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Record Low Temperatures; Hillary Clinton's Shadow Campaign?; McDonald's Diet

Aired January 06, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: But you have talked to people there who are surprised classes are called off, things are shut just because of the bitter cold, right?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's just -- it's still -- even if you are used to it, right, Brooke, it's still cold. it's still super cold. There is a limit for humanity on how cold you can stand it. And this would test that limit for lots of children. So, yes, they closed down the schools and I was sitting on a plane with a woman who actually had on sandals because she was coming back from Tahiti. But she's from here and she lived here.

And she says this was just shocking to her. When she left, it was 30 degrees and she could bear that, but very different story though out here now, because while it is negative 17 or negative 18 the last couple times I checked, when you add in the wind factor, it is brutal. It just -- it takes your breath away. The first few times I breathed when I walked outside, I just started to cough because it was so cold.

So, because of that, police are not taking any chances. They are patrolling the streets. They're making sure they don't see anyone out or animals left out that have been left out in this weather. If they need assistance, they need someplace to go, they are helping them get there and they are also watching the streets. They are very afraid of black ice and they want people just to stay home, because the dangers of being out in this cold, it can take just five minutes and your skin can start to freeze.

They want everyone to stay home. That is why they made sure they shut down the schools here. And you can see behind me, even though it's sunny, the river is still frozen. That gives you an idea of just how cold it is out here, Brooke.

BALDWIN: I will not at all for one second then complain about the sleet as I was out at 6:30 this morning walking my dog in cold weather in Atlanta, because you have me beat, my friend, you have me beat in Minneapolis. Stephanie Elam, thank you and your crew so, so much for showing us the sheer cold where you are.

Just so she can show us the beautiful, warm ocean and sand, Tory Dunnan, go ahead. Me how beautiful. Just me how warm it is where you are.

TORY DUNNAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, I have to hide my face. I feel ashamed being out here after listening to Stephanie.

Does it make you feel a little bit better though that it's cloudy and maybe raining and a little windy? But what I'm about to tell you guys is actually going to make will make my buddy Stephanie pretty mad at me, because the difference in temperatures between where she is and where I am is 97, 98 degrees difference.

It's sitting about 83 degrees here. You can imagine how much nicer it is here and how people are out and about enjoying the beach. That's the story, the huge gap in temperatures. But it's also the fact that there tons of people here in town who are from the Midwest and they're from the Northeast and they are -- quote, unquote -- "stuck in Florida" because they can't get flights out. We caught up with some of them and here's what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are not home sick because I think it's negative 15 degrees with a negative 40 windchill.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm feeling kind of guilty.

DUNNAN: Do you feel bad sitting here on the beach? I feel bad reporting on the beach while my colleagues are in the ice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't feel bad. I feel a little lucky at this point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUNNAN: So, lucky at this point, but things are about to change here in Florida. The temperatures are going to drop and in some parts of the state it will get down to freezing. You have farmers preparing the crops for that freeze.

Brooke, it may look nice now, but that's not the case, so I have got old red ready it go just like everyone else at CNN.

BALDWIN: Did you at least bring a bathing suit? Can you get tan for the rest of the us just maybe for a couple of minutes. Your and crew enjoy it just a little bit? Yes?

DUNNAN: I think I'm tan. That's pretty tan for me.

BALDWIN: Tory Dunnan and crew in Miami. Tory, thank you very much.

We talk about hot and we talk about the cool, we also have to talk about all of the flights. We all feel for you sitting and watching CNN from the airport. So many of you, your flights have been canceled. So many of you have been stuck in New York specifically for days and days waiting to hop on a flight.

Some of it is the weather. Some of it is just the fact that these airline crews have not been able to get to the plane to get you to the final destination. Some are of it are these new rules that just so happen to go in effect during the wintry weather weekend when it comes to pilot fatigue.

Rene Marsh is standing by for us in Washington. But before we get to all of that, Rene, tell me about the new -- the JetBlue, what is it, the rules or the regulations that are just now in place.

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Right, and also some news coming in from JetBlue, Brooke.

Customers, you should listen up if you have a JetBlue flight. The airline has started reducing operations as we speak. In another two hours from now, they will completely shut down operations at New York, New Jersey and Boston airports. They don't expect to be 100 percent operational again against 3:00 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow.

Other airlines, they are not halting, but they are scaling back on their operations as well. The reason? Weather. JetBlue said they need to reset their operations and during the shutdown at some of its airports, the pilots will be able to rest. The airline, they are partially blaming new FAA rest rules for all of these delays.

These rules mandate 10 hours of minimum rest period before flight and they say that these restrictions are compounding those delays. But these new rules, they have been two years in the making. Both the pilots union and the FAA say the airlines had more than enough time to prepare.

BALDWIN: So, then just quickly with regard to the FAA and the change, this is just all about pilot fatigue?

MARSH: It is about pilot fatigue and it's also about safety, because the bottom line is they don't want a situation where you have sleepy pilots in the cockpit.

This really came about after the NTSB found that one of the reasons that Colgan Air crash nearly Buffalo, New York, killing 50 people, pilot fatigue played a role. They believe this is a safety issue, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Rene Marsh, thank you very much in Washington for us today. As we look to the next 24, 48 hours, about half the country should expect temperatures to plummet below zero. Just think about that. And appreciate it if you are not in that part of the country getting to enjoy the warmth.

(WEATHER UPDATE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN (voice-over): A teacher says he lost 40 pounds on a McDonald's diet. But that's not the whole story here.

New revelations about a shadow campaign for Hillary Clinton. I will speak live with a Democrat who has talked about challenging her.

Plus, smoke pot legally in Colorado and your boss can fire you. Why the state's new boom gets shaky legally. And actor Shia LaBeouf apologizes for his apology for plagiarism. But he goes a step further and mentions a street drug addiction -- those stories and more coming up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: All right, back inside, welcome back to CNN here.

The American woman who calls herself Jihad Jane was sentenced to 10 years in prison for teaming up with al Qaeda on a failed murder plot in Sweden. Here she is. Real name? Colleen LaRose.

She apologized today at her sentencing. She said she blindly followed her handlers in a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. LaRose could have gotten live, but prosecutors say she has provided good information about terrorists.

And New York is set to become the latest state to open the door to medical marijuana, as Governor Andrew Cuomo prepares to take executive action to allow some hospitals to dispense it to select patients. This is according to two advocates briefed on the plan.

Medical marijuana is hardly unprecedented in the United States. You see all the green states here. And 20 states plus the District of Columbia now allow it in some form or fashion, among them Colorado, where as January 1, it is also legal to sell recreational marijuana to anyone 21 years of age or older.

But the talk in New York has sparked fierce debate over legalization both medicinally and recreationally.

HLN's Nancy Grace joins me live.

Nancy Grace, let's just call this big picture. I'm curious and in your reading and watching all of this last couple of days, do you think legalizing pot for recreational use, do you think that's a good idea?

NANCY GRACE, HOST, "NANCY GRACE": I think it's a horrible idea and I speak not only after studying it and raiding every shred of scientific and research data out there, but after seeing what it does to people on an everyday level.

BALDWIN: How do you mean?

GRACE: In court, when I would prosecute drug cases.

Now, I understand that a recreational amount in Colorado, remember, there only two states that allow recreational sale or possession of marijuana and that being Colorado and Washington State. Washington State, it has not been implemented yet.

But what I would see is that people would drop out of work. They would become lethargic. Come on. Ask yourself, do you want cabdriver to be high on pot? How about your airplane pilot? What about that?

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Hang on. But on the other side, I was talking to a tour operator who is thrilled at the legalization recreationally speaking is in Colorado specifically. He would argue that, listen, if you do it responsibly, you don't get behind the wheel. You do it in a private confined space. You do it safely. No harm, no foul.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: You mean a private space like your home where you are supposed to be taking care of your children or cooking at a gas stove or lighting a fireplace, you mean that way? Yes, no, not a good idea.

I don't want -- when I'm at work, I don't want my baby-sitter high on pot. Does anybody? Do you want your children? Do you want your parents, your sister, your brother to be taken care of or driven around by somebody on pot because it's OK in Colorado? You know what? Colorado, guess what they ask for.

BALDWIN: I know people are screaming at the television agreeing and vehemently disagreeing with you.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Hey, look, the ones who are disagreeing are lethargic and sitting on the sofa eating chips.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Fat and lazy. There.

BALDWIN: Nancy Grace, let me move along, let me move along from this.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Fat and lazy.

BALDWIN: This is just your opinion. And we wanted your opinion.

Let's throw a hypothetical in there, because is something people are curious. Let's say one were to go to Denver and take one of these 420 tours and smoke pot perfectly legally recreationally speaking. Let's say a couple of weeks later, you are driving, you are perfectly fine to drive. You get pulled over for some reason. You do a drug test. You spoke legally, but do you get in trouble still three weeks later?

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: This is going to be the legal issue there, if you are impaired. If it can be determined that you are still under the influence. Not whether you smoked pot a month ago or any other drug a month ago and whether you used it and it may be still be in your hair follicles or it may be in your system somehow. The state will have to be able prove you are impaired. That means walking a straight line and that means answering questions. That means saying the alphabet backwards or count backwards. All of those tests will come into play. If you are impaired, you need to go to jail.

BALDWIN: The huge concern, children. You are a mom and it's the kid issue. According to our CNN affiliate KDVR, there was a 2-year-old girl in Colorado and she is now recovering after she found some sort of marijuana-laced cookies.

She's a kid and she ate it. As a mother, if you lived in Colorado, would that be your biggest fear?

GRACE: My biggest fear would not be my child eating the cookie off the ground. That mom said the child found the cookie outdoors and must have eaten it. She didn't realize what was happening.

And then at the grocery store, the little girl was lethargic and she immediately took her to the doctor. She had no idea what had really happened. With Colorado legalizing let me just say recreational use of marijuana, the camel's nose is in the tent. His tail will surely follow.

This is the beginning of widespread usage and more than just one ounce usage of marijuana. I don't believe from what I have seen for 10 years in inner-city Atlanta and from being a fed that the recreational use of marijuana is a good thing. I don't think it's best for our society.

BALDWIN: We will see how it plays out, Nancy Grace.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: I have a sneaking suspicion that you are pro-pot and I don't like it.

BALDWIN: Oh, Nancy Grace, no, no, no. I just talk to so many people in the buildup to this whole thing and then once it has happened, it's so fascinating.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: A tour guide is taking people on a tour of pot houses? I don't put any store in that. No, no.

BALDWIN: Nancy Grace, thank you very much, as always. Make sure you tune into watch Nancy on HLN each and every night at 8:00 eastern on HLN.

Meantime, do you want to lose weight? How about eating a diet of only McDonald's? A science teacher said he lost almost 40 pounds eating at the golden arches every single day. But is that really the healthiest thing to do? We will talk to a nutritionist.

Also, a rodeo, a woman and an angry bull. You won't want to miss what happens after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You have to see this video here. Let me set it up for you.

A bystander and an 1,100-pound bull have a close encounter. Take a look. Look at that woman fly into the stands. We will re-rack it. Watch it again. She is going. She's going. And then she floats.

This is a woman. She was an employee of this bull-riding festival. This is Costa Rica, apparently wearing the wrong color. The bull zeroed in on her orange shirt, as you see, chased her down, smacks her. She is flying into the people in the stands. Thank goodness we're telling you this story and showing you the video. She's A-OK and she survived the accident. She even joked that she was terrified when the bull chased her and she was able to laugh about the whole thing afterwards.

All right, so it's the beginning of the new year. Maybe you are trying to lose a couple of L.B.s. But here's a diet you may not plan for at all or one that might actually work. A high school biology teacher in Iowa said he lot of 37 pounds in three months by eating all three meals, each and every day at McDonald's.

His name is John Cisna. He says he did it by making sensible choices and by exercising. He says it is not fast food that is making Americans unhealthy. It's our eating habits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN CISNA, LOST WEIGHT EATING AT MCDONALD'S: The point behind this documentary is that, hey, it's choice. We all have choices. It's our choices that make us fat. Not McDonald's.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's talk about it with Rachel Beller. She is a nutritionist joining me in Los Angeles. She's the author of "Eat to Lose, Eat to Win."

You just heard him, Rachel, talking about choices. Does he have a point? He lost all this weight here. He didn't go above 2,000 calories. Was that OK?

RACHEL BELLER, AUTHOR, "EAT TO LOSE, EAT TO WIN": I think it's fine.

It is about choices at the end of the day. You can choose unhealthy foods at a fast food restaurant or healthy foods. It's a caloric game plan.

If you are going to reduce your calories, you are going to lose weight.

BALDWIN: He did the breakfast lunch and dinner thing.

(CROSSTALK) BELLER: Was it the healthiest way to go?

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You wouldn't necessarily think golden arches and healthy. But he did this. When you think about this, apparently he did do this to counteract that Morgan Spurlock documentary "Super Size Me."

But is this something you would recommend? I would imagine it was pretty cheap. Is this something you would recommend to clients?

(CROSSTALK)

BELLER: I would recommend going on an action plan to help one lose weight. Would I necessarily recommend having a yogurt parfait with nearly six lollipops worth of sugar? I wouldn't.

But what John did is incredible and it sends such an incredible message about making choices and about taking on an action plan and sticking to it. He did something the average American is struggling to do and can't do. I think it's incredible.

And I think my advice to him at this point would be to upgrade it to even more nutrient-rich foods and now that he has proven he can do it. He could stick to a plan and that speaks volumes.

BALDWIN: And not only that, because I was certainly wondering, OK, he lot of the weight, but if you really look inside of his arteries and apparently his cholesterol dropped as well. The fact that he does have more options at a fast food chain like McDonald's, this would just further validate the notions that these places should offer the parfaits, the salads, et cetera?

BELLER: Yes. Yes.

You can make better choices even at McDonald's. They have salads. They have oatmeal. And it's your choice whether you're going to pile on the brown sugar. But he chose not, which is really incredible.

He didn't do it in a vacuum. He exercised and he lost an average of three pounds a week, which is incredible. Yes, I think it's great what he did. Would I necessarily recommend the diet for the long run? No. I would probably say, look, this is a good jump-start and a good way to start the year, but I would then focus on more nutrient-rich and less sugar and less processed and wholesome food, and you can do that on a budget.

BALDWIN: OK. Rachel Beller, thank you very much.

Coming up next, he says a run for president would actually ruin his life, but former Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer is not ruling it out. He has taken shots at front-runner Hillary Clinton, this as we learn of a shadow campaign involving Clinton. We will talk to the former governor live about the possibility of challenging the former secretary of state and first lady.

Plus, Shia LaBeouf apologizing for plagiarizing when he wrote a short film, but now he is getting all kinds of criticism for those apologies. We will tell you why. And part of that was because he plagiarized that. Stay with

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)