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CNN This Morning
Rescuers Still Pulling out Survivors in Turkey; January Consumer Spending Surges; Kevin O'Leary is Interviewed about the Economy; Stats on Presidential Candidates. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired February 15, 2023 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[08:31:13]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: We're hearing the incredible stories of survival this morning almost ten days after the catastrophic earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, taking more than 41,000 people's lives, turning cities into piles of rocks. Desperation is growing, though, as rescuers are trying to work to find more survivors. They are still finding some of them, like this 77-year-old woman there. You can see her there under rubble, 212 hours. The Turkish media just reported a short time ago that a woman and two children have also just been rescued after 228 hours in rubble after the quake hit.
CNN's Sara Sidner is on the ground for us in southeastern Turkey.
Sara, you've been doing incredible reporting on this. And in these stories that, you know, amid the devastation, with the death toll, it's remarkable to hear that people are still being found somehow.
SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It really is, Kaitlin.
We're standing in an area of survivors as well. They are in tents though because their homes have been destroyed. The department of emergency services here has been able to put these up for about 100 families. And they are full families with children in tow who cannot go home to their representative apartments or homes.
But we are seeing nine days on what I can only call remarkable, if not miraculous. People still being pulled from the rubble after thousands of aftershocks and two major earthquakes. They are somehow surviving after that 72-hour timeframe where usually people cannot survive. They are pulling out the elderly and the very young and everything in between.
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SIDNER (voice over): Firefighters scan the debris in Hatay for signs of life. They ask him if there's anyone else with him and about his condition. It's OK, the 65-year-old Syrian man tells them.
It was the 208th hour, the ninth day since the powerful earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Six hours later, 77-year-old Thatma Gunbar (ph) is pulled from under
the rubble in Adiyaman.
As the death toll climbs at terrifying speeds, these are rare rescues, and they've become the only source of hope.
This has largely turned into a recovery operation. Focus is shifting towards sheltering tens of thousands of people made homeless by the disaster, and burying tens of thousands of others. Families don't want to leave the site of their collapsed homes, hoping and praying to find loved ones, clinging to news of miracles.
Brothers, 17-year-old Muhammad Anasi Anar (ph) and his 21-year-old brother Abdul Baki (ph), were pulled from under a collapsed eight story building in Kahramanmaras on the 198th hour. They stayed alive by eating protein powder.
In Adiyaman, rescuers tunneled through the debris to pulled out 18- year-old Muhamad Kafir Seton (ph).
This is well beyond the critical first 72 hours when most rescues happen. Now, many calls for silence to hear the faint voices of trapped survivors are met with deafening silence. Until another miracle happens. This seven-month-old baby was pulled from the rubble after 139 hours.
[08:35:03]
After 167 hours under the suffocating debris, this man managed to pull himself out.
Joyous moments keep up the spirits of exhausted rescuers.
These brothers were pulled one after the other in Hatay after more than a week with little or no water under entangled slabs of concrete and steel. Many, though, will face a long recovery.
Ferris (ph) and Fatma (ph) were pulled out on the 209th hour. Their five children are believed to still be trapped underneath. The bitter realization that some people are the only surviving members of an extended family. But that does not stop the celebrations or the hope for yet another miracle.
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SIDNER: And you will notice that we're talking in terms of hours, and that's because with every hour that passes, the chances of survival are less and less, especially as we are now going into the tenth day since the initial two major earthquakes hit this region.
I will tell you that we, ourselves, witnessed an area -- for those people who have survived, there are still hundreds more who have been killed. We witnessed a mass grave that took over basically half of a farm, a huge area where they were just digging grave after grave after grave because they know they'll have a lot of people to bury. Some who may never be identified. Kaitlin.
COLLINS: Yes, it's hard to even fathom what that's like for those families.
But, Sara Sidner, we appreciate you being there. Thank you.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: It's amazing to see that. And the kids behind her playing ball. Did you notice that?
COLLINS: Yes.
LEMON: Trying to have at least some degree of normalcy back there.
Well, moments ago, the Commerce Department released the key January retail sales report. Really surprising numbers straight ahead.
COLLINS: And "Shark Tank's" Kevin O'Leary is going to be here to join us to tell us what he sees in the economy. Mr. Wonderful, as they know him.
LEMON: Hmm, we'll see.
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[08:41:04]
LEMON: So, there it is. Brussels, Belgium. You're looking at live pictures of the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at NATO headquarters this morning. The visit comes as the U.S. pledges more military support to Ukrainian forces. Next Friday will mark one year since Russia invaded Ukraine.
COLLINS: And as we track that and listen to Secretary Austin, we are also, just into CNN, getting new numbers as the Commerce Department has released the retail sales report for January. This is incredibly insightful.
So, CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans is here to break it down, who's also incredibly insightful.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, thank you.
COLLINS: What do the numbers say?
ROMANS: Look, you cannot hold back the American consumer. And the U.S. economy continues to defy gravity.
Retail sales surged, surged 3 percent. This is way more than economists thought. I mean starting out the year with a strong job market, some minimum wage increases across the country and just generally feeling good about things.
We look at these polls where people say they're worried about a recession, they're worried about their financial future, but they continue to spend. Also very big post-holiday discounts. It looks like those discounts were enough to get people out there and spending.
Auto sales a big part of this, too. Remember after a chill in the auto market because of really high prices over the past year or so, you've got people out there buying cars again.
So, when you look across the board here, I see a consumer that is incredibly resilient.
So, you see on the far right of your screen there, that 3 percent surge? That is the most since March 2021.
COLLINS: Wow.
ROMANS: So, that shows you a very strong consumer heading into the beginning of the year. And the consumer, of course, is the main driver of the American economy. You know, when two-thirds of the American economy is driven by consumer spending. So, people say they feel really lousy about the economy and they're doing a little bit of retail therapy apparently because they are spending money anyway.
LEMON: Wow.
COLLINS: We'll see how the Fed chair thinks about all of this.
ROMANS: This means the Fed will be raising interest rates more.
LEMON: Oh, boy.
ROMANS: This means the Fed, as we're trying to cool the economy, but it is -- so I think you've got more Fed rate hikes in the pike here and it just shows you that, you know, despite all these worries about a recession, all the higher interest rates, the economy is still doing pretty well.
COLLINS: Yes. All right, Christine Romans, no one better to break it down. Thank you.
ROMANS: Thank you.
LEMON: Well, no one better to break down too what we just heard from Christine Romans is Kevin O'Leary. You know him as Mr. Wonderful from "Shark Tank." And he is the chairman of O'Leary Ventures.
Thank you very much.
What did you -- the numbers that she just reported, what do you think, retail sales, 3 percent? The most since - of 3 percent, 2021.
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: Year over year over 6 percent. That is absolutely stunning. That is -- you know, to be talking about a recession and have a print over 6 percent is almost unprecedented. And so something is really interesting here. We have full employment, decade -- it's been decades to have unemployment this low. Remarkable. We're raising rates on the consumer. Core inflation and food is really high and yet somehow, because everybody's got a job, you get a print like that. This is a rip-roaring economy. And if I were President Biden, I'd take advantage of what's happening here. These are big numbers. These are good numbers.
LEMON: Well, he's going to speak.
COLLINS: Well, what do you mean take advantage? What - what do you think he should do?
O'LEARY: It's very, very rare that you get a situation where you have full employment, you're raising rates and you have retail sales numbers this strong. It just rarely ever happens. And, you know, you want to take credit for that if you're the administration because everybody's feeling pretty good if retail numbers are up 6 percent. That's my whole point.
Now, how long can this last is what every small business in America is asking themselves, because they're trying to make decisions every day about how much money they put into inventory because they're supposed to be seeing a slowdown. Everybody's telling them there's a slowdown coming. Where is it?
LEMON: Yes.
O'LEARY: That's the debate.
LEMON: That's what we've been -- do we have the right sort of metrics to measure the economy coming out of Covid? Are we - are we using old analytics to -- for something that is different?
O'LEARY: Don, you're right about that. The Fed is taking a lot of criticism specifically around housing. The housing data is 18-month- old as it goes into the CPI number.
LEMON: Right.
O'LEARY: So, when you talk about inflation, and you keep fighting inflation with more hikes, it's because you're not really taking into account that housing prices are flattening, in some markets rolling over.
[08:45:01]
And a lot of people are criticizing the old way of measuring inflation, saying let's get housing out of there and let's look at core inflation, such as food and energy prices, which are more current. But housing is a lag indicator. And so maybe what's happening here is the Fed is fighting, like Don Quixote, a fight that he doesn't have to fight any more. But that's not going to place it (INAUDIBLE). We're going to have two more rate hikes, at least 25 basis points each. With that data, I guarantee you, the terminal rate, that's the rate where the Fed stops, is north of 5 percent.
COLLINS: Wow.
O'LEARY: Yes.
COLLINS: That's remarkable. O'LEARY: I - I - you - you - you know that's going to happen now. He's
just sitting in his office saying, oh my goodness, where did this come from?
COLLINS: Yes, every time you kind of see a look on his face, he's like, OK, what's next?
Can we talk about crypto for a moment?
O'LEARY: Yes.
COLLINS: Because you were actually a spokesperson for FTX.
O'LEARY: I was.
COLLINS: Which was Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto company. Of course now we have all seen what's happened to it.
The larger question, though, about what's happening to crypto overall, do you think that we're entering kind of the Dodd-Frank era of crypto, where there's going to be legislation and regulation?
O'LEARY: If there's a silver lining to this catastrophic collapse of FTX, which cost so many people so much, it's that it poked the bear in Washington and it's forced regulators to regulate.
You've seen the heavy hand of Gensler. He really hammered Kraken.
COLLINS: The SEC chairman.
O'LEARY: Yes. Basically said, no more lending of crypto. It's not a law yet for everybody, but he's saying, read the room, I just shut down one exchange and I'm going to do it for everybody else that keeps trying - keeps doing this, what's called Kraken. And then this morning we hear the regulator in New York has basically shut down the minting of Binance tokens. There are $64 billion of Binance tokens held in two wallets. Well, I wonder who owns those?
LEMON: Yes.
O'LEARY: Because if one of those people wants to sell, that's Binance down the drain. So, it's going to get very interesting.
LEMON: All right, just real quick, if we can do this as a lightning round because you said that you would do everything you -- because you were a spokesman for the Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, you said you'd do everything to track down the money.
Have you made any progress?
O'LEARY: Oh, my goodness, it's the whole narrative on this situation for everybody is around recovery. We've heard about $4.2 billion, another $1.2 billion, another $400 million of cash. Where is it? We need the regulatory to actually give us the data.
LEMON: You also tweeted that you would work with him again, Sam Bankman-Fried, the -
O'LEARY: Oh, no, no, no. That was long before -
LEMON: OK.
O'LEARY: I - I've been known on "Shark Tank" for over a decade that I will give money to catastrophic outcomes for entrepreneurs that have learned their lesson through failure, not when you're involved in an alleged fraud.
LEMON: I want to talk about this tweet that you did on Saturday. You wrote, you may lose your wife, you may lose your dog, your mother may hate you, none of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free, then you can do whatever you like.
You're getting a lot of blowback for that.
O'LEARY: I stand behind that 100 percent. And you know why? If you're an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about because you need to sacrifice. You have to work 25 hours a day, eight days a week because your competitors is in Mumbai or Shanghai and they want to kick your butt. You have to win when you're young and sacrifice everything so that you achieve freedom for your whole family later in life. That's the whole idea.
If you think you don't have to work and you don't have to take risk and you don't have to have commitment, you're not an entrepreneur. Just get a job and work for somebody else. Those words for people that are motivated to sacrifice personally to achieve success and freedom in their lives. If you don't get it, don't worry about it because you don't fit the entrepreneurial mold.
And, you know, I'll - I'm - I've been saying that for 20 years. If you really want to succeed, you've got to work your you know what off, and then some, and then even more than that, and now even more because you're competing internationally.
LEMON: You can say assets on this show.
O'LEARY: OK. Well, that's exactly what I mean. If you're not ready to work your ass off, you're not an entrepreneur. Get over it. If that makes you uncomfortable, I couldn't care less.
LEMON: And we've got to ask you, and tell me if I'm wrong, are you - are you encouraging people away from the stock market? Because I'm looking at your - what's on your wrist. And you said there are more tangible things in the moment that you would be investing in. Like?
O'LEARY: Yes. My watch collection over the last three years has outperformed the S&P by almost 11 percent. And so - it's funny you noticed this watch.
COLLINS: It's bright red, of course.
O'LEARY: There's only one of these in the world. This is a one-of-a- kind AP made for "Shark Tank" Season 15. This has already appreciated 1,400 percent. I'd rather own watches and stocks right now if you can find them.
LEMON: You said collectibles. Is that what you meant, collectibles?
O'LEARY: Yes, collectible watches. Very rare. One of kinds. That kind of thing.
LEMON: Does that mean art as well?
O'LEARY: Yes, art's doing very, very well. There's alternative assets. I tell people, wake up and look at the stuff besides stocks you can make money on. Plus, you can wear it. It looks great.
LEMON: No, no, no, I was trying to get your watch.
No, I'm kidding. Thank you, Kevin, it's good to see you.
O'LEARY: Thank you very much.
LEMON: Thank you very much.
COLLINS: Love having you on set. Thank you.
O'LEARY: Yes, great. Thanks a lot.
LEMON: So, Nikki Haley kicking off her presidential campaign in just hours. Only the second Republican to announce so far. So, why is this morning's number 16? Harry Enten will explain that.
COLLINS: How many watches do you have?
O'LEARY: So, it's crazy.
LEMON: I have - can I see that thing?
O'LEARY: Yes.
[08:50:00]
COLLINS: Like, how many.
O'LEARY: So -
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COLLINS: All right, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is running for president. We found out that yesterday. She's got her formal announcement today. This means she is the first major Republican rival to take on former President Trump in this 2024 race. Both are ahead of the game, though, with early campaign announcements. Trump was really early.
So, no one better to break it down than our CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten.
Harry, when do people normally announce they're running for office? HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Right. So this morning's number
is 16, as Don was hinting at, because take a look at the median date that presidential candidates announce, it's the 16th of March in the year before the general election. So, we are still before that.
Of course, the question is, would you rather be ahead of the game or behind the game? And we can look back at when primary winners announced. OK, when did they announce in the race? Before a cycle's median ten. Compare that to after a cycle's median candidate, five.
[08:55:01]
So, the bottom line here -- Don looking a little confused but we'll help Don out - is that they -- candidates -- the winners of primaries tend to be the earliest to announce, not, in fact, the latest to announce. You'd rather be ahead of the game than behind the game.
LEMON: You mean typically.
ENTEN: Typically.
LEMON: Because, wait, didn't -- when was the escalator - that was in June or July.
ENTEN: But, remember, he formed an exploratory committee back in March.
LEMON: OK.
ENTEN: So he was technically running before he got down that escalator.
LEMON: OK.
COLLINS: OK, so what about for presidents, because we're all waiting for Biden, wanting to see when he's going to announce?
ENTEN: Yes. So the median date for presidents to announce their re- election, April 30th. So, we are still long before then. Biden still has a lot of time. And I should note, get this, Ronald Reagan didn't announce until October 17th of 1983 for the '84 cycle.
COLLINS: Wow.
ENTEN: So we are still very early. Biden has a lot of time and he has no competitors, so why announce just quite yet.
LEMON: I think Biden already did it. I think he did it at the State of the Union. That's what I think.
ENTEN: He might have. At least informally, right?
LEMON: That's what I think. Yes.
COLLINS: We'll see when -
ENTEN: Informal, like your turtleneck.
LEMON: You're not wearing a tie, so, I mean -
ENTEN: Well, I'm informal, too. That's why we love each other.
COLLINS: All right, Harry Enten, those numbers, thank you, as always.
ENTEN: Thank you.
COLLINS: And -
LEMON: Oh, we're -- that's it? We're done?
COLLINS: That's it.
Thanks for joining us this morning.
CNN "NEWSROOM" starts right after this break.
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