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Two Wins Mega Millions Jackpot; Budget's Military Cuts Rile Senators; Fed to Announce Stimulus Decision; U.S. Delegation to Sochi Olympics a Major Snub?;
Aired December 18, 2013 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, you all have a great day.
NEWSROOM starts now.
Good morning. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Carol Costello.
The holidays are going to be much richer this year -- richer, that is, if you're holding one of the two winning mega millions tickets. They'll split $636 million, the winning numbers 8, 14, 17, 20, 39, the mega ball was 7.
Ticket sales leading up to last night's drawing not surprising were brisk. In Florida tickets sold -- at one point sold at a rate of 8,000 per minute. But with astronomical odds only two of those tickets were winners -- one in Atlanta, the other in San Jose, California.
CNN's Martin Savidge is live in Atlanta. So Martin the store owner didn't know she sold the winning ticket until she turned on her TV on CNN?
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly right, Carol. Good morning to you, and it is a great morning for, well, at least one other person, maybe a group but certainly for the store owner of the small newspaper stand that is located in the office building just behind us here.
She said that it wasn't until 6:00 a.m. this morning as her husband always does, he turns on CNN, that's when they heard there was a winner in Georgia, then they heard Gateway was the place that it sold then she goes, "That's my store." Then it gets even better because I went in and spoke to her, she had no idea that actually she gets a pretty big payoff, too.
Listen to how it went down.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: Now you know by selling the winning ticket there's also prize money for you.
YOUNG SOO LEE, SOLD WINNING TICKET: I don't know this. I don't know how much -- a long time, I heard it's $25,000.
SAVIDGE: $25,000. Let me just tell you, it's a lot more than $25,000.
LEE: It is?
SAVIDGE: It is about $1 million that you'll get.
LEE: Is it? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I never had this much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: That was like my publisher's Clearinghouse moment. The only thing missing was that big check and bouquet of balloons. But I mean, it really was pretty thrilling to be able to impart somebody good news and she's so excited. She's owned that store for nine years but she's really excited for the person who won. She doesn't know who it is. I said, well, do you have any idea?
And she's speculating that maybe it was a group of people, there are a lot of people in the office buildings behind this that pool their money so it could be a lot of folks with a lot of money this morning -- Carol.
(LAUGHTER)
COSTELLO: Yes. Hopefully we'll find out later today who the winners are.
Martin Savidge, thanks so much.
SAVIDGE: Right.
COSTELLO: Later today on Capitol Hill, the Senate could seize on a rare glimpse of bipartisanship and approve a compromised budget deal. If it passes, the measure would prevent another government shutdown, a threat that looms as soon as next month, and it calls for more than $20 billion in deficit reduction.
Liberals are unhappy the plan doesn't extend long-term unemployment benefits and conservatives are angry that it reduces military benefits. So the budget agreement months in the making could face a potentially close vote today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HARRY REID (D), MAJORITY LEADER: Gridlock has got to end and it is ending. And the American people are satisfied that we're moving forward. We got this for the first time probably since 1986 we had a bipartisan budget agreement. That's progress.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), MINORITY LEADER: I think about all I can say about the debt ceiling is I doubt if the House or for that matter the Senate is willing to give the president a clean debt ceiling increase. Every time the president asked us to raise the debt ceiling is a good time to try to achieve something important for the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash has the view from Capitol Hill.
So this thing is expected to pass, right?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Retired Admiral Norb Ryan pounds the marble halls of Congress, refusing to give up, urging senators to restore cuts to military pensions in the bipartisan budget deal.
NORB RYAN, MILITARY OFFICERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: Soldiers are lucky if they're under the same roof as their family for eight out of 36 months and they've done that for 10 years. They paid an enormous price up front and this is really, really a disgrace.
BASH: As part of their budget, Republican Paul Ryan and Democrat Patty Murray decided to reduce by 1 percent the cost of living adjustment for military retirees who retire after 20 years of service, that's generally people in their 40s. It would go back up at age 62, it saves $6.2 billion.
Right savings, wrong targets, say some Republicans.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Of all the people we could have picked on to screw, how could we arrived here? How could we have done this?
BASH: But Lindsey Graham's best Senate friend and well-known military vet disagrees, effectively asking, how could we not?
