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Manchin Worries About Obamacare Costs; P.R. Exec Fired For Crass AIDS Tweet; New Safeguards After Target Hacking; American Rescued From South Sudan; Ice, Snow, Floods, Storms Hit U.S.; Christmas Eve Spacewalk Mission; Rodman: North Korea Trip Was "Awesome"; Americans Airlifted From South Sudan
Aired December 23, 2013 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA: Absolutely. It cost becomes more than we can absorb, absolutely.
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MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Which goes back to the whole sticker shock number that we have just shown at the top of the segment there, Kyra. People think that this is going to cost them more money. And the fact as Joe Manchin thinks that the kinks need to be worked out before it's fully implemented.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: Sure. You got to have the healthy people sign up in enough numbers to override all the sick folks or the cost will skyrocket. And what about the people who for whatever reason can't sign up today? What happens to them?
PRESTON: So let's try to make it a little more confusing at this point. I'll try to make it as simple as possible. Look, today is the deadline if you want to have health insurance or January 1st. If you have health insurance as a family or individual and it is going to expire on December 31st, if you sign up today, you are guaranteed to have health insurance on January 1st. Now there are some kinds of exceptions that the White House has said that they're willing to entertain if you're having trouble signing up.
But overall, you do not need to sign up for health insurance until the end of March, March 31st to insure that you have coverage going forward. If you do not sign up by March 31st, you will receive the penalty and will not be able to sign up until enrolment starts again in October. If you don't have health insurance right now, Kyra, you better get health insurance now.
PHILLIPS: CNN political director, Mark Preston, appreciate it.
Well, you probably remember the saying, physician, heal thyself. Well, today, a public relations executive is scrambling to contain her own PR debacle. Good luck that because here is her tweet that ignited international outrage. Quote, "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white." Well, today, Justine Sacco is also unemployed, sacked by the media company she was supposed to be helping. CNN's Pamela Brown following the fallout, joins from New York. It's pretty unbelievable, remarkable. I don't know what word to use, shocking.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Mind boggling. When you put it in the context that she's a PR executive, it looks like she could use a publicist of her own in the wake of the controversy. Just 53 characters, that's all it took, to cause Justine Sacco, a PR executive for eight years, to lose her job. Turns out the controversial tweet is just one of several tasteless tweets on her now disabled Twitter account.
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BROWN (voice-over): Social media is calling it the tweet heard around the world. "Going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white." Now three days after PR exec, Justine Sacco, sent out that tweet, she's out of a job and apologizing. On Sunday she issued this statement saying, "Words cannot express how sorry I am and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa who I have offended for being insensitive to this crisis and to the millions of people living with the virus. I am ashamed."
Sacco was head of PR for IAC, the media company owned by Barry Dilar that operates websites like "The Daily Beast," College Humor and match.com. But on Saturday, the company said Sacco is no longer a good match and firing her. She now found herself a target of a social media mob on Friday, sending out that tweet right before logging off line while on her 12-hour flight from London to her native South Africa.
JOE CONCHA, COLUMNIST, MEDIAITE: Not only is this a publicist's worst nightmare, it's any public figure's worst nightmare. To send out a tweet, it's like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. You can't take it back.
BROWN: Her Twitter page immediately filled with hateful comments, the #hasjustinelandedyet, trending worldwide. One guy following the hashtag even waiting her rival at the Cape Town airport. A trial by Twitter as many are calling it. According to her LinkedIn page, she was also a columnist for the WWE. On her now disabled Twitter page, she has a cache of questionable now deleted tweets like, "I had a sex dream about an autistic kid last. And, I can't be fired about saying things while intoxicated, right? Leaving many to wonder how could a PR expert not know how to manage her own social media?
CONCHA: I don't think people like her realize the immediacy of Twitter. One tweet, one statement is all it takes in the world of Twitter and social media to cost somebody their career.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Yes. Justine Sacco is learning that the hard way. If there is any good to come out of this controversy, it seems that her tweet brought a lot of attention to AIDS relief charities. Someone registered the domain name justinesacco.com to link it to the web site.
PHILLIPS: That's creative PR.
BROWN: Maybe they should hire that person.
PHILLIPS: There you go. I'm telling you, they've got the replacement. Thanks, Pam.
This morning there is new fallout from the massive security breach at Target. As many as 40 million shoppers may have been hacked and the outrage is creating ripples, the size of a tsunami. Class action lawsuit calls for an investigation and safeguards that have a lot of people feeling like they were victimized again. CNN's Jennifer Westhoven here with all the details and we were all talking about did you to Target? I paid in cash. I can't live without my Target.
JENNIFER WESTHOVEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It looks like it's impacting their business already. They had a report that says the traffic was down. What a weekend for your traffic to be down. The weekend before Christmas and in some ways, it's a shame. These guys could have probably targeted any major shop. You know. I mean the kind of sophistication level you're looking at. But you just mentioned, some people are getting hit another way, which is if you had a Chase debit card.
If you used that at Target, they're saying we're going to limit you everywhere now. They're saying we're protecting you, but they're also protecting themselves. They're going to be on the hook for a lot of these charges out there. You get only $300 a day for stuff and $100 in cash a day. Which may be fine, but this is the season when people are spending big.
PHILLIPS: OK, target is giving folks 10 percent discount and then lifetime consumer protection? How can you guarantee lifetime -- I would be pretty nervous right now about using a card.
WESTHOVEN: I would have thought it was guaranteed before.
PHILLIPS: Right.
WESTHOVEN: And a lot of people, I can tell based on my Twitter feed, that people do not feel safe there and are not willing to go there. It may take a long time to repair some of this damage. It makes me think, if these guys, these thieves pulled off something this size, I don't know what other retailer might be next.
PHILLIPS: What could be the impact of these class action lawsuits?
WESTHOVEN: That's something that's going to have all of the companies getting on their toes. One of the questions that I have about the lawsuits that are reportedly being filed is are they really customers that are upset or are they lawyers saying, I'm filing on behalf the customers. I think it's only $5 million worth of damages. I think we can expect to see that number go way up. Target's really got a problem.
PHILLIPS: Folks on Twitter and friends of mine feel like 10 percent is kind of chinsy, only 10 percent?
WESTHOVEN: Still, what a hit for them to be taking at this time of year, the number two retailer in the country. This is a massive hit on them for many, many fronts. I'm going to get some ornaments there.
PHILLIPS: You're still not giving up and I'm still paying in cash.
Still to come --
Yes. That is falling ice and it narrowly missed some holiday shoppers. Our Indra Petersons has all that and of course, the weather that travelers can expect.
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Just a taste of what we saw over the weekend. Icy, and even tornadoes and record breaking heat in the east. We'll give you an update coming up in just a few minutes.
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PHILLIPS: And checking top stories. President Obama says more military action may be needed to protect U.S. citizens in South Sudan. 15 Americans have been rescued as the country gets closer to the civil war. The first rescue attempt failed Saturday. Four troops were wounded in that operation.
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MAJOR JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's always a very tenuous situation when you're flying in to a relatively unknown, very hostile environment. The rebels probably have what's, you know, is probably Soviet former Soviet Union type weaponry. Those AK-47s are out there.
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PHILLIPS: Nearly 40,000 people have taken shelter in the United Nations bases around the country.
A plane wing slices into a building. You can see this Boeing 747 right there. That accident happened as the plane was taxiing at Johannesburg airport. We're told all 182 passengers are OK. The airline, British Airways," has launched an investigation.
Ice, snow, rain, floods, even weirdly warm weather have hit different parts of the country. And the bizarre storm system comes as 94 million people travel for the holidays on roads like these and, of course, up in the skies. More than 100 flights have been canceled across the U.S. Hundreds more delayed and that's according to flightaware.com that we monitor.
Indra Petersons is live for us in New York. So Indra, what can holiday travelers expect right now?
INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I mean, the piece of good news I have is the bulk of the weird weather that we have was really over the weekend. We do still have stuff out there. We saw over an inch of icing in upstate New York, flooding anywhere from the south to the Midwest and record breaking heat in the east. And this was all only the first weekend of winter.
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PETERSON (voice-over): Two days before Christmas and a powerful storm system is knocking most of the country into weather extremes all on one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. Freezing rain and snow slammed the middle of the country creating colossal sheets of ice on these shops in Oklahoma City while in the northeast, a bizarre mix of winter weather and unseasonal warmth.
In upstate New York, an ice storm knocked out power freezing branches and roadways. A stark difference just a few hours away in New York City, which saw a record high of 7l degrees over the weekend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love it. It feels like it's May in December.
PETERSONS: And dangerous mix of storms, flooding, snow and ice is threatening travel plans this week and our neighbor to the north isn't amused. Toronto, Canada is seeing one of its worst ice storms in recent memory. In Arkansas, this was from 130-mile per hour tornado.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I threw my body weight over my 16 month old child to save his life and I flung my daughter to save her life.
PETERSONS: In Nelson County, Kentucky, rushing flood waters from this creek swept an SUV downstream killing three people inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We knew we had a terrible situation here. We were hoping to make some rescues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sheets of rain and wind.
PETERSONS: In Charlotte, fans of the New Orleans Carolina Panthers game endured drenching rains. This guy seemed to have the worst seat in the house as rain cascaded down from the upper deck. Flooding in the Great Lakes have rescuers evacuating a retirement village in La Rue, Ohio. For nearly 94 million expected travellers, it's a whacky combo of weather.
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PETERSONS: So this is what we have right now. A little bit of leftover icing in the bulk of the northeast, but it is moving out and a lot of the major cities on the east coast looking for light rain about an inch but it's taking its time. We could see heavier amounts of up to 3 inches. Really overnight tonight and into tomorrow morning, it's exiting. We've done ice and rain.
Let's talk about the snow, one to three inches of snow still across the lakes. We're looking for that as well. The biggest story has been a temp contrast. Look at that temperature spread. It's unbelievable, 75 degrees in Tampa right now with negative 2 in Minneapolis, negative 34 in Bismarck currently. Loot at that temperatures, unbelievable, over 90 degrees. What's unique on the east coast, a lot of our highs could be set in the early morning hours that we saw this morning. Many of us saw r50s and 60s early this morning. Temperatures will drop as we go throughout the day. We are going to be looking for the temperatures to continue to cool as we go into Christmas Eve and Christmas day.
So instead of 30 degrees above normal, we'll see them a good 10 degrees below normal. We're not getting much snow here, but maybe a little clipper is going to cruise across the lakes and give them a little snow out there. And that's pretty much it for the Christmas holiday. So things are better at least for travellers.
PHILLIPS: All right, Indra, thanks so much.
Still to come, Dennis Rodman, no sucker for the spotlight, headed back from North Korea. Are we seriously still talking about this guy? You won't believe about his latest attempt at basketball diplomacy.
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PHILLIPS: All right, so you say you're stressed out by last minute Christmas shopping. Consider what a couple of American astronauts will be doing. They are actually going on a spacewalk to put in a new pump for the space station's cooling system. The project was on hold after one of the astronaut's spacesuit took in water. I wouldn't want to be in that situation. That takes the motive "Gravity" to a whole other level.
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fortunately not a situation all likes that. NASA says this is an issue with the cooling station. They say he was never in harm's way because of it. But still, before the spacewalk can continue, NASA says it is necessary to switch suits.
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UNIDENTIFIE MALE: Just wanted to verify that there are no rats exposed.
FIELD (voice-over): NASA astronauts on a mission to make repairs on at the International Space Station spent five and a half hours Saturday on a high stakes spacewalk and they'll it again Christmas Eve. If you thought your holidays had high drama, it doesn't compare.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got the hitch pin on the first track.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's awesome, Rick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's sort of like a complex ballet with only two performers.
FIELD: The astronauts, Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins have already successfully removed a faulty pump that's needed to cool equipment on the space station.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice work, Rick. FIELD: A new pump was supposed to be installed today, but now delayed until tomorrow after a problem was discovered with the space suit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only issue that I'm personally having is it's very, very cold.
CHRIS HADFIELD, RETIRED ASTRONAUT: One of the suits showed maybe a sign that it got a little water on the evaporator on the back.
FIELD: NASA says the astronaut wasn't in danger and that the issue with the space suit isn't related to what happened in July. That's when the Italian Astronaut, Luca Parmentano nearly drowned after was leaked into his helmet, reminder of the dangerous nature of the work being done 220 miles above earth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Astronaut is off structure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do I do?
FIELD: The recently hit movie "Gravity" puts a highly dramatized spin on the risks of space work, risk every astronaut on every mission understands.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The movie is a good movie, but you probably don't want to watch that when you're in space.
FIELD: Maybe not. He'll have a new space suit ready to wear when they head back out Tuesday.
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FIELD: All right, so Kyra, these space suits have been around for 35 years. NASA has 12 of them. The crew had a spare suit with them. So today crew members are going to refit that suit for when he heads back out tomorrow.
PHILLIPS: OK, we'll track the mission. Alexandra Field, thanks so much.
Dennis Rodman headed back home after his third trip to North Korea this year. This time, there was no whining and dining from the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un rather training a basketball. The latest from CNN's Anna Coren.
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ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former NBA star Dennis Rodman flew out of Pyongyang after a five-day visit to North Korea where he was training the national basketball team. They're preparing for an exhibition match next month to celebrate the birthday of Kim Jong-Un. Surprisingly, he did not meet with his close friend, Kim, but said the trip was awesome and was looking forward to returning are for the big game on the 8th of January.
Well, Rodman is yet to name the American team. There are reports that some of the players are concerned about their personal safety and are yet to sign up. Rodman says there is nothing to worry about and he'll be announcing the team shortly. Anna Coren, CNN, Seoul.
PHILLIPS: Still to come, a fledgling country is descending into violence and Americans racing to get out. CNN Fred Pleitgen following the drama in South Sudan.
FRED PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We'll have the latest on how the violence is escalating in South Sudan and how America might send additional military resources there, when we get back.
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PHILLIPS: And good morning. I'm Kyra Phillips in for Carol Costello. Stories that we're watching in the NEWSROOM, support for Obamacare now at an all-time low. It shows 35 percent of Americans back the law. And for the majority of those against Obamacare, they pose it because it doesn't go far enough.
Check out live pictures from our nation ago capital. That's D.C., all right, much of the east coast getting pummeled by rain. Temps now in the D.C. area, a balmy 63 degrees. Tonight's low, 35.
In North Eastern Africa, a harrowing rescue mission as the world's newest country teeters on the verge of civil war. Four U.S. troops were wounded with their aircraft came under intense fire from the ground. It's not clear who the attackers were. The oil rich country has numerous armed groups fighting for power. CNN's Fred Pleitgen in New York for us. Hi, Fred.
PLEITGEN: Hi, Kyra. The tension there certainly and the fighting escalating there in South Sudan. Basically what's happening is this started off as a battle between the president and former vice president of the country that has now escalated into almost an ethnic civil war that's going on there. And as you said, the last 15 Americans were air lifted out of South Sudan yesterday. However, they are saying if there are still any Americans on the ground that might not be accounted for that they would try and notify the U.S. embassy and leave that country as soon as possible.
And the president said that there might be additional U.S. military assets that he could put on the ground to protect the U.S. Embassy. But he is saying that this is in no way saying that the U.S. is getting involved in this. It's strictly to protect the U.S. Embassy. Many of these people trying to get into the U.N. bases. There are several people killed at one of these bases on Friday. And right now it doesn't seem that at this point there's any sort of truce that might be in sight.
PHILLIPS: Just for a second, I want to put into perspective. Why are you covering this from New York? You're one of the best international correspondents on the ground. This is an area you know, you have covered. Put into perspective for us the situation right now, how it's compared to the violence in the past.
