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Americans Weigh in on Obamacare; Senate to Vote on Government Shutdown Today; Pilot Dies after Heart Attack during Flight; Expired Food? No Problem; McDonald's Unveils Healthier Changes; Big Tex is Back; The Search for a Stolen Armadillo

Aired September 27, 2013 - 10:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Caught on camera, a car going more than 100 miles per hour in a police chase on a Florida highway slams into another vehicle and then careens off the road and goes up in flames. The driver was ejected. His teenage passenger trapped in the burning vehicle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got one inside over here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's inside?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Try to get him out, bro.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get the freaking fire extinguisher.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And they did and they managed to rescue the 18-year-old passenger from that car wreck. Two other people in another car were injured. The suspect James Maddock (ph) he faces a slew of felony charges.

On to politics now: Obamacare is set to roll out in just a few days on October 1st and we've asked you to weigh in. Here's just a sample of what one of our iReporters had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been very hopeful that Obamacare would be implemented and give us the opportunity not to get a free ride or free insurance or have everything paid for, you know, but health care costs are astronomical. They are financially out of reach for most hard- working Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Of course, there's a lot of disagreement with that statement and nowhere is the division deeper than on Capitol Hill. The federal government faces a potential shutdown in just over three days and a political tug-of-war over Obamacare is tightening the noose both sides accusing the other of holding negotiations hostage.

Listen to this fake ransom call put out by the Democratic National Committee.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: American people, this is the GOP. We have your economy.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), HOUSE SPEAKER: Now the President says I'm not going to negotiate. Well, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way.

DAN PFEIFFER, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: We are for cutting spending, we're for reforming our tax code, we're for reforming our entitlements. What we're not for is negotiating with people who have a bomb strapped to their chest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Wow. CNN's chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash joins us from Washington this morning. Think they'll overcome all their differences in three days -- Dana?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's kumbaya all -- it's happening right now. No, I'm just kidding. No. No, I don't think they are going to overcome their differences. The question is how they are going to work -- work through this, what has become so complicated and so unclear, what happens next.

But let's start with the first hurdle at hand which of course is the series of votes that the Senate is going to have in about two and a half hours, which ultimately we believe will end up with a bill passing the Senate, keeping the government running for two months without defunding Obamacare.

But of course, there's a lot of debate going on, on the Senate floor, people are trying to get their -- their words in, their lines in, before these series of votes. Let's just listen to a bit of color, some examples of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: Well here we are, I guess this is like the movie "High Noon". The two sides are walking down the street. I just hope that like the movie "High Noon" I hope the -- I hope the good guys win. In other words, I hope that reason and judiciousness and a sense of responsibility to the people of this country prevail. And not some knee-jerk reaction to what a few people in the House of Representatives want to do to our government.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: The false promises of Obamacare had been shattered by the harsh realities of Obamacare, a law that was supposed to solve some of our biggest health care problems in the country has instead made those problems even worse. Now we have a second chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now, the most immediate drama, if you will, is going to be seeing how many Republican votes Ted Cruz and his colleagues, Mike Lee and Marco Rubio get for what they have been pushing for all week, the reason this lasted all week in the Senate, which is to defund Obamacare as part of funding the government. Many Republicans as we have been reporting, most Republicans think that this is a bad strategy for a lot of reasons so we'll be able to see just how Ted Cruz fares in this. He has a lot of support and he's trying to keep the momentum going even now from the grassroots to call these Republicans and get them to vote his way. We'll see what the number ends up.

COSTELLO: Are they going to be working through the weekend?

BASH: Oh, yes. They will be working through the weekend. But what is so fascinating and maybe even we can say disturbing at this point is that we don't know what the game plan is going to be from here on out. It is incredibly fluid.

So what we do know is that assuming that all goes as planned and the Senate ultimately votes to fund the government for two months at the end of these votes, then of course it's in the House's court. House Republican leaders don't know exactly how they're going to craft their response. They've said very clearly that they don't want to just pass what the Senate passes, they are going to put their own stamp on it, but in talking to Democratic leadership aides in the Senate, they've said look, we really mean it. If the House comes back with some of their priorities, even things that tend to have some support among Democrats like getting rid of a medical device tax on -- on the Obamacare law, things like that, they said we're not -- we're not even going to touch it. We're not going to go for it. We will reject that.

So this is where we're really going to have the tit for tat and you know, the game of chess is going to get to a real high stakes area when we're going to see that back and forth. It is possible, Carol, that if they really are down to the wire, that the House might pass a one week stopgap measure just to keep the government running. If they do that, a Democratic source tells me that the Senate will -- will approve that, but again, these are big ifs. It is very fluid.

House Republicans just don't know which way they're going to go and that's in large part because they have that 40 or so member group in their caucus who make it very difficult for them to make decisions because they are very principled, they would say, and other people would say they are you know they just don't get the practicality of the numbers, the hard numbers or the raw numbers.

COSTELLO: We'll see what happens. Dana Bash reporting live from Washington this morning thank you.

Now more on some very scary moments in the sky. A pilot on a United Airlines flight from Houston to Seattle suffered a heart attack. The Boeing 737 diverted to Boise, Idaho and made an emergency landing. But the pilot later died at a hospital. CNN's Renee Marsh joins us now to tell us more about this drama in the skies. Good morning.

RENEE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You know, this happened late last night; 161 passengers and six crew members on board when that 737 going from Houston to Seattle had to be diverted to Boise.

Now, the airline has just confirmed to CNN that the Captain who suffered the heart attack midflight sadly has died, and we just pulled in the audio of the first officer speaking to air traffic control, making sure that medical assistance would be ready when they arrived. Take a listen.

All right. So we don't have that audio, Carol, but on it, you can hear that the first officer is saying that we have a man down, that chest compressions were going on at the point that he was calling, and again, he was trying to make sure that paramedics would be waiting for them when they landed.

A passenger told CNN affiliate that one of the crew members asked if a physician was on board. They asked that over the loudspeaker. We should tell you that the flight did land safely and paramedics did meet the plane. The Captain was taken to the hospital.

We did some digging. We called the FAA and we reached out to some of our sources and here's what we know. Commercial pilots under the age of 40 must have annual physical evaluations. When they are over the age of 40, they must get those physicals twice a year -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes but you know, just sometimes tragic things happen.

MARSH: Yes.

COSTELLO: It's just, it's just -- I mean, it's just fantastic they were able to land safely and all the passengers are safe and sound, but so sad for that pilot's family.

MARSH: Yes.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much. Renee Marsh reporting live from Washington.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, expired food for sale? No joke. A former grocery store president starts a new venture. We'll explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: I know you've had this experience. You go to the fridge, you pick out something to eat, but before you can get all excited about the meal you're about to make, you notice your food is past that all-important sell by date.

So your next stop is you know throw it in the trash can and then you go to a restaurant and eat some food there. But now a former Trader Joe's president is saying not so fast. He's opening up a store in Boston to sell expired food and fight food waste.

Joining me now from Greenville, South Carolina is Kat Kinsman, she's been managing editor of CNN.com's Eatocracy blog. Good morning, Kat.

KAT KINSMAN, MANAGING EDITOR, CNN EATOCRACY: Good morning, Carol.

COSTELLO: Ok so kind of dive in and tell us why he's doing this again. He wants to sell expired food to whom exactly? Who's going to buy that?

KINSMAN: Well you know it's not actually all that radical a proposition and he's not saying to go and dumpster dive for fishing cans of tuna or any of that. It's actually really common practice. There are grocery auctions all over the country on a regular basis where people buy -- I think we have to talk about what expired means. I think a lot of people see those dates on the food and think oh, my gosh, I'm going to die if I eat this.

COSTELLO: I do.

KINSMAN: Well, the truth is, the "sell by" date is actually guidance for stores so they can properly rotate their stock and know how long to keep something on the shelf and the "best by" date as well as the "use by" dates are actually for freshness, not for safety. And the stuff is not actually federally mandated. The only food items that do have any sort of federal warning on them are infant formula and infant food and that's just because some of the nutrients can --- can go bad.

The rest of the stuff is maybe going to get a little bit stale. You should use your nose and check to see if it's safe but for the most part it's perfectly -- it's perfectly usable food and around the globe, 1.2 to two billion metric tons of this are wasted every year.

COSTELLO: Wow. Ok so -- ok so I get what you say about the sell-by date. But if I have like let's say a bag of spinach and we've heard a lot of bad things that can happen to bagged spinach, right, so how long after that sell-by date or use by date if its -- if it's -- I mean, is it palatable for me to eat that? Is it a month, is it two months, is it a week, what is it?

KINSMAN: Well there's actually a really great Web site that has eliminated a lot of the guesswork for this. FMI.org, and they have -- it's called the food keeper and you can put in whatever food it is and they can give you guidance on it. Really, the best things that you have at your disposal are your eyes and nose and see if it still seems like it's healthy to eat. And really, the best thing you can do up front to not waste this food and not waste this money is to just do a really a few simple things to eliminate waste as soon as you come home from the grocery store.

COSTELLO: So this Trader Joe's guy should be opening up more grocery stores like that across the country? I mean it will be interesting to see how many people buy products in that store.

KINSMAN: You would be really surprised by how many people actually participate in these food auctions. They are getting really great deals on snacks and condiments. It's less so with perishable foods like dairy, et cetera, but if people are tossing out perfectly usable bags of rice, that's a problem.

COSTELLO: That's true. Ok FMI.org is the Web site. FMY?

KINSMAN: No FMI, it's the food safety resources food keeper.

COSTELLO: Thank you very much because I'm going there after this newscast is done. Thank you very much Kat Kinsman. We appreciate it. Be sure to check out the eatocracy blog, eatocracy.com on CNN's Web site.

Speaking of food, McDonald's is changing its menu to help tackle the obesity problem. We'll talk to Alison Kosik about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Want fries with that? There may be no more seductive words to someone trying to eat healthy. And soon McDonald's customers will be offered a different siren song although decidedly less enticing. How about a nice salad or a bottle of water? Alison Kosik is in New York to tell us more about McDonald's new plan. Good morning.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, is it bad that I would actually choose the fries over the salad? I think I am in the minority though because the competition is heating up among the fast casual restaurants to offer more healthy options.

McDonald's is about to offer a choice of sides and value meals, not just those French fries. It's going to offer salad, fruit or vegetables at no extra cost. It made this announcement at the Clinton Global Initiative. Its CEO Don Thompson was right there onstage with Bill Clinton.

This change is going to begin rolling out next year in the U.S. And the plan is to make this option available in 20 of its biggest markets around the world. McDonald's also changing how it markets its food to children. You can look at its happy meal packaging, it's going to change. It's going to emphasize healthy eating themes and it's going to promote water, milk and juice, not soda, as Happy Meal beverage choices because we know how impressionable those kids are -- Carol.

COSTELLO: We do. Alison Kosik, thanks so much.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM the Rivalry Express Bus rolls into Texas. We'll take you there next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The state fair of Texas opens today and a familiar figure is finally back. Workers have finished erecting a new version of Big Tex, the 52 foot statue that welcomes fair goers. There he is.

Remember this, last October an electrical fire destroyed nearly all of Big Tex. A San Antonio company rebuilt the statue at a cost of half a million dollars, and now Big Tex rises again. Besides the state fair, there's a big state rivalry in Texas. TCU is taking on SMU tomorrow in the battle for the iron skillet. Carlos Diaz is on the TCU campus in Fort Worth where things got a little crazy this morning.

Good morning -- Carlos.

CARLOS DIAZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, you know me. You know me to be a very loquacious, very exuberant kind of person. I got nothing left. After this morning, Carol, it was crazy here at TCU. SMU, their students showed up. Look, I got SMU paint all over my arm right here still. It's the remnants of one crazy morning here for Rivalry Express.

You don't believe me? Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Guys, hit it. All right. Here we go. We have TCU taking on SMU. One, two, three. I'm not seeing any SMU fans anywhere -- oh, look out. The winning team basically, this is their bragging rights right here.

He's about to charge. Sorry about that. Don't interrupt me. They're telling me how great I look right now in my new SMU stuff. Any advice for when I eat this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chew fast.

DIAZ: They have concocted the most amazing tailgating mobile I have ever seen.

I'm ashamed of you. It is a serious rivalry -- oh, come on. Seriously, again?

That is a man sweater you have there, my friend.

It's the TCU/SMU rivalry express. I'm flipping you the frog right now, baby.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAZ: That's right. TCU and SMU have been battling since 1915 and I never had a party like they had this morning. It was unbelievable. These guys battle for the iron skillet on this brand new renovated field behind me. This field is unbelievable, $165 million in renovations. It's an amazing kind of Camden Yards kind of feel here, intimate setting here at TCU.

Don't forget, Carol, the other two big games this weekend as far as rivalry goes, in the SCC you got Georgia taking on LSU right there in Georgia. It's going to be an unbelievable matchup.

Then in my neck of the woods, big ten country, you got Ohio State and Wisconsin going at it. This has become a very intense rivalry over the last few years, Carol. I got a little bit left. I got a little bit left there. Had a little bit left. There you go. You brought it out of me.

COSTELLO: I was amazed that through it all your hair stayed that way. You have amazing product in there, Carlos.

DIAZ: I'm just saying, it's 14 pounds of product is what it is. It's more hairspray than the entire New Kids on the Block had in the '90s. Very nice -- anyway.

COSTELLO: And we're loving it. Carlos Diaz, a lot of fun. Thanks so much.

Wanted, one stuffed armadillo. The missing mammal was stolen from country singer Willie Nelson and it was all caught on camera.

Here's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a live armadillo, and this is a taxidermied one. It was after a live performance by Willie Nelson that his band's taxidermied armadillo was snatched. It's enough to give you the willies.

Surveillance video at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York, shows a woman wandering on to the stage as it's being dismantled. Watch her pick up the stuffed armadillo that was lying on a console. She looks around, exits the stage, even talks to a security guard while holding the armadillo behind her.

(on camera): What kind of person would stoop to stealing an armadillo?

(voice-over): And armadillo'd and dangerous one joked, joked someone on Willie Nelson's Facebook page, where Willie asked fans to help us find the woman in this video who stole him.

Ol' Dillo, as the armadillo is known, was given to Willie a few years ago and the band adopted him as a mascot. Now fans are suspiciously eyeing every taxidermied armadillo for sale on eBay listed as used but in good shape.

(on camera): Next thing you know, a restaurant chain decided to shell out a reward.

(voice-over): The Texas Roadhouse chain has its own Andy the armadillo mascot and business ties to Willie Nelson.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our potatoes are as loaded as the folks at a Willie Nelson concert.

MOOS: And even give away Willie Nelson braids attached to a bandanna. The restaurant is offering a $1,000 gift certificate for information leading to the return of the armadillo.

TRAVIS DOSTER, SR. PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR, TEXAS ROADHOUSE: It's appalling to us. Somebody needs to armadillo up, armadillo up, return Ol' Dillo and let's put this behind us.

MOOS: Combing through surveillance video and tracking ticket purchasers, the theater says there is a suspect, though other armadillos may be alive and well, it's a taxidermied one that Willie Nelson is missing.

Ol' Dillo is wanted dead, not alive.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Ok. So that was totally pointless but it's Friday. I hope it brought a smile to your face. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Carol Costello.

"LEGAL VIEW" with Ashleigh Banfield after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN HOST: Islands are sinking, downtown Miami is drowning. Ocean levels rising fast and the planet is heating up.