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Chris Christie Schedule To Speak About "Bridgegate"; Shocking Report Claims U.S. Government And Notorious Mexican Drug Cartel Have Been Secretly Working Together; World's Richest 300 People Have Added More Than $500 Billion To Their Fortunes; Interview With Democratic Congressman Rush Holt Of New Jersey

Aired January 14, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, scheduled to speak about the bridge traffic scandal, among a lot of other stuff, in his state of the state address about 90 minutes or so from now. Despite a lengthy news conference by the governor last week, it still isn't clear exactly why those traffic lanes leading up the George Washington Bridge were closed in the first place.

Brian Todd is here.

I know there are a lot of theories out there. We're getting more information. It seems pretty complicated. What are you learning?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: More and more theories emerging, Wolf, as to why those lanes were ordered closed on the GW Bridge. The first is the standard we have been hearing now for a couple weeks that it was retribution against the Fort Lee mayor, Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Chris Christie. That's the first and the primary theory out there.

But there are a couple others that you have to get into. One is that it could have been retribution against the state Democratic Senate majority leader, her name Loretta Weinberg. She and the Democrats have had a longstanding feud with Chris Christie over Supreme Court nominees in New Jersey. Christie had pulled the nominally of a long- serving state Supreme Court justice. The Democrats had in retaliation blocked a lot of his nominees.

The one thing that points to this theory is that on August 12th, 2013, Christie was visibly angry in a news conference about the blocking of his nominees, saying he was going to pull the latest from consideration, because, quote, "I was not going to let her loose to the animals," meaning, the Democrats, just to feast on this nominee.

Well, the next day -- the next day, that's the day that Christie's top aide, Bridget Kelly, allegedly sent that e-mail to the port authority officials saying time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee. Loretta Weinberg, leader of the Democrats, again, opposing the governor on these judicial nominees, Fort Lee is in her district. She is not from there. She is from (INAUDIBLE), but Fort Lee is in her district. So that's another theory, this was in retribution toward her. She has not said one way or another, by the way, whether she thinks that's the case. She just blames the governor for his culture and that office of what he has created.

A third theory has to do with possibly something to do with it's the follow the money theory. There is a billion-dollar development right next to those on-ramp lanes that were closed. It called Hudson Lights. It is costing about a billion dollars. It is a series of high-rises, shopping areas, et cetera. The financing was secured for that right around the time that the lanes were closed on that bridge. And there's a theory that maybe the developers might have had possibly something -- some kind of dispute or something to do with Governor Christie that might have angered him or maybe there was something -- some other reason relating to that development.

There's been no proof of any of this. We don't know any of these theories are true. But that's, you know, it's kind of speaks to the nature of politics in New Jersey that these three theories are out there. Again, no proof that, for sure that either -- that any one of them is correct. But these are the theories being talked about as he gets ready for his state of the state.

BLITZER: Any one gaining traction?

TODD: Not really. I mean, think the one thing that you see that's most prominent, most evidence of, at least in these e-mails and the documents is that it's just -- it was simply just some kind of feud with that mayor, Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing Chris Christie. But, again, these are things that we're drilling down on, trying to see if there is any traction on these things, Wolf. And, you know, as he proceeds and tries to get himself out from under this scandal, these are things being talked about right now.

BLITZER: All right, Brian, thanks very much. Brian Todd, reporting.

Regardless of the possible motives, Christie's image certainly taking a bit of a beating right now. People may be taking a new look at the governor, reevaluating their opinion of him.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Rush Holt from New Jersey's 12th district. That includes Princeton, the capital area around Trenton.

Congressman, thanks very much for coming in.

REP. RUSH HOLT (D), NEW JERSEY: Good to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Do you have a theory of why those lanes were closed in the first place?

HOLT: You know, whatever the theory, and you heard several of them. There are actually a couple others floating around. Whatever was the motivation behind this, it's pretty clear. It's an abuse of power. In other words, it was the use of political power, not for the public good. You know, the reason citizens give elected officials power is so that they can act on behalf of the citizens to improve the public good. This clearly was petty partisanship of one sort or another, or perhaps, as you say following the money, something corrupt. But whatever it was, it was not acting in the public interest. And what we have to really guard against is that people will say, look, that's just politics. That's just the way it's done. It always happens. We can't stand for this always happening. But under this administration, this does appear to have been the rule.

So, you know, I have to commend -- you mentioned Senator Loretta Weinberg. I would also add assemblyman chair John Wisniewski. They have kept after this for several months, even as the press and everybody else was saying, oh, get off it. You know, this is a small matter. In fact, now with the e-mails coming out and probably more coming to light, it appears that this was a serious abuse of power.

BLITZER: But there's no evidence, and correct me if I am wrong, I haven't seen any direct evidence linking Christie directly to that decision to shut down those traffic lanes. Have you?

HOLT: You know, I am not saying it was or wasn't the governor. No, I don't think there's anything that's been made public that ties him directly to it, but certainly the governor's office. They have been given power by the voters to act on the public behalf. This was not acting on the public behalf.

And I might add, you know, there is a sad story about the port authority. The port authority of New York, New Jersey goes back many decades. It was a nonpartisan public institution. And starting back under Governor Pataki and Governor Whitman, it began to be filled with political -- well, politicians who were only interested in partisan interests or cash flow into the states. And the port authority has lost its public mission, lost its nonpartisanship, and it is just sitting ready to be abused in this partisan political way.

BLITZER: You've suggested that governor Christie has a streak of bullying. The governor denies he's a bully. He said that at his news conference last Thursday. Why do you think he's a bully?

HOLT: Yes, I mean, you and I remember Richard Nixon. I am not a crook. You know? Any time a politician gets up and says "I am not a bully," or "it's not about the money," it is. And so you know, there are so many instances. We have seen it. We have seen it in town hall meetings where the governor goes after a citizen. We have seen it where he takes on teachers in the most disrespectful, bullying way. And I've seen it with mayors and public officials who have said to me, look, I've got to play along here or I'm just not going to get anything for my town. And I call that bullying. And I don't want any citizens to say, oh, that's the way it's always done. I guess we'll just have to accept it. We must not accept that.

BLITZER: Is there one thing you want to hear in his state of the state address that's coming up at 3:00 p.m. eastern?

HOLT: Well, I -- obviously, he's not going to talk about this. And, you know, obviously, I think we hear he's going to talk about extending the school day, and more attention to education. More attentions to education is most welcome. Thank you. I'm glad he's doing that. I hope he will not bully the teachers in the process. BLITZER: Well, we do hear he is going to make a brief reference to the traffic scandal. I don't think he's going to say much. But he'll say something. And is there -- if he does spend 30 seconds or a minute talking about it, is there anything you would like to hear?

HOLT: I mean, he talked for an hour and a half or two hours the other day. I think he has said it. Now, we wait for the evidence to come out. I'm pleased that the investigation and the subpoenas are continuing. This is not a petty matter. They may have regarded this as a -- you know, as a play thing to play some partisan politics. I think it should be viewed as an abuse of power and we should get all the facts. And I'm glad that the legislature is after it. I understand that law enforcement officials prosecutors are looking into whether there were any laws broken, whether there's any culpability there. So I think that should go on. I'm not going to speculate on what comes next.

BLITZER: Congressman Holt, thanks very much for joining us.

HOLT: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Rush Holt is the Democratic congressman from New Jersey.

Of course, you can see the governor's speech live here on CNN. Our special coverage will begin at 3:00 p.m. Eastern.

Hillary Clinton looks invincible, at least a lot of Democrats believe, if she decides to enter the 2016 race for the democratic presidential nomination. But she could face some familiar pitfalls in a state that helped derail her back in 2008. We're going to take a closer look at Hillary Clinton's Iowa problem. Stand by.

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BLITZER: She hasn't said whether or not she's running, but if she does, Hillary Clinton looks pretty strong in Iowa in a Democratic contest in those caucuses. Those are the first contests in the 2016 presidential race.

But six years ago, Hillary Clinton finished third in the Iowa caucuses. And looking ahead to 2016, she could face some familiar pitfalls.

Our political reporter, Peter Hamby, has spent a lot of time in Iowa looking at what's going on. He's here with us right now.

And you have written an excellent article about this. Let's start with the liberal base. And there are a lot of liberal Democrats in Iowa that she has to attract.

PETER HAMBY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And I spent about a week there just talking to activists, elected officials, operatives. There is a sense among the democratic base out there, as there was in 2008, that Hillary Clinton is too moderate. She is too close to Wall Street. She is too close to a national security state. That has expanded surveillance powers in controversial ways, drone strikes, those sorts of things.

To be clear, there are a lot of Democrats out there that really like Hillary Clinton and respect her, almost universally. Her favorable rating in Iowa, according to the "Des Moines Register" is almost 90 percent. So people like her. The question is are they in love with her, is there passion? And that's harder to find right now. People are looking for other names out there.

BLITZER: Like who?

HAMBY: You know, if you ask people, who is out there, Elizabeth Warren who said she is not running for president. Her name comes up all of the time.

BLITZER: Senator from Massachusetts.

HAMBY: Other names have come up and they don't come up a lot. It's a broad array of names. Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland. Kirsten Gillibrand, the senator from New York. Secretary of state John Kerry's name actually came up a bunch out there, Wolf. Remember, he won Iowa in 2004 in those caucuses.

But again, Hillary is the name that comes up among everybody. But everyone -- personally I talked to said Iowa Democrats are looking for an alternative. They just want to see what the field looks like before they commit and it is still early.

BLITZER: In your excellent article, you quote one party leader as suggesting that she her staff had a heavy-handed approach behavior about in 2007, 2008, leading up to the Iowa caucuses. The problem with so much of her staff, this person says, was that they were all sort of higher class than the mere peasants they had to campaign with. Is this a problem, potentially?

HAMBY: Yes, this pervaded the Clinton campaign last time as sort of righteousness, the front runner, we're inevitable and talk to activists. They said that they felt a little mistreated. In Iowa, you have to go into back yards, talk to people, shake hands, people want to meet the candidates four or five times before they make a decision.

This was also an issue with the media. Remember, they treated the media poorly and it came back to bite them. So, you know, that activist I talked to said hopefully Hillary has learned these lessons because she does have to come back to Iowa. She can't skate through this nomination process, even if she doesn't have many challengers.

BLITZER: Generally, and I remember covering this, she did well in primary elections. But in caucuses in those states that do the caucuses, she didn't do well.

HAMBY: Right. That's exactly right and that's how the Obama campaign was able to run up delegate numbers because the caucuses, again, tend to be dominated by the more liberal, progressive activists in 2008, the sort of anti-war base of the party that was really punishing Clinton for her support of the Iraq war. But you know, the Iraq war was faded from the political spotlight, the focus now on the economy. So now if you talk to Democrats out there, they say, and I quote people on this piece that she needs to become more populist and progressive and sort of talk more about income and equality in wage stagnation and those sorts of things. Those are the issues that are coming up right now.

BLITZER: So, she hasn't even decided yet whether or not she is running. But a lot of her supporters want her to.

All right, Peter, good work as usual.

You can read Peter's full article, I will recommend you go to CNN.com/politics. You'll learn something from Peter Hamby.

An investigation by a newspaper comes to a stunning conclusion of U.S. government has been in cahoots with the most notorious drug cartel in Mexico, letting it operate unimpeded in exchange for information about rival cartels. We have details right after this.

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BLITZER: Truly shocking report claims the U.S. government and Mexico's most notorious drug cartel have actually been secretly working together citing court documents, a Mexican newspaper reports dozens of meetings between DEA officials and top cartel members. And deals offered in exchange for information.

Rafael Romo is following this story from the CNN center in Atlanta.

Rafael, how did this all come to light? What is going on?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Well, Wolf, as they say, the devil is in the details. And we must tell our viewers where the information originated from. It was first published by a Mexican newspaper by the name "El Unibersal" or "the Universal." They claim as many as 50 meetings between the Dea and operatives from Mexican drug cartels.

Now, before I continue with this, I need to tell you exactly how they got their information. Essentially, they took a look at a case out of federal court in Chicago. This is the deposition that they mainly base the report on, and the position is of an attorney representing a Mexican drug lord in which he claims that he was mediating between the leadership of the Sinaloa drug cartel and the DEA.

Now, it is really up for interpretation whether we want to believe what an attorney for a drug cartel says. But let me read to you, Wolf, real quick what he told in deposition. Again, this is under oath. He said Mr. Loya Castro, this is the attorney that I'm telling you about, stated that agents told him that, in exchange for information about rival drug trafficking organization, the United States government agreed to dismiss the prosecution of the pending case against Mr. Loya Castro, not to interfere with his drug trafficking activities and those of the Sinaloa cartel, not to actively prosecute him. And listen to this, Wolf. The leadership of the Sinaloa cartel and not to apprehend them. The agent stated that this arrangement has been approved by high ranking officials and federal prosecutors.

And Wolf, let me tell you that we have reached out to the DEA. They have no comment on this case. And there's no Mexican official that has validated this information so far.

BLITZER: Do we know anything else about these alleged arrangements, including if there's actually any payoffs?

ROMO: The report doesn't specifically talk about payouts, but it talks very specifically about the fact that in exchange for information, the operative was going to essentially avoid any type of prosecution benefiting the Mexican drug cartel known as the Sinaloa cartel and providing information to U.S. agents about rival drug cartels namely Losetas (ph) cartels and Gulf cartel, Wolf.

BLITZER: Rafael Romo with this intriguing story. We will continue to work and thanks very much.

There's new proof that richer are getting richer, and you won't believe the staggering amount of money some have added to their fortunes.

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BLITZER: A quick check on the markets right now, after a sharp selloff yesterday, there is some activities today. It's up about 83 points. Right now, the Dow Jones industrial and investors seem to be pretty happy with banker earnings. JPMorgan Chase, the country's biggest bank, posted a $5.3 billion profit for the fourth quarter. Not too shabby.

Back earnings aside, the old saying is that the rich get richer. Apparently is saying is very much true. They have a lot to look at. Take a look at this. Last year the world's richest 300 people added more than $500 billion to their fortunes. That puts their total net worth at a whopping $3.7 trillion.

Alison Kosik is watching money for us over at the New York stock exchange. That's a trillion with a T, right Alison?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Right. Not million, not billion, but yes, a trillion. You know, I don't know about you, I'm feeling a little grossly underpaid at this point, but hey, it shouldn't really come as a huge surprise, especially when you consider what a great year it was for the stock market.

So, let me walk you through some of the standouts on Bloomberg and Billionaire's index. Bill Gates was the year's biggest gainer. His fortune increased by almost $16 billion, to almost $79 billion, a 40 percent rise in Microsoft shares. That helped. But that actually only accounts for a fraction of Gates' net worth. He got a boost thanks to other businesses including rail companies and hotels. Sheldon Adelson. Yes, he was a big gainer as well. He is a founder of the Las Vegas sands. He got $40 billion boost that thanks to strong gaining revenue in China. All right, I know you are curious about this, the losers, and there is Eike Batista. Now, Batista was actually once Brazil's richest man but he lost $12 billion last year and he's now bankrupt. Now, analysts say he didn't deliver on promises he made with his companies and he lost credibility with his investors -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Alison, what about the tech industry? Obviously, it's a lot of people in that industry had had a great year, right?

KOSIK: Yes, Mark Zuckerberg, for one, he was the tech industry's biggest gainer. He added more than $12 billion to his fortune. That is because Facebook share is more than doubled. Very nice turnaround for the social network when you remember just how badly its IPO went.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, they're the ones who started Google, they both saw their network surge as well. That is thanks to a big jump in Google stock.

Keep in mind, though, when you hear all these big numbers, last year, it was a really unusual year for the stock market. The S&P 500 rallied almost 30 percent in 2013. The average annual gains are actually supposed to be closer to eight percent. So while these rich people, they're probably going to get richer again this year. I'm thinking they won't be richer, maybe, by as much, Wolf. Maybe, they won't get back greedy, Wolf.

BLITZER: And these are just the 300 richest people in the world. We are talking about 300 people, can you believe it?

All right, Alison, thanks very very much.

KOSIK: Sure.

BLITZER: So what happens when the Dallas cowboy cheerleaders make a video involving the beach? Bikinis and a camera attached to a hula hoop. Probably no surprise it goes viral.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Moos.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the little camera that makes you feel like you're along for the ride on a surfboard or a roller coaster or inside a dishwasher. And now the go pro has gone where few have gone before around and around and around. The Dallas cowboy cheerleaders on a hula hoop.

CORBIN PERKINS, MULTIMEDIA EDITOR, DALLAS COWBOYS: Yes. We were really want to show off our girls.

MOOS: So while the cowboy cheerleaders were down in Mexico shooting their 2014 calendar, they shot a few hoops.

PERKINS: So I've got this little camera contraption right here. The go person ride in there.

MOOS: It weighs about a pound, so they had to fill the rest of the hoop with lead beads to counterbalance the camera and the whole hoop ended up weighing about four pounds.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm sorry. I don't want to break the camera.

MOOS: This is a go pro. It costs anywhere between $200 to $400 and you can pretty much mount them anywhere from a trombone, to a sword or violin bow, so why not the hula hoop? It had already been famously done at the Bernie man festival 2012 by a group calling its hula fantastica.

Their Venice beach video was the inspiration for Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, but it was an uphill battle for the cheerleaders.

PERKINS: They had had a lot of experience with the hula hoops so they could do those school twirls.

MOOS: But Corbin Perkins, the cowboys' multi-media editor seemed to get the hang of it. He can be seen diving into the beach grass to get out of the shock while the cheerleaders twirl.

Nobody seemed to be complaining about the skill level. Instead, and comments like that is one lucky hula hoop.

I want to be that hula hoop.

Next best thing to be the hula hoop handler, it's like being a fly on the wall of the hula hoop, dizzying.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Very good to Jeanne. That is a pretty good job too, I must say.

Thanks very much for watching. That's it for me this hour. I'll be back, though, 5:00 p.m. eastern in the SITUATION ROOM. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

NEWSROOM continues right now with Brooke Baldwin.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you.