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Six U.S. Soldiers Killed In Chopper Crash; Report: Auditor Warned FEC Of Computer Disk; Snowden Offers To Help Brazil Probe NSA; Senate To Hold Key Budget Vote This Hour; Glaxo To Stop Paying Doctors To Promote Drugs; FDA To Antibacterial Soap Makers: Prove Claims That Products Are Safe, Effective

Aired December 17, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The worst possible news for six U.S. military families going into this holiday season. Word is coming now that, yes, six U.S. troops killed in a helicopter crash in Southern Afghanistan. There was one survivor. They're not offering a lot of information here at the Pentagon, of course, because they want to notify the families first.

The initial indications we're told is there were no signs of enemy fire in the area at the time. There is a report of some type of engine failure, we're told. But, of course, this entire incident, very closely now being investigated by military authorities in Afghanistan and by the Pentagon to find out exactly what did happen, terrible news for the families.

There are currently about 42,000, 43,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and the troop presence, of course, has been winding down. Casualties as a result have come way down. One U.S. service member killed in the entire month of December. Before this, about 123 U.S. troops losing their lives in the war this year -- this holiday season, very sad news for the military -- Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And for those soldiers' families. Barbara Starr reporting live from the Pentagon.

A surprising story out of Washington this morning, Chinese hackers reportedly gaining access to the Federal Election Commission. Now, they're the people in charge of making sure our elections are fair and enforcing campaign finance laws.

Now a new report claims the FEC's computers were compromised at one of the agency's most vulnerable times during the government shutdown. Even worse they say the FEC was warned its computers were at risk before this incident happened. Pentagon correspondent, Chris Lawrence joins me now with more. Good morning.

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRSPONDENT: Hi. Good morning, Carol. Yes, a warning, a hacking. And now some very serious concerns because we are heading into what going to likely be the most expensive mid-term election in the nation coming just next year. And following that, a presidential election in which political groups and politicians going to be spending and raising massive amounts of money. The FEC's computer networks are supposed to keep track of that, but the Center for Public Integrity reports that they were massively hacked just a few months ago, and even worse than that, as some of the officials were looking around and starting to realize that they had been sabotaged, they realized there was no one there who could stop it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE LEVINTHAL, CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY: And it came as the FEC had absolutely no regular employees actually serving at the agency because of the government shutdown. It was one of the agencies that actually went completely dark during the government shutdown, only had the commissioners themselves manning the doors, manning the systems, and they're not I.T. experts by any stretch of the imagination.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAWRENCE: Yes, yes, yes. The FEC only has a few hundred employees and almost all of them were furloughed and this came after an independent auditing firm found that the FEC's computer networks didn't even meet the minimum levels of recommended securities of protocols and were at an increased risk of being hack. Now, officials -- FEC officials at the time said, no, our systems are basically secure.

Now they're asking for a few million dollars extra from Congress to try to upgrade some of those systems, but this is around agency, really, that now faces nearly 300 backlogs. The report paints a picture of a very dysfunctional agency. And even as political groups have been raising their spending, spending billions and billions of dollars on these political campaigns, the FEC's budget has barely budged - Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Chris Lawrence, I'm sure you'll continue to follow this story throughout the day. Thanks so much. A little more than a half hour some of the biggest names in techs have a big meeting with the president at the White House. They going to discuss the economy, the headaches surrounding the Obamacare web site, and the NSA spying scandal that going to just not go away.

It comes one day after the judge ruled that the data mining program is likely unconstitutional. That program was first made public by Edward Snowden. Get this. Snowden has sent an open letter to the people of Brazil offering to investigate NSA surveillance against Brazil in exchange for asylum. CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto in Washington with more on this. Good morning.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. You have Edward Snowden looking for relief from his legal troubles. You have tech companies looking for relief from lost businesses. It's estimated that they've lost billions of dollars of spying through their systems and arguably this court decision helps both of their cases calling it almost Orwellian saying the founders of the constitution would have been aghast at its violation of Americans' freedoms. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO (voice-over): Six months after Edward Snowden revealed it to the world, a federal judge reviewed the NSA program that sweeps up Americans' phone call records is likely unconstitutional.

The judge wrote, quote, "I cannot imagine a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every citizen." Snowden described it as a vindication of his hacking saying I acted on my belief that the NSA mass surveillance program would not withstand a constitutional challenge.

Today a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violation Americans' rights. Snowden remains holed up in Russia, avoiding charges in the U.S. of espionage. But a senior NSA official floated in an unlikely s on "60 Minutes" to get Snowden back here, give him amnesty, an idea that the White House quickly dismissed.

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He should be returned to the United States as quickly as possible where he'll be given due process in our systems. That's our position and it has not changed.

SCIUTTO: Still, the court's decision is a body blow for the administration.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is just an absolutely scathing rejection of the NSA program that the government has defended so strongly. And it is worth noting that the judge was a George W. Bush appointee, someone who had worked for Republicans in Congress, hardly a screaming liberal.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Now the court has ordered the NSA to stop collecting data on the plaintiffs in this case immediately. For the rest of us, he stayed his ruling to give the government time to appeal. That would take about six months. He cited the extreme national security interests in this indicate but certainly an influential decision. He's spoken to some legal experts that it's going to have to go all the way to the Supreme Court, Carol, for a final answer.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto reporting live from Washington this morning.

A critical vote this hour on Capitol Hill where the Senate will get its first chance to weigh in on a budget deal that's already passed the House, but the bill has plenty of opposition. Our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash is on the Hill right now with more. Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The Senate vote is under way already. They're on their way with a key procedural vote, but really this is the money vote, the one to tell whether or not this budget deal, which flew through the House of Representatives last week is going to do the same, at least pass comfortably in the Senate.

Sources in both parties say that they feel at the end of this vote that they going to have the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, and based on the Republicans who have come out in favor of this over the past 24 to 48 hours, it certainly seems that way.

Some of the drama still is on the Democratic side to see if any of them bolt because they're upset about the fact that the unemployment benefits are extended. There's a lot of opposition on the Republicans' side because it doesn't do enough to attack the debt and deficit and also because of the fact that in this deal a lot of senators feel that military personnel are getting raw end of the deal because they're going to have some of their pensions be cut.

And Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, just had a press conference with a couple of other Republicans talking about why that is forcing him to oppose this. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPRESENTATIVE LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Any politician who wants to do this again is going to get the hell kicked out of them. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: He also said that -- this is a quote, "people are screwing the wrong people," meaning men and women of the military, in order to get this budget deal passed. And so that is one of the big reasons why this is seeing so many more challenges in the Senate than you saw in the House because the military portion of this -- not just military personnel, but also federal workers, what's kind of a surprise to those who lobby and push for benefits for military personnel after it passed the House they sort of got their lobbying mojo back and they were really pressing senators to vote against it.

So that is part of the dynamic going on here. We're watching this vote to see just how it plays out, but one of the sub plots is going to be to see how many people kind of hang back and wait to see just how high this is going to go because nobody likes this deal, and the political pressure from home has to be weighed versus the desire for progress to be made on some kind of budget deal. So that's going to be why you see them weighing this thing as they report on it in the next 10, 15 minutes.

COSTELLO: We'll check back. Dana Bash is reporting live from the Hill, this morning. I want to bring in CNN political analyst, Gloria Borger now. Hi, Gloria.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi.

COSTELLO: Even though there are signs of progress on the budget deal today despite what Dana said, we're still hopeful, right?

BORGER: Yes. COSTELLO: The president is at a far different place this year than last year. So how much of this is about economic issues versus other issues?

BORGER: Look. I think a lot of it is about economic issues. One of the stunning things in looking at the poll this morning is the president is trusted more than the Republicans on the economy. There you've got it up there. You see a year ago he had an 18-point advantage over Republicans, carol. Now Republicans have a four-point advantage over him, and that's after the government shutdown and all the guff Republicans took over the government shutdown.

So it just shows you that the Affordable Care Act has played into this, the problems with that. What's also played into it is long-term unemployment is still a huge problem out there that has not been resolved. They're -- you know, so the public is not feeling. There are some good signs out there about economic recovery, but clearly the public is not feeling it yet.

The public believes -- if you look at the numbers on the middle class, which has always been the president's bread and butter, I am here to protect the middle class. If you look at the numbers in this poll on who's better able to protect the middle class, the president is down double digits from where he was a year ago. So you put all of that together, that feeds into the drop in his approval rating.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Gloria Borger reporting live for us this morning. Thanks so much.

BORGER: Sure.

COSTELLO: Paid to promote drugs. That's exactly how some doctors get paid extra money, but now one drug company says it going to put a stop to that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: As you well know, some doctors actually get paid to promote certain drugs to patients. One of the largest drug companies, though, says no more, GlaxoSmithKline will stop paying doctors to promote its products. So could this decision force other drug companies to do same thing? Let's ask our chief business correspondent, Christine Romans. Hi, Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hi. Quite possibly, Carol. This is GlaxoSmithKline we're talking about, a British drug giant last year it had $10 billion in sales. It's a very big company and carries a lot of weights. Here's what's going to change. No more paying doctors for attending conferences or speaking on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline conferences. Others say that could be a conflict of interest if you're prescribing their drugs and being paid.

There's another change. Drug representatives going to no longer be paid for how many prescriptions doctors are writing of the drugs they're trying to sell. Instead they'll be paid for their technical knowledge about their drugs in the industry and their performance on the job, not about how many strips they can get a doctor to write.

That is a very, very big difference. We know that, you know, there are all these drug reps for all these big different drug companies, and there are some 3 billion prescriptions written last year in this country. It is huge business, 4 billion in 2011, 3.99 in 2010, very big business. A lot of drug reps getting paid for how well they're convincing doctors to write the drugs, the prescriptions. The doctors are getting paid by the drug company to go to the conferences

ROMANS: Thank you so much.

COSTELLO: Coming up, other top stories. Police say now it was a 30- year-old attorney who was shot to death by carjackers at an upscale mall. Investigators found his stolen 2012 Range Rover in Newark yesterday. A $10,000 reward is being offered to help capture the gunmen.

A heart stopping moment at an airport in Poland, watch this carefully. You see the father there. He places his baby on the luggage counter, looks away for just a minute, and that's when the baby is going to fall off the table. Watch, then a security guard, you see that security guard with the amazing dive to catch the baby. We hear that security guard is in for a bonus. I think he deserves it.

Passengers startled on a Delta jet. The plane skidded off the runway at the Madison, Wisconsin, airport. No one was hurt and travelers were bus back to the terminal.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, buying antibacterial soap claims, the FDA has two words. Prove it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The FDA is putting out a challenge to the makers of anti- bacterial soaps and washes. Prove your products are safe and effective or change your labels. CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen has more for you.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You see them everywhere. These anti-bacterial soaps with killer claims, but these labels might become a thing of the past. The Food and Drug Administration says the anti-bacterial soaps may actually be harmful. They could pose health risks such as bacterial resistance or hormonal effects, the most common ingredient in anti-bacterial soaps, triclosan.

MAE WU, ATTORNEY, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: There are some impacts that triclosan may have on the hormone system that could help in developing bodies in children and infants. If it's not doing any good, why are we putting this potentially harmful product in this home?

COHEN: That's right. The FDA says they don't do any better than the plain old soap and water. So the agency has put this demand on the soap producers. Prove that it works or scrub off those claims. Soap makers say they're up to the task.

BRIAN SANSONI, AMERICAN CLEANING INSTITUTE: Manufacturers have presented such data in the past and with this new proposed rule that's out, we'll have another opportunity to present newer research that shows, again, a germ-killing benefit of anti-bacterial soap and data that does show that these soaps are safe.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Now, soap companies have a year to make their arguments to the FDA, so none of this is going to be happening any time soon.

COSTELLO: So clearly you shouldn't be using this anti-bacterial soap because the FDA -- I mean, I wouldn't anymore. Why pay more for a product that probably doesn't work?

COHEN: Right. You know, it's interesting because doctors have been saying this for years and years. Why would you want to pay more for something that doesn't work any better than plain old inexpensive soap and water and may also have health problem attached to it. Doctors have been sort of incredulous over this for a long time and the FDA is catching up to this.

COSTELLO: Yes. Is this like Purell or something different?

COHEN: They're more alcohol-based and don't use the anti-bacterial ingredients so those are not included in this.

COSTELLO: I don't use those either. Vitamins, you don't take those anymore, they don't help you either.

COHEN: I tell you, all the things we thought were good maybe aren't. It's true. The hand sanitizer, plain old soap and water, it's quick, it's easy, it's simple. It's cheap, why not.

COSTELLO: It's so old school.

COHEN: It is. It's very old school.

COSTELLO: Thanks, Elizabeth.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, he rocked the government to its core by telling the world about the NSA's massive data mining. So is the judge's ruling against NSA vindicated Edward Snowden? Our political panel will weigh in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. We begin with breaking news on Capitol Hill. It's good news. Let's go to Dana Bash for more. We didn't have long to wait.

BASH: That's right. The Senate overwhelmingly cleared the key procedural hurdle that they just were voting on this budget deal, 67- 33. All Democrats voted for it, and a dozen Republicans. Just quick math, that's about a quarter of the Republican caucus in the Senate defied the conservative base, defied some of the military groups that were upset that this takes away some of the pensions for military personnel.

Approving this, now it's going to have a day of debate again and then the final vote is going to be tomorrow, but this was the key vote. This was the one to watch, and it was a big bipartisan vote.

COSTELLO: And I say it's good news because it avoids a government shutdown. That's really what this does, right?

BASH: It makes it pretty clear that the government is unlikely that the government is going to shut down. There are some important hoops that the Congress is going to have to jump through to make sure it doesn't happen, but this sets the stage to let everybody breathe a sigh of relief in terms of going from crisis to crisis for the next couple of years.

COSTELLO: All right, Dana Bash, thanks so much.

Let's talk about Edward Snowden because he is reaching out to yet another country. This time he wants to leave Russia for Brazil. If Brazil grants him asylum, Edward Snowden will help its government investigate U.S. spying on Brazilian soil. Maybe Brazil will bite.