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House Passes GOP Obamacare Revisions; Some Dems Break Ranks; Toronto Strips Powers; Toronto Mayor's TV Show; Gotham City Adventure

Aired November 15, 2013 - 14:00   ET

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to start this afternoon with some good news. Some great news, actually, for a change. I want you to take a look at some live pictures out of San Francisco where any moment, a news conference will begin there on the city which is transforming itself into Gotham City for a day.

ROSA FLORES, CNN ANCHOR: Why, you might ask? It's a 5-year-old boy's wish. He's in remission from a long battle with leukemia, and today, the city is honoring his dream of becoming a superhero. You see the Batmobile there on your screen.

We'll keep an eye out on this and take you live from the ground. And talking about superheroes, John Berman, what's your favorite superhero?

BERMAN: You know, I'm a Batman guy. I love Aquaman, but I love it more than anything that we're taking live aerials of the Batmobile in San Francisco, which for our purposes, we are calling Gotham City.

FLORES: Gotham City for today.

BERMAN: It's my favorite car chase ever on cable news, so that's fantastic. That is great news.

FLORES: I'm looking forward to talking to this little fellow.

BERMAN: Me, too.

First, though, we have big news out of Washington. The president's urgent operation to revive Obamacare and some say his presidency. It faces another test in one hour.

FLORES: As he labors to save his top first-term achievement and to win back some of the trust he has lost, quite frankly. He's about to meet at the White House with top insurance executives.

BERMAN: And some of these executives, we are told, are incensed, they are furious, really, really angry that now that President Obama's back is to the wall, he wants them to reestablish health insurance plans he has slammed as practically junk. Stand by. We're going to have that in just a moment.

FLORES: Now, a short time ago, a fiery debate in the House on a Republican plan, a rival plan to the president's fix.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TENNESSEE: We're doing it for my constituents like Carolyn and Lucy and Cindy and Wilma, all small business owners, all female heads of households who have written us and have said, we are being forced out, forced out of the plan that we like.

REP. STENY HOYER (D), MINORITY WHIP: The fact of the matter is, it will not fix that problem, but what it will do is undermine the ability of millions and millions and millions of people to have health security. I would urge my colleagues to defeat this trojan horse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: You heard that right, trojan horse, he said, because Democrats contend the Republican plan would wreck Obamacare in the name of saving it. About 20 minutes ago, that measure did pass, but it won't become law. We'll have more on that in just a moment.

But first, this meeting about to happen at the White House between the president and insurance executives. Now, to help us here to figure all this out, Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent.

And, Elizabeth, I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of tension in the room given the fact that the president, quite frankly, has not been very nice to these insurance executives. I imagine that there's going to be lots of tension because of the severe criticism.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Rosa, I would love to be a fly on the wall at that meeting because I think it is going to be quite heated. I was actually speaking with an insurance executive who said they're infuriated because three years ago the president said, we want you to, you know, get rid of your policies and create new policies. And then, in the ninth inning, as he put it, the president then said, oh, well, you can go back to those old policies. And the executive I was talking to said, we have whiplash. You know, administratively, this is a mess. Financially, this is mess because we made all our forecasts based on doing what the president told us. And he said it's -- now we're going to look like the bad guys if we don't uncancel the policies that the president told us to put in there in the first place. We look like the bad guys.

FLORES: I know just lots of PR -- bad PR all around.

Now, in the middle, of course, are these folks with these now-canceled policies. How difficult is it going to be for these people?

COHEN: You know, I think it's going to be tough for them. They're going to have to call their insurance companies and say, you canceled my policy, but I liked it so can I have it back again? And from what I'm hearing, a lot of insurance companies are going to say, no, we're not going to give it back to you. Several reasons for this.

One, again, an administrative mess to go and undo what they just did. And, also, the newer policies are more expensive, many of them, and so the insurance companies want to do that. Now, I want to explain this 5 percent number that's on the screen. I want to be very clear that this decision yesterday really affects directly only 5 percent of Americans. Only 5 percent of Americans buy insurance on their own without their employer. That's called the individual market. So this doesn't affect a ton of us. It's 5 percent of us. Still, 11 million people, and for those 11 million people, this is extremely important.

FLORES: Yes, but it's very, very important for all of those people.

Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.

COHEN: Thanks.

BERMAN: We're going to talk now about the politics of this and really the big political damage this has been doing to the president. Joining us now from Washington is Candy Crowley, CNN chief political correspondent and anchor of "State of the Union."

Candy, I want to start with the vote in the House where 39 Democrats essentially just voted against the president. They voted with the Republican plan in the House, against the wishes of the president. That's more than generally votes against the president, but it's not this big, epic number that would have been a huge embarrassment.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, the number is clearly smaller than it might have been had not the president yesterday gone out and said, wait, I have an administrative fix here. They knew this vote was coming on a Republican measure. They don't like it because the measure would allow folks to keep that insurance forever, not just for the year the president has in mind, and it would allow other people into the market if they wanted to purchase insurance on an individual basis. So the urgency behind what the president was doing was to avoid a big embarrassing vote.

Still, 39 Democrats voting with the Republicans tells you how deep the worry is among Democrats that it is not - it is not just the rollout, it's not just that people were losing their health insurance after being told they wouldn't lose it. It is everything. And the Democrats -- and one of them I talked to this morning said, you know, the problem is that they send the president out, and he's surrounded by people who love him and who cheer for Obamacare, and then I go home to my district and I walk across the street and people are screaming at me because I voted for Obamacare.

And while they agree with the principle still that everyone ought to be covered, they know that this rollout and these mistakes and these fixes are needed. So a lot of them just thought they needed to vote with this Republican bill, which will never see the light of day because the president already said he'll veto it. I doubt it would come anywhere near passing the Senate.

BERMAN: Harry Reid will never let it get to a vote anyway.

CROWLEY: Right. Exactly. BERMAN: Right. So these members of Congress are facing their constituents and these members of Congress are also reading all the polls, which are pretty bleak for President Obama. His lowest approval ratings of his administration. And we've seen low approval ratings for presidents before in their second term. And they never really bounce back to the high numbers they enjoyed before. It's very, very hard for a president to recover in his second term.

CROWLEY: It is. However, if Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, begins to take hold in a way that there are more positive stories than there are negative stories next year, that will do something certainly for the president's number. It's not impossible to bounce back. But it's clear that they're very worried about next year's midterms. I mean the president, if you listened to him yesterday, there were so many times when he said, we made a mistake, I made a mistake, this is on me. And all those people up on Capitol Hill who told voters that they could keep their health care, they did that because we assured them that was the truth. So that's on me, it's not on them. I mean he said that a couple of times. So they're very worried, because nothing would put a halt to an administration seeing the end of its days anyway in three years as a Republican Senate and a still Republican House. So they're worried.

BERMAN: All right, Candy Crowley, thank you so much.

CROWLEY: Thank you.

BERMAN: And, of course, Candy will have so much more on this on "State of the Union" on Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. Don't miss it.

FLORES: And if you've checked your retirement account lately, you know stock markets have been on fire, folks. They've been en fuego (ph). And, today, they're climbing towards milestones. We're less than two hours from the closing bell on Wall Street. Take a look at the Dow. Just up again, approaching, let's see right there, 16,000. And check this out. So far this year, the Dow has gained 21 percent. And other to be -- the other two big indexes are up even more. The S&P 500 is within striking distance of 1,800, and the Nasdaq is closing in at 4,000. That's a level it hasn't seen since the dot com boom and bust more than 13 years ago.

BERMAN: So, is the United States on the verge of a deal with Iran? CNN's Jim Sciutto today reporting that both sides are, quote, "getting close" to an agreement to stop Iran's nuclear program from advancing. The deal would delay Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon and it would give the west better notice if Tehran tried. This, of course, comes after the Obama administration asked Congress to avoid passing a new round of sanctions against Iran. We will give you updates as we get them on this story.

FLORES: And coming up, to our favorite story of the day. We are following Batman in Gotham City. And then, of course, San Francisco, just don't tell anyone, to fulfill the wish of a young boy. We're going to take you there live.

BERMAN: Love that kid. Love that city. Plus, as Toronto's crack smoking mayor gets some of his power taken away today, he's ready for his big debut, guess what, in a new TV show. Next, we're going to speak live with the executive putting Rob Ford and his brother on TV on their own show. I'm not lying to you, folks. You're not going to want to miss this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ROB FORD, TORONTO: I do not use crack cocaine.

Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine.

I sincerely, sincerely, sincerely apologize.

(INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, now to north of the border where this is all still really happening. And an item in the Toronto city council debated today, the motion to improve the decision-making environment at city hall. That, folks, is polite Canadian speak for trying to get rid of their crack-smoking mayor. The 44 member council did what they could by law since they can't actually recall the mayor. It passed a motion that strips Ford of all the powers the council has delegated the position in the past. It's the city's latest move to convince the mayor of North America's fourth largest city to take a leave of absence. Rob Ford has admitted to smoking crack, to buying illegal drugs, and his latest gaffe, using an just out of nowhere vulgarity that went live nationwide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ROB FORD, TORONTO: Olivia Donda (ph) says that I wanted to (EXPLETIVE DELETED). I have never said that in my life to her. I would never do that. I'm happily married.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now we're going live to Toronto to CNN's Nic Robertson.

And, Nic, what specific powers did this council strip from Mayor Ford?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, two specific powers, if you will, today. One which gives him authority to hire and fire senior staff members, that's been taken away from him. And also the right to sort of overrule the council if there's a state of emergency. That power appears now to be passing to the deputy mayor.

There will be other powers that they will see to strip from him next week. It's the beginning of a process. He's indicated he'll fight back. He'll take it to the courts. He says it will cost the taxpayer's money. But in a strangely bizarre way, he also seemed to sympathize today with the other counselors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ROB FORD, TORONTO: If I would have had a mayor acting the way I have conducted myself, I would have done the exact same thing. I am - I'm not mad at anybody. I take full responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: But what he's also saying, he may be taking full responsibility, but he's not backing down. His -- it was just he and his brother who were the only hold-outs on the vote. It vote went 41-2 against him and his brother, who's also a council member.

Back to you.

FLORES: Thank you so much.

In one word, drama, for that story. You know, after the Toronto city council stripped some of the mayor's powers, the mayor' young brother promised a legal fight ahead. Now, Doug Ford is also on the council, and he asked the city solicitor if lawmakers could take away resources from other council members.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG FORD, TORONTO CITY COUNCIL: Can they reduce their budgets?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It would be - it would be up to council.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Councilor Ford, that's not before us today.

FORD: And we also saw right to do it to one but not the other. That's what I'm hearing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't comment on that.

FORD: OK. Look forward to challenging you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: However, a source tells CNN that Doug Ford has asked his older brother to take a leave of absence. So whatever the brother says in private, one thing is for certain, they're now going to be talking a lot more in public. Why? Because Canada's Sun News Network has just announced that the Ford brothers will have their own TV show. It's called "Ford Nation." It starts Monday. This is actually happening, folks. Joining us now is the vice president of the Sun News Network, Kory Teneycke.

You know, I kind of don't know where to begin here, but, Mr. Teneycke, let's start here. The mayor says that he's getting some kind of professional help. We don't know exactly what it is. But are you concerned that he's not in the right condition to be hosting a television show? KORY TENEYCKE, VICE PRESIDENT, SUN NEWS NETWORK: Well, I think it's one of the most interesting stories in the world right now. You're talking about it. It's all over late night television and in your country as well. I'd even go so far as to say it's a little payback from Canada for making us suffer through the Weiner and Blagojevich scandals up here.

It's hard to explain why people are so interested in the story all around the world, but they certainly are. It's been captivating Canadians and Torontonians for some time up here.

BERMAN: But we're talking about it because you have a chief executive of a city who is doing things in public that are shocking to a lot of people. We're covering it, but we're not giving him a show every week. You're giving him a show every week. Is that the right message to be sending to your viewers?

TENEYCKE: Well, I'll step in there. We're doing a first show, and we'll sort of see where things go from there. But I'd probably better describe this as a news special. We're giving the Ford brother, who used to have a weekly show, an opportunity to come on our airwaves and give in their own words their own explanation some of the things that are going on. I think it's fair to say that Canadians and Americans and people around the world are interested in hearing what they have to say. And we're going to give them an opportunity to do that. It's a business decision. It's not a political decision or any other kind of decision. And our hope, in the ratings game, as you are, is that it will attract viewers.

FLORES: And I know one of the things that I'm wondering is, how did this deal come about? And I know you mentioned this is a business deal. How big of a business deal is this? How much money is at stake for the Fords?

TENEYCKE: Well, this is Canada. The numbers are shockingly small. We're not paying the mayor or his brother anything for their time, as was the case with their radio program. We're simply making some air time available for them to bring their story forward, to say what it is they have to say to Torontonians, Canadians and people around the world who are following this story.

BERMAN: When you heard the mayor yesterday specifically, let's leave the crack smoking admission behind, but when you heard the mayor, I don't even know how to begin to describe what he said, but most people saw it. He was talking about the allegations about him, you know, sexual allegations and he talked about what he does in the office and what he does at home. When you heard that, what did you think, sir?

TENEYCKE: Well, I thought it's a good thing the show won't be live. So we'll have an opportunity to insure that nothing happens on our airwaves that is in contravention of any of the broadcasting rules north of the border.

BERMAN: I guess I respect the broadcasting sensibility there.

FLORES: Right, in our case, the bleep button. BERMAN: Right.

FLORES: All right, well, thank you so much, Kory Teneycke, for joining us.

BERMAN: All right, coming up for us next, China makes a big change to its rule that most families can only have one child. We'll tell you why they made this big change.

FLORES: And coming up next, you don't want to miss this. San Francisco becomes Gotham City to make a five-year-old boy's wish come true. You see him right there. All sorts of excitement. That city is his for the day. We're going to show you, live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FLORES: A five-year-old boy, who loves Batman, is having the superhero adventure of a lifetime today, riding around in the Batmobile in the city by the bay transformed into Gotham City. He also defeated the Penguin, of course, and did a flip to celebrate. Miles Scott has been fighting leukemia, folks, since he was 18 months old. Now he's in remission, so that's, you know, a great deal to celebrate there. To celebrate, the entire city of San Francisco was transformed into Gotham City. The mayor and the police chief pitched in to help fulfill the little guy's superhero dreams.

Now let's take you to Gotham City. You're looking at the Batmobile there. Lots of people. It looks like a parade out there. It's actually a Lamborghini on loan from a wealthy San Francisco resident.

BERMAN: Wow.

FLORES: Again, everybody in the city pitched in just to make this little boy's dream come true. Now, I want to bring in Dan Simon, tracking the story live in Gotham City.

Now, I'm surprised that he doesn't have a batman suit on, first of all. So how did this adventure come about?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Rosa. First of all, you can see the Batmobile behind me. And you can see the thousands of people who have converged on Gotham City here in downtown San Francisco. We've all covered lots of stories, but I have to tell you, and I promise you this, I have never seen anything quite like this. The amount of logistics and coordination to make this little boy's dreams come true is unbelievably staggering.

So here's how this all came about. He's five years old, little Miles, and he had leukemia. And, fortunately, it's now in remission. And he was asked if he could have one wish, what would it be? He said he wanted to be Batman. So the Make a Wish Foundation put all this together. You can see the Batmobile taking off. He's on to his next adventure. The Make A Wish Foundation put all of this together and this is the culmination of it all. And Miles and his dad talked a little bit about his special day. Take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILES SCOTT: Because he's my favorite superhero.

NICK SCOTT, FATHER OF MILES SCOTT, AKA "BATMAN": It's really neat to see how many people got together for a stranger they don't know and show support for. It's heartwarming. It's a big party at the end of a long road.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: So once word got out that this was happening, social media really pushed this thing forward. You had thousands of volunteers and so this is really what this is all about, people coming out and trying to support this very brave little boy.

Rosa and John.

FLORES: Oh, this is fantastic. Did you see the Joker?

BERMAN: It's amazing. There's a Riddler. There's the Penguin. It is - and this kid, you know, the parents have said it, he actually is a superhero the way that he's been battling leukemia since 18 months old.

FLORES: He is.

BERMAN: And the thing that gets me in the story, and that - you know, I get choked up even thinking about it. This city went all in. Look at it.

FLORES: I know. I know.

BERMAN: Thousands of people in on this for one kid, to respect this kid's bravery.

FLORES: That's terrific.

BERMAN: You know, kudos to them. There's a Lamborghini, you know, souped up as the Batmobile. This is fantastic.

FLORES: That is just so wonderful. I mean it just reminds me of the actual movie, like the scenes of the movie and that sort of thing, just to think that for him, that's reality for today.

BERMAN: I can't wait to hear what he has to say about all this.

All right, on the other side of the world, we have a much more bleak picture happening right now. One week after Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, survivors, they still have nowhere to go. Up next, CNN's Anderson Cooper caught up with a father. I've got to tell you, his story you will never forget.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)