact - everybody's talking about the Republicans and, you know, this defund effort. And we do want to defund Obamacare. I mean the Democrats - 40 something Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to delay the employer and individual mandate. I mean there have been delays for big business, you know, government special interest. Why not give the average American, the middle class, a delay as well. Let's delay this for a year. And --
COSTELLO: Why not sit down and say, hey, how can we make this law better, since it is the law of the land?
JOHNSON: Yes. Yes.
COSTELLO: Let's all sit down and decide how it can be better. Why not do that?
KREMER: Carol, I think there are many people that have wanted to do that, but it's like the president and Harry Reid are holding this like a baby and won't let go of it because it is his one signature thing he's accomplished. And that --
COSTELLO: But they have tweaked the law. They have had - they have made changes.
KREMER: Well, I mean, I think it's bad policy. Polling shows just recent - just Pew Research this week, Americans don't want it. It's a -- we're going into a -- we're turning into a part-time economy. I mean 77 percent of the jobs that have been created are part time because of this law. I mean --
COSTELLO: Well, let -- let me add something else to this because I just interviewed the CEO of Target, right? And, you know, he's worried about the economy. He really is. It's affecting his business. But what he said to me, Washington has to get its act together and come up with a cohesive plan. It's really the bickering going on in Washington that's affecting the economy. So when Ted Cruz does his faux filibuster, business people look at that and say, they're never going to get it together.
KREMER: But you know what, the American people wanted to have this debate. We never had this debate because Obamacare was crafted behind closed doors, shoved down our throats --
JOHNSON: It was crafted in Congress. It was in Congress. This is not hidden and behind closed doors.
KREMER: Not - it was behind closed doors. It was. There -
JOHNSON: And every time we have these fights, it threatens the economy. You know how many people all over this country right now are terrified because of the potential of a government shutdown.
KREMER: We -- we were going to end up here anyway.
JOHNSON: And this argument that we should defund doesn't end up helping our overall economy. And that's where the problem is.
KREMER: July 26th of this year, "The Washington Post" had an article straight from the White House that they were threatening to shut down the government if the sequester was not rolled back. We were going to end up at this shutdown position regardless.
JOHNSON: That's -
COSTELLO: It doesn't matter who's in favor of a shutdown, Democrats or Republicans, it just matters that they need to sit down and stop talking about a shutdown.
JOHNSON: Yes -
KREMER: We're not talking about it. We're not talking about it.
COSTELLO: But, anyway, I wish we could go on. We could go on and on. Amy Kremer, Jason Johnson, thanks so much.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
KREMER: Thank you.
COSTELLO: CNN will bring you live coverage of the president's remarks next hour. We'll see if he says what you said he'll say, Jason. I don't know about that. The president's expected to begin speaking around 10:55 Eastern Time.
Checking our other top stories at 35 minutes past the hour.
A pilot is fighting for his life after his small plane crashed in suburban Chicago. A woman on board that plane was killed. Witnesses say the plane clipped a tree, a light pole and several cars before hitting the ground. They say the pilot was on fire and several men beat out the flames with their jackets, possibly saving his life.
Investors are hoping to snap a five-day losing streak as Wall Street begins the day. The opening bell just rang. And now you can try out a Tesla without handing over $70,000 for one. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock -- what?
ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, if you want to drive a Tesla Model S but you don't want to pay the $70,000 sticker price, you can, Carol, if you rent one. Hertz says it's adding to its electric car - its fleet, adding this electric car to it, along with other high-end cars it already rents. It already rents Ferraris and Aston Martins.
Now, you have to be in San Francisco and L.A. to rent this car, but Hertz says it may expand to other location. It will cost you $500 a day plus 49 cents a mile after you hit the 75-mile mark. But, hey, look on the bright side, you don't have to return it with a full tank.
Besides dreaming of fast cars, we are watching stocks. We are seeing stocks in the green after five straight days of losses. The third and final reading of economic growth, GDP, it came out just before the opening bell. It looks at the months from April through June. It showed the economy grew at a 2.5 percent pace. So faster than the first quarter GDP, which is 1.1 percent.
But we really like to see consistent 3 percent growth. That's considered more normal. It's just not happening. In fact, we haven't really seen real momentum for economic growth in over a year. You know, we got this pop in the first three months of last year and then the third quarter of last year, but so far, you know what, it's just not great.
Carol.
COSTELLO: No, it's not. Alison Kosik, many thanks.
Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the FBI taking some heat after releasing video of the Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis. We'll learn why one family is so upset.
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COSTELLO: The family of a woman gunned down by Aaron Alexis in Washington's Navy Yard last week is upset once again this morning. The brother-in-law of Mary Francis Knight, one of the 12 victims, say he didn't know the FBI was going to release surveillance video showing Alexis going through the halls of building 197 during his rampage.
I've decided not to show the video again because, at this point, it's just gratuitous. It's chilling.
This family is not the only group criticizing the FBI's decision to release part of that tape. CNN's crime and justice correspondent Joe Johns is with us now to discuss this.
Tell us more, Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Carol, it's not surprising that there would be complaints about the release of the video as insensitive to the families. You have that one family member saying he was in total shock after seeing it. A Navy official also complained that release of this video was unnecessary and gratuitous. But law enforcement officials from the Navy, including the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, have been closely involved in all the public disclosure of information up to now.
Also important to say that our sources said there was more disturbing video that was not released. Law enforcement authorities have not commented on why they decided to put this video out. But we do know they were responding to numerous requests for release of at least some of it and might have had a difficult time keeping it secret without a court order given the fact that the shooter is deceased and there's no criminal trial of a suspect anticipated, Carol.
COSTELLO: Well, I can understand releasing parts of the video because, you know, I'm into - I think people need to know exactly what happened. It's just the difficulty comes in how much do you show and how often do you show it. And once officials released this video, it was all over the place. And it was shown repeatedly on television and elsewhere.
JOHNS: Right. And there's a balance you have to reach on things like that. There's clearly a public interest in releasing some of the pictures. I think the bottom line question here is, to what extent individual members of families got forewarning of exactly what was going to be on the video. That seems to be the big question, Carol.
COSTELLO: Safe to say no more of the video will be released?
JOHNS: It's not clear. They've said there aren't going to be any other news conferences. There still would be a question in my mind as to whether freedom of information requests filed might turn up some more of that video somewhere down the road.
COSTELLO: Joe Johns reporting live from Washington. Thank you.
Here's what's all new in the next hour of NEWSROOM.
A town terrorized by wild hogs. Seriously.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At first we thought they were bears. My 15-year- old ran in the house and she said, we've got hogs in the neighborhood. They're chasing us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: And don't try to get between them and their food.
Plus, it was the go-to device for people in the business world. Even the president promised he was not letting go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm still clinging to my Blackberry. They're going to pry it out of my hands. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: But now the once mighty Blackberry takes another big blow. A major U.S. cell phone carrier says it won't even stock it on the shelves. That's all new in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: A piece of rock history could be yours. Kurt Cobain's childhood home is for sale in Washington state. The selling price? $500,000. More than seven times its assessed value. Cobain rose to fame as the lead singer of Nirvana before he committed suicide in 1994.
Oprah Winfrey opening up about a very emotional time in her life. The billionaire talk show mogul told "Access Hollywood" she suffered symptoms of a near nervous breakdown last year.
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OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW MOGUL: The symptoms were just, you know, sort of like, in the beginning, it was just sort of speeding and a kind of numbness and going from one thing to the next thing, to the next thing. I will tell you when I realized that I thought, all right, if I don't calm down, I'm going to -- I'm going to be in serious trouble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Oprah says at the time, she was busy filming "The Butler" and was trying to revitalize her struggling TV Network OWN. She says she wasn't ready to go run naked in the streets but she did realize that she desperately needed a break.
Tonight, Michael J. Fox returns to TV. And his new series is hitting close to home with much of the plot reflecting struggles in his own life. He plays a former news anchor with Parkinson's disease who wants to get back to work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: I have an announcement I want to make. I don't want you to get angry or confused or scared, but I'm thinking about going back to work.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, thank you, Jesus.
FOX: I said I was thinking about it. I don't know where I stand.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Everybody is happy that you're getting out of the house.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kind of?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: CNN's Nischelle Turner sat down with Michael J. Fox. Tell us more Nischelle.
NISCHELLE TURNER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well actually, I stood up with Michael J. Fox, Carol because I spoke with him at the Emmys about this. Now this is an interesting concept. He's taking real-life issues and putting them on display for America and in the process, finding the silver lining in his struggle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 911, what's your emergency?
FOX: No 911? No, I didn't call 911.
TURNER (voice-over): The 411 on Michael J. Fox? He's starring in his own TV show for the first time in over a decade.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You should come back to work.
FOX: Are you forgetting why I left?
TURNER: In his self-titled new sitcom Fox plays a famous newsman who put his career on hold after developing a serious medical condition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since we're both here, can I get you to sign an autograph? My uncle has got Alzheimer's.
FOX: I actually have Parkinson's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Either way.
TURNER: Parkinson's of course is what sidelined Fox's own career temporarily. He left his hit sitcom "Spin City" in 2000 after his condition worsened.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh thanks.
TURNER: In recent years he's guest starred on several TV shows, including "Curb Your Enthusiasm".
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you shake that up on purpose?
FOX: Parkinson's.
TURNER: And "The Good Wife".
FOX: Good morning Mr. --
TURNER: But his new comedy ups the workload dramatically.
(on camera): Hello. How are you? Nice to see you.
(voice-over): When I talked with him at the Emmys, he sounded up to the task.
(on camera): What's it been like? FOX: We did a lot of hard work but it's been -- it's been satisfying. It's been a learning experience to see what is difficult for me to do now. In another sense, what I'm capable of and I didn't give myself credit for being capable of.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I lied. They love you, man. The whole world loves you.
TURNER: Co-star Wendell Pierce admires what Fox is achieving.
WENDELL PIERCE, "THE MICHAEL J. FOX SHOW": He hasn't lost anything. He hasn't forgotten how to do it. He has you know just a little added challenge that we don't have. And that's the thing I really respect about what he does.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you not have a personal victory right now? We are starving.
TURNER: Michael J. Fox dishing out laughs and a generous helping of inspiration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TURNER: Now this is also NBC's attempt to return back to Thursday night destination television, Carol, with his show being the centerpiece. You know when also when I asked him and his wife Tracy if they'd sat down as a family and talked about would he return and how it would affect them, funny enough they said, not really. Not much conversation about it. Michael just pretty much decided he was going to go back and do the sitcom. And Tracy said you know what I knew this meant the world to him so she was behind it 100 percent.
COSTELLO: Oh so something else you uncovered that I find interesting. Because you know you look at Michael J. Fox and you think what a strong guy.
TURNER: Yes.
COSTELLO: He's an example and he really is. He's fabulous. But -- but he had to battle personal demons during his illness, too. Tell us about that.
TURNER: Yes, you know, he just talked to Howard Stern about this. And you know Howard always gets the most out of anybody who comes and does an interview with him. And Michael talked about that he -- he was drinking for a while when he first got his diagnosis. He didn't really know how to handle it, and really didn't know how to move forward so he spent a lot of time drinking, about a year.
But then he said he kind of sat down, he decided he was going to go to therapy. He learned other ways of coping and other means of dealing with Parkinson's and how he was going to live his life now and he got help for it.
But yes, he went through a tough time, too. And you can imagine, when something like this happens and it just completely changes the face of your life, how do you deal and how do you wrap your brain around it all at one time.
So he definitely went through a struggle but now he really seems like he's on a good road and on a good path and when you can put that out there for America, your most vulnerable self, that's saying something.
COSTELLO: It sure is. Nischelle Turner thanks so much.
TURNER: Yes -- sure.
COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, catcher blocks the baseline. Brian McCann will not let Carlos Gomez touch home plate after his home run. Benches clear at the Braves/Brewers game. You got to see it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: It is an unwritten rule in baseball when you hit a home run, you don't stand there and admire it. Well the Brewers' Carlos Gomez broke that rule last night and it sparked a bench-clearing brawl with the Atlanta Braves. Andy Scholes is here to show us.
ANDY SCHOLES, BLEACHER REPORT: Yes you know Carol when you show up a pitcher after you hit a home run, only two things are going to happen right? You're either going to get plunked the next time you come up or a bench-clearing brawl is going to break out. And that's what happened last night when Gomez got hit by Paul Maholm you know there was beef between these two beforehand. And as you can see right here, Gomez stands and admires it for quite a while before he starts running the bases.
Now Brian McCann and Freddie Freeman didn't like that too much. They exchanged words with Gomez as he rounded the bases and McCann had had enough by the time Gomez got near home plate. He confronted him before he even touched home and that's when the brawl would break out.
Both benches clear. A few punches were even thrown. Now, Gomez and Freeman ejected from the game.
COSTELLO: Wow.
SCHOLES: Gomez later he saw the error in his ways. He apologized via Twitter, saying his behavior was unacceptable.
All right well you know Mariano Rivera has been receiving all these gifts on his retirement tour. Well he never got a horse. Colorado Rockies gave Todd Helton a horse last night as a farewell gift. Helton is hanging up the cleats this year after spending 17 seasons with the Rockies.
Check this out Carol. Fellow Tennessee volunteer Peyton Manning was on hand for the ceremony. Interesting fact, Manning actually replaced Helton as the Vols' quarterback way back in 1994. Pretty cool.
Now Helton he owns basically all the Rockies' batting records. And it was only fitting that he hit a home run last night in his final game at Coors field.
All right. This is the story you were waiting for Carol.
COSTELLO: Oh yes.
SCHOLES: The Detroit Tigers clinched their third straight division title last night. Now many picked the Tigers to win it all this year and winning the A.L. Central is the first step towards making that happen.
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JIM LEYLAND, TIGERS MANAGER: Well from day one of spring training, I told them don't get caught up in the expectations. Get caught up in how we're going to live up to those expectations. And I think that's what they've done. And I want to say thank you to our fans. And I'm so proud of what you've done for our ball club and what you've done for me since I've been here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: You'd think Jim Leyland never won anything before. Apparently never gets old for him; 68 years old, he's crying, he's dancing. Really enjoying that.
COSTELLO: He's an awesome, awesome guy. He's very energetic when you meet him in person and he doesn't seem like he's 68 years old at all. But I mean he's really emotional and he really sees his ball players as his de facto sons and he does love the fans. That's great to see.
SCHOLES: Yes it's great to see and hopefully the Tigers make it happen this year. Go all the way for you.
COSTELLO: Thanks for mentioning that Andy.
SCHOLES: You're welcome.
COSTELLO: Next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM double deadline -- a possible government shutdown just four days away. Now the debt ceiling, is this really happening again?
Plus --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By 2016, California workers will earn $10 per hour, one of the highest minimum wages in the nation.
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COSTELLO: It is the state's first pay raise in five years. It will put more money in some workers' pockets but could it impact the economy?
Plus this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say it looked like about that big.
