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New Day

Upcoming Election and Foreign Policy; Remembering Joan Rivers - Interview with "Fashion Police" Writer; Georgian Father Who'd Left His Toddler in Hot SUV Got Indicted

Aired September 05, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Apple rolling out some new security measures after nude photos of several female celebrities were leaked online. The company told "The Wall Street Journal" it will use e-mail and push notifications to alert users of activities that could be signs of a security breach. After a launching an investigation, Apple says hackers were able to force their way into the photo collections through phishing attempts.

You know, it's so interesting to me -- you have to be so savvy. And most of us? We have a rudimentary idea what we're doing on the interwebs and with our devices. We have to be so savvy and so vigilant.

BOLDUAN: Let's face the truth.

PEREIRA: What's his face, Kate? What's his ...

BOLDUAN: He agrees.

CUOMO: Thought it wasn't the cloud, thought there were no problems with the cloud.

PEREIRA: Did I say cloud once in my story?

CUOMO: No, you didn't. No.

PEREIRA: Thank you.

CUOMO: You're the best.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: But the company, a little sideways on them right now.

All right, a lot going on in politics this morning so you know what that means. It is time to get "Inside Politics" on "NEW DAY" with John King.

JOHN KING, CNN ANALYST: My goal this morning is to stay out of the cloud.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Good morning to you, and TGIF edition of "Inside Politics." with me to show the reporting in the insight, the Atlantic's Molly Ball. To "Washington Post" Jackie Kucinich. 60 days from the election. We thought we would be talking about Obamacare and the economy and yet foreign policy is dominating. We just gotten to the point that if you pick up "The Washington Post" today, dueling op-eds, dueling essays from Hillary Clinton, pretty sure she's running for president next time, and some guy named Mitt Romney, we are pretty sure he's not running for president next time, but we keep getting him in the national debate.

Here's Hillary Clinton's defending the president's foreign policy while writing a book review about a new book by Henry Kissinger. She says, "This kind of methodical, multi-lateral diplomacy is often slow and frustrating, rarely making headlines at home, but it can pay real dividends and affect the lives of millions of people. And without an effective regional order, the challenges multiply. So, she's defending sort of the go slow talk to people and build alliances. Mitt Romney in what I'll call a counterpunch, you can call it what you want at home says this president has it dead wrong because he's trying to cut military spending. Mitt Romney writes the most ludicrous excuse for shrinking our military derives from the president's thinking, quote, things are much less dangerous now than they were 20 years ago, 25 years ago or 30 years ago. "The safer world trial balloon - Romney writes - "has been punctured by recent events in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, Gaza, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria and Iraq. Failures of imagination - he writes - led to tragedy 13 years ago, a 9/11 reference today. No imagination is required to picture what would descend on the United States if we let down our guard. Let's start first with the fact that is foreign policy going to dominate the final 60 days of this election and then be the early part of the 2016 debate?

MOLLY BALL, THE ATLANTIC: I would say those two questions no and yes. I think that it is background noise to the midterms, but I don't think it's going to be decisive. I think most of these campaigns are still being waged largely on the economy or on issues specific to those states, not so much on Obamacare. We haven't heard as much about Obamacare as we expected. But absolutely this is going to be the debate in 2016 especially with Hillary Clinton at the center of it. It inevitably will be, but, you know, it's interesting how neither of these op-eds really grapple with the foreign policy issues of the day. You know, we have Hillary Clinton sort of arguing in the abstract for this sort of pragmatism, and interestingly aligning herself with the legacy of Kissinger, sort of cleverly appropriating him to her philosophy saying I'm like him. We both believe in the complicated thing, but she doesn't give any answers. She doesn't take sides on any of the debates going on and Romney is the same way. He's saying we shouldn't cut the military. Well, that's not the debate we're having right now. He's not weighing in on whether we should intervene against ISIS or any of the actual problems that we currently face.

JACKIE KUCINICH, THE WASHINGTON POST: But you do wonder going into 2016, traditionally voters don't really vote on foreign policy, and you wonder with Hillary Clinton as a candidate potentially if that's going to change.

KING: That's what - I think the debate within the Republican feel. Now, Romney has stepped forward and most of the establishment is grateful because they - even though he lost the last election, they'd rather he'd be their front man right now because they have such a debate among the potential 2016 class. One of them is Rand Paul, who sometimes his greatest asset is his dad and libertarian base around the country, sometimes his greatest liability is his dad because of his dad's views, especially about projecting military force. Rand Paul writes in "Time" magazine in another essay, "Some pundits are surprised that I support destroying the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria militarily. They shouldn't be. I've said since I began public life I'm not an isolationist nor am I an interventionist."

He says he calls them as he sees them, and in this case he says the president is dead wrong and should be more robust muscular-wise. Is that a surprise?

BALL: It isn't to people like me who have been watching Rand Paul carefully and actually listening to what he's saying, but Rand Paul has been frustrated his entire career that he has been caricatured and tagged with this isolationist label and he is trying to establish an identity. That is a little bit more complex in it. In that respect this current crisis is a little bit of a gift for him because it gives him an opportunity to say here's something I would do, see, I'm not for just retreating to our borders and never doing anything. Here's some - here's a case and he can say, you know, this is a case by case thing for me, I think that we shouldn't as involved as we are in some places, but in other places that's a different calculus.

KING: And the skepticism is not just from us. The Republican establishment and it's probably unfair to your point, maybe unfair to Rand Paul, at some degree that they don't give him a chance to make his case. They just say Ron Paul's son, we don't want that.

KUCINICH: And some of the things that he's said on the floor, some of his filibusters and drones, and things like that, the John McCain, Lindsey Graham establishment wing of the Republican Party is very nervous about Rand Paul's growing popularity in places like Iowa and a potential - his potential of being a strong Republican candidate, so I think, as you said, that this is kind of a -- not a love letter, but, hey, guys, it's going to be OK. I actually - I'm not my dad.

KING: Well, at least he specifically lays out his views in this essay. There's another guy who we think of who is perhaps a Republican likely candidate for president in 2016. He's also the governor of a big state, he's the head of the National Republican Organization, the Republican Governors Association. He's Chris Christie, if you haven't figured it out by now. He's on a big trip to Mexico. State business, he says. Now, you would think, though, the governor of a big state, somebody who might run for the presidency when in Mexico might want to talk about the border, might want to talk about immigration policy. Chris Christie says oh, no, no. Don't ask me that question. I'm only answer that question if. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) NEW JERSEY: If and when I become a candidate for president of the United States. Until that time I have no role in the immigration debate except for how it may affect the individual citizens of New Jersey which I'll deal with as governor, but I won't have anything to say on immigration unless and until I become a candidate for president of the United States. If that happens, then I will articulate a full position on it, and then you guys can pick it apart and praise it or damn it however you like. But until that time it's not my job and it's not my role, and I understand everybody wants to start a campaign that I haven't even decided I want to be in right now. Just not going to do it.

KING: Just not going to do it.

BALL: I mean, I just always think this is so unattractive when candidates weasel out of things like this, and you understand why he's doing it, right? Nobody wants to touch immigration. I mean it's as hard for President Obama as it is for a potential Republican candidate, but a position shouldn't be something that you take because you have to, because it's part of the technical requirements of the job you're seeking. You should care about stuff. You should care about issues and have feelings about them and policies that your vision says that we should pursue and I think this sort of calculating image is going to be bad for Christie and it cuts against some of the sort of straight talking image he previously tried to cultivate.

KUCINICH: Well, I also think. He's also seeing some of his contemporaries completely implode over, you know, either on the debate stage or even before they get there on the topic of immigration. So, you know, we understand, again, why he's doing this. But it does - it does - it's a little cynical.

BALL: It's the easy way out. Absolutely.

KING: He understands its quicksand. Immigration is quicksand.

Let's close with Arkansas. Yet another poll, we have a CNN RC poll showing yet another big Senate race essentially a dead heat. The Republican Tom Cotton is on top, 49 percent, to the incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor's 47 percent and if you look deeper into the poll, one of the bigger questions we have is will the president be a drag? Especially, in this red states in the South. There's the president's approval rating, 33 percent disapprove, 60 percent. So, the president is a drag. The president is way under water in Arkansas and yet, give Tom Cotton, he's a member of the House, he's ahead, but that's margin of error. This is yet another race we're going to take right to Election Day.

BALL: Absolutely. I was just in Arkansas a couple of weeks ago and spent a lot of time with Tom Cotton and a little bit of time with Mark Pryor, and there is this persistent narrative that he's sort of underperforming, that even though he has been ahead rather consistently by a small margin in a lot of the recent polling, people wonder why he's not doing better given that this is a state that Mitt Romney won by 23 points, given that President Obama's approval rating is in the low 30s. Mark Pryor and a lot of these sort of red state Democrats are finding ways to sort of defy gravity and at least stay in the fight even if they are behind. KING: The Pryor family name is a big brand in Arkansas as well. We'll watch this one play out a number. Great Senate races, that's why 60 days left, ladies and gentlemen. That's why we love "Inside Politics."

BOLDUAN: Mark your calendars.

KING: A long way to go.

BOLDUAN: I can see you in your office right now. 60 days, check, can't wait.

KING: No, the point is get out of my office and get out there.

BOLDUAN: Oh, sorry.

CUOMO: Oh, no, it's true. You're great out on the Hustings, there's no question about it, but it's almost maddenesque when you were up at the - what do you guys call that thing again, the magic wall?

BOLDUAN: It's called the John King Wall?

CUOMO: The John King Wall.

BOLDUAN: But it's the magic wall.

CUOMO: When you're up there and you're drawing your circles and you're saying your things and you're looking pack to camera, I'm like, I'm so informed. I love it.

KING: But it can't give me barbecue and beer so I've got to get on the road.

BOLDUAN: Exactly.

CUOMO: I'll bring it to you.

BOLDUAN: The King cast.

The Hamby cast has just a ring to it, John.

KING: No, he can have the fame and glory. I just want the barbecue and beer.

BOLDUAN: Exactly. There you go. Thanks, John.

CUOMO: I respect that. Man law.

BOLDUAN: Have a great weekend.

Coming up next on "NEW DAY," remembering the funny lady Joan Rivers. We're going to talk with one of her close friends who visited her on her death bed in the hospital and also take a look at more of her trailblazing moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): But it's you I like. Every part of you. Your skin, your eyes, your feelings, whether old or new. I hope that you'll ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOAN RIVERS: And the legs go on and on and on, like Gwyneth Paltrow when someone asks her about kale. That dress has more creases than my face did before Botox. It looks like it's going to split at any minute, like Beyonce and Jay-Z. I'm scared.

I do it upside down glass because I've not seen cups this empty since I did shots with Dina Lohan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: The hilarious and searing Joan Rivers on "The Fashion Police" say special that taped just last week. Our next guest had the pleasure and delight of not only calling Joan Rivers his boss, but also his friend. We're joined this morning by Tony Tripoli, head writer of E!'s "Fashion Police." Tony, what a pleasure to have you here today.

TONY TRIPOLI, HEAD WRITER, E!'S "FASHION POLICE": Thank you. I'm really.

PEREIRA: How are you doing?

TRIPOLI: I'm so honored to get to go anywhere and talk about how great Joan was.

PEREIRA: You miss your friend already.

TRIPOLI: Oh, yeah, it's terrible. It's horrible.

PEREIRA: Let's talk about how you know her in the first time, because as you sat down, you said that very thing to me that I'll talk about Joan anywhere because she literally changed my life in less than ten minutes.

TRIPOLI: Oh, yeah, I was writing on a different show at the E! Network and I went and so her documentary, a piece of work on a Monday night, and I had -- I had sort of missed it in the theaters that summer. I was sort of busy so I went by myself on a Monday night. Because I was about to leave and I was the last of the four writers on this TV show to have seen it, and we were literally discussing the documentary when the phone on my desk rang and it was the publicity department at E! saying we're bringing "Fashion Police" back with Joan Rivers. She doesn't like the commercials. She wants three funny gay guys to come to her house tomorrow and write new commercials.

PEREIRA: And you are like "check". TRIPOLI: And so, I was like, of course, and, you know, my bosses let me go, and I showed up to Melissa's House and sat in that dining room where Joan and I have written thousands of jokes since, you know, and after about ten minutes she said I need to talk to you in the kitchen.

PEREIRA: What did she say?

TRIPOLI: And I thought, oh, this is my childhood hero is going to tell me I was too obnoxious or too pushy and she said you're the head writer of "Fashion Police" and I said I have no credits. The network is never going to let me be the head writer of her show and she said it's done and I got a phone call that night from the network.

PEREIRA: We hear from people time and time again about her unrelenting generosity to people in terms of those kind of statements.

TRIPOLI: Everyone in her organization has a story about randomly bumping into her and having their life changed by her.

PEREIRA: Do you think it's because of her own story? Because we know that it was a struggle. We know there are times when she thought she was never going to work again.

TRIPOLI: Yeah.

PEREIRA: Do you think it's because of that that she vowed that she would help others where she could?

TRIPOLI: Yeah. Yeah. I think that she -- look, this is a woman who really understood the power of her fame, and any time she could let Joan Rivers, the character, change someone's life or give someone a moment, why work so hard if you can't use -- I mean, there was a big downside to being as famous as she was, you know. There's no privacy.

PEREIRA: And she spoke about that openly.

TRIPOLI: Yeah.

PEREIRA: Yeah. But either she ...

TRIPOLI: But the good side was she could change people's lives any day she wanted.

PEREIRA: She also knew the power of laughter, and her daughter even said that the thing that gave her mom the most joy was the ability to make people laugh, and I was thinking about fashion police. If you watch an episode you realize it is not just about the fashion, it's really just a vehicle for her comedic genius.

TRIPOLI: Oh, it's not about fashion at all. Yeah. I mean I love that we get away with that, but ...

(LAUGHTER)

TRIPOLI: No, it's just Joan getting to talk about what's happening in the world. PEREIRA: And spending time with her, did you have a sense that in the

later years that she was reflecting back on her life and the impact that she had had or the legacy that she ...

TRIPOLI: She hated that stuff.

PEREIRA: Why? Why was that?

TRIPOLI: She hated it - she hated any time anyone wanted to say to her on street, oh, Joan, I'm a comedian and I'm the reason I got into standup or thank you, you paved the way. She hated all of that stuff. She was the least sentimental person in terms of her own accomplishments. She hated it. And it was four years since the day we met on July 28th and we were doing - we were writing a "Fashion Police" show that night, and I said to her, "All right, I know you hate this stuff, but today is our four-year anniversary and I just want to thank you for - and she said stop, we'll talk when it's 25 years.

PEREIRA: How was it last week? You were working with her up - she was working the day before her procedure?

TRIPOLI: Yeah.

PEREIRA: Tell me about that. How was she? What kind of spirits was she in?

TRIPOLI: She was incredible. She - this is a woman who - how many 81-year-old women do you know that want to talk to you about Rihanna?

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: I don't think there's a single one.

TRIPOLI: She was on another level, and she was always -- so I have these Altoids here.

PEREIRA: I was going to ask you, why - you insisted on bringing Altoids on the set.

TRIPOLI: Joan never, ever did.

PEREIRA: Show the cans, right there, under his hand.

TRIPOLI: Joan never did an interview ever or went anywhere without a tin of Altoids in her hand. She was constantly putting them in her mouth. She was so afraid she was going to, you know, be less than perfect for anyone, and so I -- I just -- I hold her Altoids for her so many times while I've been off camera that I thought, well, this is kind of like having her with us today.

PEREIRA: She had an on and off-screen persona and you got to see a little bit of both. A lot of both. Thanks so much for coming in to share your memories and recollections. I'm sure that you're just happy to just keep her spirit alive the way the rest of us are as well. TRIPOLI: Yeah.

PEREIRA: Tony, thank you so much. And you at home I'm sure you have favorite memories of Joan. Some of those outfits were spectacular she admired for fashion. Giving away necklaces on the street if you complimented her. Let us know on Facebook.com/New Day.

The Georgia father who left his son in the sweltering hot car has been indicted on murder charges. Could there be another arrest in this case? We'll take a look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: So there will be a trial in the case of a father accused of leaving his son to die in a hot car. Justin Ross Harris was just indicted. Eight charges, including murder and child cruelty in the June death of his toddler son Cooper. Now prosecutors are building their case against Harris, and hinting at another arrest. Martin Savidge has more from Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Justin Ross Harris is charged with three counts of murder including malice murder, it's Georgia's most serious crime and opens the door for death.

VIC REYNOLDS, COBB COUNTY DA: Whether or not the state seeks the death penalty in this case will be made decision wise on or before that arraignment date in the next two to three weeks.

SAVIDGE: It was June 18th when Harris pulled into this parking lot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just screamed what have I done loudly.

SAVIDGE: Harris told police he forgot to take 22-month-old Cooper to daycare, instead leaving him strapped in his car seat in an Atlanta area office parking lot for nearly seven hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopped out of the driver's seat, opened the back door, pulled his child out, laid him on the concrete, tried to resuscitate him.

SAVIDGE: Cooper was dead, the tragic accident, Harris said, but police quickly began to doubt dad's story. In a warrant authorities said Harris admitted to Internet searches on child deaths inside vehicles and what temperature it needs to be for that to occur, the next bombshell came during a hearing.

DET. PHIL STODDARD, COBB COUNTY POLICE: He was having up to six different conversations with different women.

SAVIDGE: Investigators said they had evidence this father and husband yearned to be single leading a sexually charged double life with multiple women on the Internet, sexting even the day his son was dying. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were photos sent back and forth between these

women and the defendant during this day when the child was out in the car?

STODDARD: Yeah, there are photos of his exposed penis, erect penis being sent, there are also photos of women's breasts being sent back to him.

SAVIDGE: Thursday Harris' attorney reiterated his client's innocence slamming prosecutors for charging a broken man with multiple confusing counts of murder.

MADDOX KILGORE, ATTORNEY FOR JUSTIN ROSS HARRIS: And now an indictment that includes three counts of murder, but we still don't know what the state's theory is.

SAVIDGE: Meanwhile, the D.A. implied there could be another arrest.

REYNOLDS: The evidence in this case has led us to this point today. Whether or not it leads us to anyone else remains to be answered.

SAVIDGE: A not so subtle reference that an attorney for Harris' wife and Cooper's mother felt was directed at his client, Leanna Harris. "By now I would think they would have been able to make a final decision and clear her from any wrongdoing." The case that has already shocked many is only just beginning, Martin Savidge, CNN, Marietta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Our thanks to Martin for that. Coming up on "NEW DAY," President Obama, of course, leading the charge against ISIS at the NATO summit. But how many allies are willing to spend the blood and treasure it will take? Some surprises may be in store for the president, coming up.

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