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Astronauts Repairing International Space Station; U.S. Aircraft Damaged in South Sudan; Winter Hits Parts of U.S.; "Duck Dynasty" Star Suspended for Controversial Comments; Obamacare Debated; Target Credit Card Security Breached

Aired December 21, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone, happy holidays. Thanks for being here with us on this Saturday morning. I'm Pamela Brown.

BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. And we have how many, just four days until Christmas. I wrote that myself, yes, choreographed it, too. It's 10:00 here on the east coast, 7:00 out west. Thank you for joining us this morning.

A brutal start to winter for the Midwest, you know, the ice storm, the warning, ice storm warning in effect across Oklahoma. Emergency crews are working to move downed trees and keep roads clear. Meanwhile, the Ohio River Valley braces for heavy rains that are expected to cause flooding.

BROWN: Yes, really kind of a mess, and horrible timing with this kind of weather, because all of this is happening, of course, as we kick off Christmas travel. We're now not seeing too many disruptions at the airports. Of course, that could change. We're expecting snowfalls on major hubs like Chicago, New York, Boston. So of course, we could expect delays there.

And we've got team coverage tracking this brutal weather. Nick Valencia out in Kansas City, Missouri, and Jennifer Gray at the CNN weather center. Nick, we'll start with you.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, good morning. It has gotten progressively colder out here in Kansas City. It feels about 12 degrees right now. And though we haven't seen the worst of it yet, officials have prepared for -- take a look. -- thrown down on the roads making sure they're prepared for the freezing rain and snow expected later today in this forecast.

You talked about flight cancellations, delays. Well, Southwest is a main carrier -- airline out of this airport. They tell us so far, no cancellations, no delays. That's the good news. I mentioned the worst is coming, so if you are getting a flight today, are catching a flight, it's best to check with the airline. If you're hitting the roads, in Missouri, interstate 44 very slick out there, The whole midsection of the country feeling the brunt of the severe weather system from Mexico and going toward Wisconsin. Seeing places like Oklahoma waking up with severe weather, ice, freezing rain, Kansas hit hard, as well. A big concern as far as airport travel is Chicago, O'Hare, so be mindful if you're traveling out of that airport.

But here we're just sort of waiting for the worst of it, guys. It hasn't gotten too bad yet, though we did see light snow flurries, however slight they were, it was coming down a little while ago. Right now, it's cold out here.

BROWN: It's funny. As the morning has progressed, Nick, we've seen you sort of bundle up more with your hat.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Now you have on gloves. I think there's a scarf coming soon. I'm just waiting for the earmuffs.

VALENCIA: You add layers progressively as the degrees go down. The hat, borrowed it from the photo journalist. So we're bundled up, some thermal packs, some heat going for us. This is serious, guys. It really is severe weather system, and it should be taken seriously by everybody being affected.

BLACKWELL: Well said. Nick Valencia there in Missouri for us.

Let's look at the forecast for the weekend and bring in CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray to tell us what we can expect. Nick makes a great point, although we're being light about nick and his wardrobe, this is serious because it's dangerous.

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it really is. And it's affecting millions of people. It's not just the ice the snow. We have a severe component to this. The first day of winter, we're talking about possible isolated tornadoes. And so when you're out doing your Christmas shopping, getting out for some holiday parties, keep that in mind, especially if you're in the south.

Right now we're not seeing anything severe. We're just seeing a line of showers and storms that are traveling from the southwest to the northeast. The ice right now is the big concern. We see the accumulations, a quarter of an inch, half an inch, in place like Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and that's continuing to push to the east. So Interstate 44 not easy going right now.

We were talking about that severe threat. We have a slight risk across much of the Mississippi River Valley, on into the Ohio Valley. We also have a moderate risk, including places like Shreveport, Jackson, Little Rock, Memphis, even Nashville, as we go through the afternoon. And these are the areas you'll want to watch out and pay attention because we could see isolated tornadoes and damaging winds along with these.

So tracking the storm system, this is today, this evening. And you can see through Memphis, Little Rock, even northeast Louisiana seeing some strong showers and storms that will continue to push to the east as we go throughout the overnight hours into Sunday. And then it will just sort of set up shop on the east coast Sunday afternoon into the first part of Monday, and then it should fizzle out. This is mainly a rain event. The reason is very warm temperatures. We could see possible record-breaking temperatures today with temperatures in the 70s in places like D.C. and Atlanta, guys.

BLACKWELL: All right, Jennifer Gray, thank you.

And now to some breaking news. Four U.S. service members were caught in the crossfire and injured when someone opened fire at their aircraft in South Sudan. Now, they were on a mission to evacuate Americans from an area of heavy fighting and had to abort it.

BROWN: All of this as Secretary of State John Kerry has sent a special envoy to South Sudan to encourage dialogue. Of course violence has raged in the world's youngest nation ever since last weekend when the government says it thwarted a coup attempt. CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr joins us now live. Barbara, you've been working your sources, learning new information. What can you tell us?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Pamela and Victor. Well, the Pentagon says four U.S. troops were wounded when their aircraft took gunfire as it was attempting to land on this evacuation mission in a place called Bohr in the South Sudan. This is a town where just a couple of days ago it was reported that the rebels took over, and, of course, President Obama calling South Sudan a country at the precipice.

What happened? Two V-22 aircraft, typically flown by Special Forces in this part of the world, were coming in for a landing. They were there to evacuate American citizens working for the United Nations. Gunfire hit the aircraft. Four of them were wounded. This is about as dire as it can get because the pilot has to make an immediate decision what to do, not knowing if he's going to lose an engine, if a fuel line is ruptured. By all accounts the pilot got out of there very fast. The wounded are now back in Nairobi, Kenya, getting medical treatment. But now, the question is what happens next? A lot of work going on right now to determine how to get those Americans out of there.

BROWN: Because there are, as you pointed out, dozens of Americans still there and the violence is escalating, and just looking at what happened there with the service members, obviously that just shows how dangerous a situation is there.

BLACKWELL: Yes, Barbara Starr --

BROWN: Go ahead.

STARR: Well, I was just going -- I'm sorry, I was going to say that's absolutely right. This is some of the most dangerous work the military does, to go into the middle of hot combat zones to get American citizens out, and they say they are going back, and they're going to try to do what they can to get the Americans out of there. BROWN: All right, Barbara Starr, thank you so much.

We want to turn it now to Ken, a reporter for our affiliate NTV in Nairobi, Kenya. Ken Mijungu, you've been briefed on the situation in South Sudan, is that right?

KEN MIJUNGU, REPORTER, NTV: Yes, yes, we have some information, but basically, because this operation involves the U.S. marshals, we have very scant information. And as always the military are very cagey with the information. And the late information here and there trickling in, and we have also tried to talk to the military here to gather some information, because as we speak, our own government here in Nairobi, you can come back home or decide to stay in South Sudan and face the violence. So we have reporters on the ground embedded in the military. We know it's very risky operation. And going by what happened to the U.S. military, we know it's very risky. So little information here and there, but we have some information.

BLACKWELL: Ken, before you go, have these four U.S. troops be transported to Kenya for treatment? Has that been confirmed?

MIJUNGU: Indeed, we have that information that immediately the pilot made that decision to turn back and head back to Uganda for safety. They were flown to Nairobi for treatment. What we don't know and what is not key, where exactly they are, because I have called the two major hospitals, the Nairobi hospital, and the Kenya International Hospital, where we usually see casualties being taken and the survivors. But unfortunately, they're not in those hospitals.

So the only option we have here is an assumption, and because I've spoken with our military, and as I've said before, they're very cagey with the information, but they told us to go through the defense. The only option we're remaining with is the military facility, armed forces memorial hospital in Nairobi where our own military are treated. It's safe to assume they may be there, if at all, and they're here in Nairobi. That's the only place now we're looking at and we're thinking they're there for treatment.

But again, as I said, we're waiting for further information, because this is critical, and the government has informed us, and in a matter of hours or even minutes they will have some information. We'll definitely share it with you.

BLACKWELL: All right, Ken Mijungu there with you in Nairobi from our affiliate NTV, thank you.

BROWN: Urgent repairs happening right now more than 200 miles above earth right outside the International Space Station. Up next, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield offers his take on today's critical mission.

BLACKWELL: Live pictures here. Stay with us. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Welcome back, everybody. Live pictures here more than 200 miles above space right outside of the International Space Station, that's where two astronauts are now entering the fourth hour of their emergency spacewalk there. They're fixing a cooling system. We've just learned today's excursion has been extended to seven hours. As it turns out, the astronauts are so far ahead of schedule that they're trying to remove that faulty cooling pump today rather than simply disconnect it. It could mean that they'll only have to make two spacewalks to get that job done rather than three.

BLACKWELL: The third one was going to be on Christmas. I don't know what Christmas is like at the ISS, but you want to have that day off if you can. NASA has taken special precautions to protect astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins. That's after an Italian astronaut almost drowned on a spacewalk when the helmet started to fill with water.

Joining us now from Toronto is Canadian astronaut and I would say astronaut superstar Chris Hadfield. Chris, give us an idea -- good to have you, give us an idea of what they're trying to accomplish today, now that they've condensed the schedule into two spacewalks.

CHRIS HADFIELD, ASTRONAUT: Essentially what happened, it's as if in your house, if your air conditioner failed on full cold, so you kept getting colder and there's no way to control the little thermostat in it. So they're taking out that whole box, which is the size of a fridge and going to put a new one in. But with the level of experience that rick and mike have, and how well they've done, they're way ahead. So I think you're right. They'll get Christmas day off if things go as planned, and they just sent Mike inside to top off his oxygen. So things are going well. Hopefully, they'll get it far enough ahead, between this spacewalk and the next one, they'll get everything done, get the station back to running order and back to business.

BROWN: Chris, if you would, kind of bring us into the spacewalk and paint a picture for us. What's going through their minds, what's it like for them outside the International Space Station right now?

HADFIELD: You know, people don't realize the air around the world really evens out our temperature, but when you get above the atmosphere, in the direct sun, it's like a plus 150 degrees Celsius, and in the shade, it's minus 120 degrees Celsius. So when Rick and Mike are out there. When they're in the sunshine, they're just getting fried, and when they go behind the world into the shade, it's intensely cold.

And Rick was having trouble coming out of the shade of the earth last time. His feet were just starting to freeze, like really painfully. So it's one of those realities of working outside on a spacewalk. But two things are in your mind, the importance of the job you're doing and the incredible visual beauty of being in between the world and the universe alone. It's an amazing place to work.

BROWN: And then, for one of the astronauts, it's his first spacewalk.

BLACKWELL: For Hopkins, it's his first. I just want to remind people on the right, you're seeing live pictures courtesy of NASA TV. If you get a ripple in the screen, you saw that, forgive them. It's a live shot from 200 miles above the earth. So we're grateful for everything we have here to able to see from this helmet cam.

I want to ask you, Chris, the importance of what they're doing today, there are science experiments that could be compromised if this isn't repaired quickly, and has there possibly been some science experiments that have already been ruined because of the lack of cooling?

HADFIELD: We, of course, live inside the center of the station. It's cooled by those big air conditioning cooler units, and it's the external fluid, kind of the fluid that's outside of the ship, it's ammonia, that the valve failed in. So they're swapping out that box. So they've had to cut down to about half normal cooling on board the station. That means they needed to shut down some of the experiments to stop generating so much heat.

And I don't think they lost any science. I think all it does is delay stuff. But we run about 200 experiments all the time on the station, and it's as if the A.C. or heater was messing up in your house for a while, you have to modify operations. Hopefully with the skill and the hard work that people have been putting together for the last couple of weeks, they'll put everything back to normal after two complex and inherently risky spacewalks, but we'll have everything back to normal and power everything up in time for Christmas. We even have a little Christmas tree that hangs from the -- I was there for Christmas last year, so they'll have a little Christmas tree hanging from the ceiling.

BLACKWELL: So what is Christmas like on the ISS now that you bring it up?

HADFIELD: We have special food, of course, we've ordered in advance. I brought Christmas cards from everybody's family last year. There's a guitar on board so we played Christmas carols. You have a chance to phone your family and friends whenever you have the right satellite link-up. And it's not a normal Christmas, but it's really a nice one, and it's shared amongst crews. There are Russians and Americans and a Japanese astronaut up there right now, so it's a real nice international celebration of the time of year. We had a really good time last year. I'm sure if they get these spacewalks done they'll have even more reason to celebrate the season.

BROWN: They have an added incentive there.

BLACKWELL: They do. I like how you added special food we ordered in advance, as if there's delivery for the day.

BROWN: Food catered to the International Space Station. Chris Hadfield, thank you so much, so fascinating to hear your perspective as an astronaut. And be sure to stay with us. Astronaut Mike Massimino joins CNN's Fredricka Whitfield live at noon to talk more about this emergency spacewalk.

BLACKWELL: Some Target customers say they've been robbed by hackers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had gone to Target the Saturday before the money started coming out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And millions of Target shoppers could be affected. Now the retail giant is saying, sorry, but will that be enough? We'll look at how you can protect your financial information. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: How do you say, "I'm sorry" for a massive security breach?

BROWN: Yes, sorry to 40 million people. Target is trying by offering a 10 percent discount to its customers all this weekend. This comes, of course, after the retail giant revealed that 40 million of its customers had their credit and debit card information hacked. Target says shoppers who used their cards at its stores between November 27th and December 15th may be affected by this.

BLACKWELL: A security researcher showed CNN's Laurie Segall just how easy it is or easy it can be for hackers to get information about you from the magnetic strip on a credit card.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE PARK, TRUSTWAVE: I'm connected to this phone wirelessly right now, so in real time I'm stealing credit card data. I have to log in. I could make a selection here, and then I can do a credit card swipe. I now have all of the credit card data right in here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right, Ben Feinstein is the director of operations at SecureWorks. Ben, thanks for coming in.

BEN FEINSTEIN, OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, SECUREWORKS: Thanks for having me.

BLACKWELL: How does something like this happen?

FEINSTEIN: All of the details aren't out yet, so it's difficult to understand what exactly occurred at Target. But unfortunately there's a long history of retail payment card breaches that we can look at and help to understand what may have occurred at Target.

So if you may remember to the TJ Maxs, the attackers were able to obtain access to the wireless network to actual individual TJ Maxx in the back-end systems. Contrasted, there were some grocery stores and fast-food chains this past year that suffered a payment card breach. And in that case it was actually a malicious software that was specifically crafted to Target the point of sale systems at those retailers.

So we've seen a trend of the cyber criminals adopting the malware that is Targeting the point of sale systems. It's also available for sale, and in some of the cases actually targeted and crafted specifically for the individual attack.

BROWN: And the challenge really with these hackers, it's sort of a cat-and-mouse game, because when they figure out, OK, well, they're now catching on to us, they just continue to evolve with more sophisticated strategies. Is that right?

FEINSTEIN: Absolutely, Pamela. What we see is as security controls improve, the attackers are adapting and they're evolving and they're getting better at their tactics, techniques, procedures. So it's absolutely a cat-and-mouse game.

BROWN: Which is concerning.

BLACKWELL: So what can we do? We go and we're not going to go back to cash. So how can we protect our information?

FEINSTEIN: So basically there's some things consumers can do. One is to regularly monitor the charges on your credit cards, so at least once a month with your statements, but I would recommend on a daily basis look at any charges occurring on your cards. So that the banks and the card holders make this very easy, you can get text alerts, e- mails as transactions are happening. So it's not a lot of overhead to look at your cards on a regular basis.

Additionally, if you're shopping online or in person to prefer a credit card over a debit card, you have protections when you use a debit card as well, but it's easier to get your money back in a more timely fashion and your credit card, you have a 30-day buffer there as opposed to the funds being debited directly out of the account if you're defrauded with the debit card.

BROWN: In London, security breaches like this have gone down 30 percent because of the chip and pin. Tell us about that, and whether we could see more of that here in the U.S. and how that protects us.

FEINSTEIN: Yes. So the rest of the world, particularly Europe, including Canada, has adopted a technology known as EMV, also known as chip and pin. So instead of a magnetic stripe on the back of your card, it's essentially a smart card technology where there's a cryptographic chip on the card that stores your card holder information in a secure fashion.

So the major card brands are driving adoption of chip and pin here in the United States. We are lagging behind the rest of the world. They're driving that adoption by shifting the liability to the retailers on a schedule starting in late 2015 and extending into 2017 for different types of card transactions. So they're incentivizing the retailers to adopt this new, secure technology by effectively shifting the liability onto them if they fail to adopt it.

BLACKWELL: I think you made a good point today that people could actually use, to use the credit card, and maybe pay that off with a debit account, because the debit account takes money that you actually have. The credit card takes -- is paid not using your money. It's the credit card companies' money instead. All right, Ben Feinstein, thank you for joining us. FEINSTEIN: Thank you for having me.

BLACKWELL: Giving us the tips on how to protect our money.

BROWN: Very important, especially as we're spending a lot over the holiday season.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

BROWN: Barring something unexpected, President Obama won't see the White House again until 2014. He got the last word before heading to Hawaii on vacation, or did he? Our political commentators have their say up next, right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Bottom of the hour now, welcome back to New Day Saturday. I'm Pamela Brown.

BLACKWELL: And I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to have you with us this morning. Let's start with five stories we're watching this morning.

BROWN: Number one, two NASA astronauts hard at work outside the International Space Station. Their mission today to disconnect a 780- pound cooling pump.

BLACKWELL: It's about the size of a refrigerator. It's filled with toxic ammonia, and it's broken. The progress today is ahead of schedule to fix what officials say is a critical problem, and just one more spacewalk may be needed to finish repairs.

And at number two, prosecutors in Newark say old-fashioned police work and modern technology helped them snare four suspects in last weekend's carjacking there and the shooting death of a young New Jersey lawyer and husband. They had a news conference was a short time ago. The four men in custody face murder and other charges.

And a brutal winter storm is expected to disrupt travel just in time for the holidays. Some airports along the east coast are seeing delays right now. Washington, D.C., seeing a backup of around 30 minutes right now, and, of course, that could get worse. The numbers expected to go up as the storm pushes east. More than 94 million people expected to travel for the holiday.

BLACKWELL: This morning, the Pope gave his first Christmas message to the curia, a governing body of the Roman Catholic Church, and he urged the Vatican staff to act in a professional way and service the rest of the church. He also told them to avoid gossip. In his first nine months, Pope Francis has taken steps to try to reform the Vatican's administration.

And number five, media PR executive Justine Sacco has some explaining to do. Listen to this. Look at the tweet that appeared on her account. "Going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white." The tweet has now disappeared, so has the account, but there's a lot of outrage, as you'd imagine. We're still waiting to hear from Sacco, herself.

BROWN: Maybe tweets in response to this have been pretty entertaining, I guess you could say.

BLACKWELL: Entertaining, but also people -- people have also been hurt by that.

BROWN: Upset by that.

BLACKWELL: Millions of people on the continent are dying of AIDS.

BROWN: Right, serious.

BLACKWELL: And they believe she made light of it. Let's talk domestically now. President and Mrs. Obama with kids in tow arrived in Hawaii early this morning for vacation. The president will take a breather from what most agree has been a very difficult year for him in Washington.

BROWN: Yes. Brand-new CNN/ORC poll reflects that sentiment. The president's approval rating remains at 41 percent, an all-time low reached last month. That's down from 55 percent approval last January. Before he left town, the president met with reporters for an end-of-year news conference, and topics ranged from the bungled rollout of healthcare.gov to the government shutdown to NSA spying on Americans and world leaders' phone calls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, months ago, got a question from a Democrat, not a Republican, about whether some of this was going on, and he denied it. Doesn't that undermine the public trust?

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're conflating, first of all, me and Mr. Clapper --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: We have a pair of CNN political commentators standing by. Errol Louis, political anchor at New York 1, and Will Cain, a columnist with "The Blaze." Good to have both of you.

WILL CAIN, COLUMNIST, "THE BLAZE": Good morning.

ERROL LOUIS, POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning.

BLACKWELL: We have that sound bite off the top, because that stood out to me. I want to come to you first, Errol. Is James Clapper the president's guy or not? It struck me he was trying to put some space between a guy he chose to be the director of national intelligence.

LOUIS: Well, no. One of the many jobs, one of the unwritten tasks in Clapper's position is to take the heat and to create some sort of plausible deniability for the guy who hired him, namely the president of the United States. So, you know, look, whatever consequences are going to be visited on this administration, it's going to be Clapper who takes the brunt of it, because it was Clapper, who according to what he thought were his confidentiality rules, chose not to tell everything he knew about the wiretapping situation to Congress. Congress, of course, is furious, but it's worth noting there are members of Congress, including some Republicans, like Peter King, who aren't looking to sort of go after Clapper and accuse him of all kinds of criminal wrongdoing. So it remains up in the air. But it is, in the first instance, going to be more Clapper's problem than the president's.

BROWN: All right, well, let's go to, of course, the healthcare.gov rollout. That has been all the talk the past few months. The president suggesting in this press conference that that was his biggest mistake of 2013, all of the technical glitches there with the website. Do you think he can move past it?

CAIN: No, I don't, Pamela, because I don't think it's over. Errol just said that James Clapper's job required him to not tell everything he knew. That's a euphemism for not tell the truth, to lie. And that is the beginning but not the end of the president's problems on Obamacare. If you like your health care plan, you can keep it, of course was "Politifact" lie of the year for 2013.

But that's not the end. The failures of healthcare.gov are not the end of Obamacare. Now we see just in the last couple days they've made exemptions for people on the individual mandate. You're pulling, you're pulling at the economic strings of Obamacare, and over 2014 we're going to see the problems compound, get worse, changes to the employer market. I think you're going to see a bailout of the insurance companies because they cannot deal with a market run by government whim when the economics are not there for them. You'll see insurance companies going out of business --

LOUIS: The bailout was built into the whole thing. I mean, that was the whole idea behind Obamacare was to keep private insurance at the table. They're getting a windfall like you can't believe. They're not the ones who are complaining, and neither are the million people who signed up in the last 90-odd days.

CAIN: Errol, I'm sorry, I respect you, but you're not paying attention.

LOUIS: There's a difference between hoping the program will fail and hoping this administration will fail, and, you know, the reality on the ground, which is that a million people have health insurance they didn't have. Let's remember there were --

CAIN: I'm sorry, Errol, we're not dealing with an issue in the realm of hope. We're looking at the writing on the wall, we're looking at reality. Fine. You want to point out a million people signed up, you're at a net negative of 4 million, because 5 million lost the insurance they had. You are negative 4 million. That's not the way this program was sold.

LOUIS: I'm saying the insurance -- the insurance companies, and you're saying the insurance companies who sent out the cancellation letters, as they do to 40 percent of their people every single year, that they are just blameless? They're simply victims of the government?

CAIN: I'm telling you the insurance companies are going to be victims of this program. That's correct. They're going to not be able to sustain a business model that requires did you.

LOUIS: They kick 40 percent -- they kick 40 percent of the relevant customers off the rolls every single year. So now, all of a sudden, it's not their fault? They've been doing this for -- that's why we have a crisis.

CAIN: This is going to be enlightening for everyone. I want to explain something very simple. The insurance companies got in bed with the government under the premise that we will cover older and sicker people if you'll promise younger people have to pay more. What we're seeing now is the Obama administration -- yes, had these people kicked off their plans, hoping that they would have to buy more expensive plans, and now they're granting exemptions to that. What you're going to see --

LOUIS: So wait. So wait.

(CROSSTALK)

CAIN: -- not get healthy people. That's a death spiral.

LOUIS: Will, when they kicked 40 percent of the relevant customers off last year and the year before and the year before, whose fault was that? Was that the government's fault, too?

LOUIS: Eroll, they kicked them off and have plans in place. They can select them. What Obamacare did is required that those plans would no longer exist. You change over. Now, the one you had before, poof, gone.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Let me get in here about one element, Errol, I want to get to you about something that gets beyond specifically healthcare.gov and the ACA. The president's credibility problem, the president's trustworthiness with Americans, we've seen his approval rating at an historic low. We've seen his numbers erode when it comes to looking out for the middle class and his credibility. It's easier I guess to bump your numbers when it comes to the economy if people are getting jobs. But how do you get above 50 percent on credibility and trustworthiness?

LOUIS: I mean, my sense is that for the administration, it's an important but subsidiary task. I mean, the president had 70 percent approval ratings when he was first inaugurated and couldn't get a single Republican member of Congress to vote for the financial bailout and the stimulus that was needed to keep the collapse of the economy from happening. So, I mean, whether he's popular or not is not going to necessarily make things easier for him as far as doing the basic tasks. I think probably for this administration it's a subsidiary and important task to get that approval rating up, just so people like us won't talk about it all weekend.

BLACKWELL: That approval. It's people trust --

(CROSSTALK)

LOUIS: -- health insurance, and nobody's going to be reporting about that. We'll be talking instead about this approval poll.

BLACKWELL: It's not approval. I'm talking about trustworthiness and credibility. I've been told twice we've got to go. But I just want to get to that point. It's not approval. It's not a popularity contest. It is trustworthiness and credibility. We'll continue the conversation later throughout the day. CNN political commentators Errol Lewis and Will Cain in New York this morning. I love it when it's fiery. Thank you, guys.

BROWN: You didn't have to do any of the work.

BLACKWELL: That's right.

BROWN: New details coming out today about the carjacking and fatal shooting of that young New Jersey lawyer. Four men now in custody, and they face murder charges. We're going to have a live report on this story up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: There are new details this morning in the carjacking and shooting death of a young New Jersey lawyer and husband.

BROWN: Yes, this is a really disturbing story. Dustin Friedland was gunned down in a shopping mall parking lot last weekend after he and his wife went Christmas shopping. CNN's Alexandra Field joins us now from Newark, New Jersey, where a press -- where a press conference with prosecutors just wrapped up. Alexandra, what did you learn?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, prosecutors say that the four men who now face murder charges were after the silver Range Rover that belonged to the attorney Dustin Friedland. He was shot outside of that car. His wife was inside the car. They were parked at a New Jersey parking mall. Police are now telling us, investigators say that the four suspects arrived at the mall in a suburban. They say two of the suspects took off in Friedland's Range Rover after he was shot and his wife jumped out of the car. They say the other two suspects took off in a suburban. All four men were arrested overnight in Newark, in New Jersey, and also in Pennsylvania. Prosecutors spoke this morning, investigators say that the problem of carjacking has been an epidemic in Essex County, something that they've worked together to fight over the last few years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL FISHMAN, U.S. ATTORNEY: You have the right to be safe and the expectation that you should be safe in this county and in the state of New Jersey. And in particular you shouldn't have to worry that wherever you go, whether it's in downtown Newark or the Shore Hills Mall, or anywhere else, that someone will put a gun to your head and take your car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FIELD: The four men arrested are all between the ages of 29 and 33. Along with murder charges, they also face carjacking and weapons charges. If convicted of those charges, they face a maximum of life in prison. They're all being held on $2 million bail. Pamela, Victor?

BLACKWELL: All right, Alexandra Field in Newark for us. Thank you for the update.

Four U.S. service members were injured when someone deliberately fired at their aircraft in South Sudan. Now, they were on a mission to evacuate Americans from an area of heavy fighting, and they had to abort it. Now, the U.S. is reassessing how to get the aircraft back into the area to, again, try to evacuate the civilians.

We've got new video of the South Sudanese troops in one of the violent areas. You're looking at it now. Violence has raged there since last weekend. I mean, it's been a violent area for some time, but has really increased since last weekend when the government thwarted a coup by the recently former vice president.

Here's an interesting question a lot of people are asking.

BROWN: This is a talker.

BLACKWELL: All this week. Was suspending the star of "Duck Dynasty" a brilliant PR move, or was it a knee-jerk reaction that A&E will regret? Some people are now saying that both the star and the network could benefit from the backlash. We'll find out how, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Welcome back, everyone. Right now at this hour, a critical repair mission taking place 200 miles above earth at the International Space Station right outside of there, where an emergency mission is under way to repair a broken coolant system. Today's walk is expected to take about seven hours, and this is the first spacewalk scheduled. The repair mission could be wrapped up, one more trip outside, and that is one less trip than we initially thought. Astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins are the astronauts on board conducting the spacewalk right now, and in fact this is the first spacewalk for Hopkins, so you can imagine what he's feeling right now.

BLACKWELL: He might actually have wanted a third, although the third was supposed to be on Christmas, so they may get the day off.

Support of the suspended start of "Duck Dynasty" is growing. The reality TV show's network, A&E is staying quiet.

BROWN: More than 200,000 people have signed petitions demanding A&E end Phil Robertson's suspension, but the network executive told CNN the network isn't second-guessing its decision and noted that conversations about Robertson and the show will continue after the holiday. Although important to note here, A&E is having a "Duck Dynasty" marathon tomorrow.

BLACKWELL: He was suspended indefinitely after "GQ" published an interview calling homosexuality illogical and sinful, and he said black people were happy before the Civil Rights movement.

BROWN: Earlier we talked about it with Jimmy Alexander, co-host of the radio show "Morning with Cindy and Jenny" on Star 94, and David Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, a branding and public relations agency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY ALEXANDER, CO-HOST, STAR 94'S "MORNING WITH CHRIS AND JIMMY": When he said, what is sinful, and the first thing he said was homosexuality. Oh, well, the murders, rapists, child molesters, hey, we got the pass this time, because really, don't you think those things are worse than -- you would think in the good book, I mean, homosexuality, really, that's the worst sin you can think of automatically?

But I think what they wanted to do, they knew it would offend a great deal of people, and they said, let's nip this at the bud, not let's have this go on and on, and groups saying you need to get rid of him. But I don't think they realized what kind of backlash they would get from the fans of "Duck Dynasty."

BROWN: We know what a following "Duck Dynasty" has, so they can't be that surprised by the backlash. And we were talking about this. I think we would have been more surprised had he come out perhaps in support of --

BLACKWELL: I wasn't surprised by that. I mean, this -- this goes to his brand, and David, I want to come to you with this. What I think surprised a lot of people about Paula Deen is that it contradicted her brand.

DAVID JOHNSON, CEO STRATEGIC VISION: Exactly. That was the whole thing. Since I deal with a PR agency, if Jennifer is watching, we're not taking reservations. But you're right, part of the appeal for "Duck Dynasty" has been his branding. He comes across like this authentic, tell it like it is, this Christian person, and that's his brand, his appeal. That's why the fans are reacting. They're not shocked.

A&E shouldn't be shocked either. He's made similar remarks. We've seen videos of it over the past three years. There was actually a PR person from A&E going to the "GQ" interview. Why they ever set him up with that demographic with "GQ" I don't know, but the three big winners from this, as far as brands, are, of course, "Duck Dynasty" world talking about it, A&E, everyone will be tuning in, and "GQ," more people will be buying the magazine than ever before. BROWN: And you touched on Paula Deen, and there've been others in a similar situation. Alec Baldwin, more recently, Mel Gibson, the list goes on. But isn't this a little different, because he is a reality TV star? Don't people want him to be real?

JOHNSON: To be real, and the other thing is, too, what we're seeing with this more than anything is the power of social media. If social media wasn't around, it wouldn't be talking about this now. It wouldn't be driving the narrative. Social media will keep this alive, because it's a slow holiday news time, and that's all we'll be talking about for the next weeks, "Duck Dynasty."

BROWN: Go ahead. Not to preempt you, but we were talking about this, too. Since when do reality TV figures' values or what their opinions have to align with the network that the show is airing on?

BLACKWELL: Yes, what about that?

BROWN: There are plenty of controversial reality TV shows.

ALEXANDER: I know I work on Star 94 mornings and have been in radio for nearly 20 years, I know there's morals clause, there's comments we make. You have freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is you won't get arrested with your comments. It has nothing to do you won't lose your job for your comments.

And I feel bad. This family seems like a very nice family. Phil seems like a really good man, really has values. But I don't -- I think maybe it's a generational thing that he doesn't realize how his comments hurt a lot of gay people and members of -- members who have gay family members, it's, like, oh, my gosh, really? We're not that bad of people. And I think it's just a sad situation all the way around.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right, our thanks again to Jimmy Alexander and David Johnson.

BROWN: Maybe it's not so odd for late December. Cars slipping and sliding all over the roads, but it seems like we've been dealing with winter weather for weeks now. Meteorologist Jennifer Gray is here to talk about the science behind it all.

GRAY: That's right, guys. We, as today is the official start of winter, but if you ask a lot of people across the country, they'll tell you they feel like winter has been here for quite a while. We talked to an expert. We break it down to find out the science behind winter. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The view literally out of this world. These are pictures from the International Space Station where astronauts are trying to repair a broken coolant pump. They began the mission around 7:00 a.m. eastern time. Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins are the astronauts on board, and they're conducting this mission now, and NASA will conduct at least one more spacewalk later this week.

BLACKWELL: Today is the first day of winter, but you wouldn't know it from the weather the past two weeks.

BROWN: Yes, what's been going on? From Arizona to Maine, we've seen ice and sleet and snow, all during what was supposed to be fall. And in some places, tornadoes are still threatening this weekend, deep into December, not something you normally hear about, December?

GRAY: Yes, and we've had huge temperature swings, 30 degrees below normal, 30 degrees above normal a couple days later. But the big story has been winter, long before the official start of winter. So we talked to an expert, brought him in, and we tried to break it down and see if there was a rhyme and a reason, and a science behind winter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY: There's no doubt about it, winter is not only officially here, it's been here for weeks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have to drive maybe 10 miles an hour at the most.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got plenty of salt. The back roads are starting to stick a little bit. It looks like it's coming down pretty good.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to stay in for this.

GRAY: Because?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out of the way.

GRAY: At least six winter storms have hit the U.S. coast-to-coast, impacting tens of millions of people. So what's the science behind all of the extreme weather?

MARSHALL SHEPHERD, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY: In terms of the storms we've seen in October, November, December, as I often tell people, you know, the atmosphere doesn't have an on-off switch that knows when winter begins.

GRAY: Dr. Marshall Shepherd is a president of the American Meteorological Society. He says there's one big reason for the wild weather, the jet team.

SHEPHERD: When we have these El Nino neutral conditions, the jet stream patterns, we get the strong dips in the jet stream patterns, and in the dips, cold air, and in the hills, we're going to have warm air. And so, generally the jet stream pattern is the governing force and function of the weather in the wintertime.

GRAY: Case in point -- Denver, Colorado. In a matter of 10 days, the mile high city went from negative temperatures to a near balmy 70 degrees, the time of year when it should be hovering around 40. We're talking about 30 degrees above normal.

And in the big "D," an ice storm earlier this month took Dallas from a high of 79 degrees to freezing in three days. And in Philadelphia, a December 8th winter storm dropped more snow in one day than the city received all year last year.

SHEPHERD: It just illustrates that there's going to be quite a bit of variability this season because we don't have a strong sort of leaning towards one side or the other in terms of scale. So we will see an occasional storm. I think we have seen above-normal snowstorm activity for this time of the season. It's still interesting that we see the chance for tornadoes this weekend here in the United States. But indeed, this has been a year of extremes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRAY: And we also talked about something called the arctic oscillation, just another tool that meteorologists use to --

BLACKWELL: The what?

GRAY: Arctic oscillation. And basically when it's positive, we have warmer temperatures. When it's negative, we have colder ones. And just a little hint, the beginning of January, it's supposed to dive, so we could actually see the chilly temperatures at the start of 2014.

BLACKWELL: That's going to be fun.

BROWN: I know. Way to go, Jennifer.

GRAY: Helping you to get the cold healed and then the cold weather comes again.

BROWN: All right. Jennifer Gray, thank you for that, really interesting stuff there.

That will do it for us. Thank you so much for being a part of the Saturday morning with us.

BLACKWELL: We have had a lot going on this morning. And we're actually going to continue to look at -- through the morning and the early afternoon to this spacewalk.

BROWN: Yes.

BLACKWELL: If we have those live pictures from NASA, I just want to put those up if we have them, because I want people to see, here we are, this is mission control. They've got two astronauts who are out working today. Here's a live helmet cam. They're working to replace a pump --

BROWN: Cooling pump, yes.

BLACKWELL: A cooling pump at the ISS. It's about the size of a refrigerator, so don't think it's something coming out of your car. It's about 700 pounds. This is the first spacewalk for one of these guys. So we're going to continue to watch this throughout the day.

BROWN: Because we have several hours still left on the spacewalk.

BLACKWELL: Yes, yes.

BROWN: Fredricka Whitfield, our wonderful colleague is going to be keeping an eye on that.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: We are indeed. Thanks so much for giving us a prelude all morning long, Pamela and Victor. Good to see you guys. Happy holidays, by the way.