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New Day

Real Face of Heart Disease; Egypt Airstrikes Target ISIS; CNN Quiz Show Results

Aired February 17, 2015 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here it is, the five things you need to know for your NEW DAY.

At number one, government and business representatives from 60 countries are heading to the White House for a summit on extremism in hopes of slowing a flurry of radicalization in the west.

President Obama's executive action on immigration on hold this morning after a federal judge issued a temporary block. The Justice Department plans to appeal.

An environmental crisis could now be brewing in West Virginia. A train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded, sending oil into one of the county rivers that is used as a source of drinking water.

Whoo, this bitter blast of winter weather is dragging on. Yes, more ice, more snow along the East Coast. Temperatures in New England could actually climb into the 30s, yet more snow is expected later this week.

And today is Fat Tuesday, the start of Mardi Gras. Revelers have already kicked off celebrations in New Orleans. Get the party going now. Lent begins tomorrow.

We do update those five things to know, so be sure to visit newdaycnn.com for the latest.

Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Mic, it's time for today's "Impact Your World." Women everywhere are wearing red this month to raise awareness about heart disease, the number one killer of women. Did you know that? I didn't know it either until TV personality Star Jones told me. She fought and won her own battle against heart disease. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO (voice-over): Star Jones wears many hats, attorney, author, TV personality. But the one she takes most seriously is heart health advocate.

STAR JONES, HEART HEALTH ADVOCATE: Heart disease is not an old white guy's disease. Heart disease can affect any woman any time, any race, any size, any age.

CUOMO: A reality that slapped Jones in the face. After being morbidly obese for more than 20 years, she had gastric bypass surgery, changed her eating habits, and started exercising. Eventually she lost 160 pounds.

JONES: I thought I had accomplished everything I needed to on the health front, and then I got diagnosed with heart disease.

CUOMO: Even though Jones felt and looked great, she was getting lightheaded, experienced shortness of breath, and was exhausted.

JONES: Those are classic symptoms of heart disease, especially when it comes to women.

CUOMO: Symptoms some women may just chalk up to their busy lives.

JONES: Women don't take care of our health in the same way we take care of our families.

CUOMO: Something Jones vowed to change after she had open heart surgery.

JONES: I sort of wear my heart scar as a badge of honor because it means I'm a survivor.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: And Star's goal is for there to be many more women like her who have survived. So, of course you want to help. Go to fight -- no, don't go to fight, go to cnn.com/impact and then fight.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: It's a great reminder. That's a great reminder -

CUOMO: Right.

PEREIRA: Sure is.

CAMEROTA: To hear her talk, her personal story.

Well, the White House hosting a summit on extremism. As we've been telling you, this starts today. And it's trying to fight radicalization, but why are there such low expectations for this summit? We'll explore that.

PEREIRA: And it's happened, folks. CNNN - CNN, I added an "n" to that -- crowns the winner of its very first quiz show. Who knew the most about presidential trivia? Oh, that answer is ahead, in case you missed it last night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Egypt unleashing a second round of airstrikes against ISIS targets. Retribution for the beheadings of more than a dozen Egyptian Christians. And today the White House begins a summit aimed at countering terrorism, but that summit is already getting criticism. Let's bring in Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, he's our counterterrorism expert and senior fellow at the Foundation of Defense and Democracies, and Philip Mudd, he's our CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA counterterrorism official.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. We'll get to the summit in a minute. But let's talk about the news of the day and what's happening that Egypt is doing.

Phil, I'll start with you. In the past 24 hours, Egypt has launched more airstrikes in Libya on ISIS targets. Do we know what they're hitting and if they're making a dent?

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: No, I don't, but I look at what they talked about from the outset and it wasn't what I would expect to see if we're going to succeed. They talked about revenge. They did not talk about a campaign that might endure long enough to really incapacitate ISIS and that's a campaign I would anticipate lasting potentially years.

I don't have a lot of faith that the Egyptians can do a lot of damage here. I think what they're doing is striking a few targets just to prove politically back home that they're going to avenge the loss of those 21 Coptic Christians. I don't see a lot coming out of this.

CAMEROTA: Well, the Egyptians say they're doing more than just hitting a couple of targets. Last night the foreign minister was on CNN talking to Erin Burnett. Let me play for you what he said, they go beyond airstrikes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAMEH SHOUKRY, EGYPT FOREIGN MINISTER: And we have undertaken activities related to restricting the finances and recruitment measures of ISIS. This is participation of a military nature. And we will continue to support the coalition and be part of it in various degrees and through various measures.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, so various measures, Daveed he's saying in terms of financing, in terms of recruitment and military. Are you hopeful about Egypt's role?

DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS, COUNTERTERRORISM EXPERT: Yes, I am. And part of the reason why is because ISIS really is not a major player in Libya. They finally have a geographic stronghold in Libya, which they did not have before. They're able to take over the city of Nafolia (ph), which, you know, all of your viewers, I guarantee, would have to look this up on a map. I had to look it up on a map and I follow Libya day to day. And the reason why is because Nafolia is a marginal town. It has about 10,000 people in it. After they tried to get a stronghold in Derna and make inroads there and really were less successful than most people thought, they conquered this out of the way town, which didn't have other jihadist presence. If you look at the major war in Libya, it's between two different

coalitions, the dignity coalition and the Don (ph) coalition. The Don coalition includes a variety of actors, some of which are Islamist leaning, some of which are in there based upon geography. But when the Islamic state carried out its attack in Tripoli against that hotel which hosts western diplomats, the security forces that were against them were part of the Don coalition, the coalition that's frequently thought of as an Islamist-leaning coalition.

So there's a variety of actors. ISIS is not the big actor in Libya. And the other place where you have an ISIS presence is in Egypt Sinai, where a jihadist group, Amsar Badel Maktis (ph), recently, back in November, took a pledge of diad (ph) or allegiance to ISIS. And since then the Egyptian state has also gone hard after that group and tried to restrict a lot of the movement of fighters and finances and weaponry into Sinai. So I'm not saying that things are going to go great for Egypt, but ISIS is in a much less strong position in North Africa than it is in Iraq and Syria.

BANFIELD: Phil, any chance that Egypt can play a larger role in the coalition?

MUDD: You know, I think they can. If you look at successful interventions against Islamist groups around the region, you've seen coalitions, the African union successful in Somalia. There are conversations just this week among some of the African countries that border Nigeria where Boko Haram has been such a scourge, I think those conversations are really encouraging. You need a coalition approach to some of these expanding Islamist groups.

So I think if the Egyptians start talking to the Algerians and others and frankly to the Americans about how to sustain an effort over time, this could be successful. But the Egyptians alone, given the chaos we've seen in Libya after the fall of Gadhafi, I don't think can resolve the problem there.

CAMEROTA: OK, Daveed, let's talk about this summit. This is happening at the White House starting today. It's already being criticized. One of the things that pundits say they don't like is that it is about how to combat extremism, but they're not calling it Islamic extremism, they're just saying extremism. How do you feel about that?

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I think it's a matter of rhetoric. It's not problematic. There are a variety of kinds of extremism and we just saw an apparent act of extremism in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in which Muslims were the victims and not the perpetrators. But that being said, I think part of the question with respect to this problem of the growth of jihadism is, it has grown massively over the course of the past four years and it seems to me that the White House still doesn't have a good understanding as to why that's happening. I mean we're 14 years into the global war on terrorism and you just had this ground breaking article in the "Atlantic" by Graham Wood (ph) arguing that we should take ISIS's theology seriously. The fact that 14 years into Jiwad (ph) we're still arguing about whether religious ideas matter indicates that I think we don't have a good understanding of the extent to which these groups are able to have their message permeate. CAMEROTA: Phil, we don't have much time, but what do you want to see

come out of this White House summit?

MUDD: What I want to see happen won't happen, and that is, if there are conversations about how to talk to kids at risk in major American cities, I think those could be successful. Sort of like gang intervention programs. I fear, though, that we're going to try to say that we can counter message ISIS in a world that is the Islamic world where we have no credibility. If I were at this conference, I'd be taking a nap because if that's the message, we don't have anywhere to go.

CAMEROTA: All right, Philip Mudd, always great to get your perspective on things.

MUDD: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, thanks so much, gentlemen.

GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Thanks.

CAMEROTA: Let's go back to Chris.

CUOMO: Alright. So the game show thing happened. Alisyn and Jake won, answering ridiculously hard questions like, "Who's on a $20 bill," while others were asked to basically tell where Millard Fillmore was at 7:00 a.m. on a certain Tuesday. If that sounds fair to you, then you must have loved it.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Somebody didn't even have to participate, so of course, you like it now.

(UNKNOWN): I was not asked.

CUOMO: We'll have them.

(UNKNOWN): Spoiler alert.

CUOMO: We'll have them on. They'll get (inaudible).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Was Richard Nixon in a press conference November 17, 1973, denying his involvement in the Watergate cover-up? The president resigned, of course, less than a year later.

What was the name of the secret informant known as "Deep Throat" that worked with reporters to bring down the president?

The name of "Deep Throat" that worked with reporters to bring down the president?

OK. Answer?

TAPPER: Who is Mark Felt?

(UNKNOWN): That is correct.

Let's take a look at how much you wagered. 400 points. That brings you 10 points above, so you get it. 1170.

Jake and Alisyn, you guys win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That was for the win. "New Day's" own Alisyn Camerota, her triumphant partner, "The Lead's" Jake Tapper, beating out John Berman and Erin Burnett in CNN's first-ever quiz show.

Jake joins us this morning, almost carried into the studio on the shoulders of Alisyn.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: What he was throughout the whole show...

TAPPER: Indeed, indeed.

CAMEROTA: ... I had to carry Jake, as you saw.

PEREIRA: We should mention the fellow beside you, Chris Cuomo, also was on the show and his partner Don Lemon to...

TAPPER: Chris and Don were participants.

PEREIRA: ... which I believe a competition that only involved three teams. So...

CUOMO: I can't wait for you to do it, Mich. You'll see.

PEREIRA: No. Nothing to say there about that.

Jake, first of all to you, because we heard this one panic. Her process was one of anxiety. She said that you popped quizzes on her during the week.

(LAUGHTER)

You were concerned about her cramming.

Were you a little worried going into this?

TAPPER: I was a little -- we had some dress rehearsals, and I'll admit during the -- during a few of the dress rehearsals, I was a little concerned.

But then -- you can tell what kind of student she was in college also -- she studied the night before, and she came in, and she was a boss.

PEREIRA: She was a boss.

TAPPER: She was a boss.

CAMEROTA: I -- I really only answered probably about three questions right on the show, but I would not have gotten those three had Jake not been a task master and forced me to study.

PEREIRA: But it's also about the strategery, right? Which was one of your words...

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: His -- his strategy was answer every question right before anybody...

TAPPER: That was -- that was part of my strategy, yes, answer questions...

CUOMO: And then Alisyn beat me in the face-off.

CAMEROTA: Well...

CUOMO: But that was all dirty tricks and chicanery.

CAMEROTA: Chicanery?

CUOMO: Oh, yeah. It was a lot of chicanery.

(CROSSTALK)

CAMEROTA: ... mesmerizing you with the eyes?

CUOMO: You were doing a little bit of the eye. You were doing the lip thing you know I -- I don't like, very susceptible to it.

TAPPER: In other words, you beat him?

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Like an egg.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Like an egg.

TAPPER: I remember. You got -- it was basically two to one. You got two, he got one, and then there was a draw question, I think, also, right?

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Yeah, they took it from me.

TAPPER: You doubled. You doubled.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: My -- my only point is you -- whatever he had, you had twice as much.

CUOMO: Yes.

TAPPER: And then some.

CAMEROTA: I like your stats.

PEREIRA: You won for your -- your charity, Home for the Troops.

TAPPER: Home for our Troops, an amazing charity. People watching, if they can give, should give. They build specially designed, mortgage- free homes for the most severely disabled troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. We're really happy.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: And we were talking, and then we couldn't tell them...

(CROSSTALK)

(UNKNOWN): They know now, though, right?

TAPPER: ... but we said, "Just watch, just watch."

PEREIRA: Great. That's fantastic.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: ... it was a nice thing to do.

Everybody's making it sound like that was a given that we'd play for charity. It wasn't a given. It was a good component of it and to raise money for these organizations...

(UNKNOWN): Absolutely.

CUOMO: We're usually a little handcuffed in doing that. We're not supposed to pick particular charities. You know, Jake does a ton of work for the veterans when he's not on camera.

But it was a nice opportunity to give back to these organizations that we always want to help.

PEREIRA: And then it always feels a bit like, "Oh, we let them down."

Berman's team...

CUOMO: Not for them.

PEREIRA: ... lost by 10 points, right? Is that all it came down to?

TAFFER: You know, this whole 10 point thing, we bet enough so that we would beat them by 10 points.

(CROSSTALK) CAMEROTA: We did the math. That was Jake's. We had done it in the dress rehearsal, and we figured out it worked, so we figured out how to win by 10 points.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Berman didn't show up to work today.

(LAUGHTER)

TAFFER: Is that right?

CUOMO: At least I'm here.

TAFFER: Is he upset? Do you think he's upset?

PEREIRA: There is a bit of controversy brewing, tough. You heard about this.

CUOMO: Not here.

PEREIRA: There's some people -- I'm not going to point fingers -- that are saying that some teams got easier questions than others.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Mediaite is saying it online. They are like the New York, you know -- the Times.

TAPPER: That thing has a Chris Cuomo byline.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Usually, "Cuomo sucks."

(CROSSTALK)

TAFFER: The luck of the draw is they got a very -- they got -- I mean, there were six categories, and of those six categories, in one of them, they got a tough one.

But then they started saying, "Oh, we got first ladies." Why -- why -- that's not tough.

CUOMO: I wasn't getting to the question of the first lady, because Don was making me guess the name of the president before we got to the name...

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: There was no "ade" in that Lemon.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: We'll wrap it up by saying that this victorious team...

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: ... was so united. Look at the fact that they're even dressing alike. You and Jake, matchy-matchy.

TAPPER: My game show wife.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: We are one now.

CAMEROTA: Having lifted the crucible of the quiz show, we are bound for life.

TAPPER: It's like we had a child.

PEREIRA: Yeah. A very specific kind of TV wife.

CAMEROTA: Exactly.

(UNKNOWN): It's nothing like having...

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: Thanks, guys. Jake, congratulations. Alisyn, well done.

CAMEROTA: Thank you.

PEREIRA: And Chris.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: Oh, I can't wait for Mich to be up there. I can't wait. It's going to be a good day.

Alright. So coming up, something you haven't seen from me in this particular segment: chivalry.

But it turns out chivalry is not dead. We have a great story about two high-schoolers in two states who just went crazy with Valentine's Day love, but you're not going to see it coming. That's why it's the good stuff.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Alright. How about a nice little double dose of the good stuff.

Valentine's Day has passed. (inaudible) it didn't get enough attention, so we're going to give it some right now.

Two young men, they're going to celebrate it in a way that's going to last for the ages. Listen to this.

Oklahoma City, high-schooler worked all summer, saves up his cash, just so he could buy all 1,100 girls in his school cards and candy.

Spreading the risk? No. Romance was not his goal. Credit was not his goal. In fact, he tried to stay anonymous.

So why did he do it? The answer...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN WILLIAMS: To know that somebody out there cares about them, because that's one of the best feelings in the world, I think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Alright. And who's better than him?

(UNKNOWN): Nobody. Dan Williams is a rock star.

CUOMO: But this guy may be a tie, because in Utah, a high-schooler there, again with his own money, bought all 650 girls in his school balloons.

PEREIRA: That's so great.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to bring something totally awesome for everyone to do, and, you know, I brought balloons, because who doesn't like a balloon?

(UNKNOWN): Right?

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Romance again not the goal, making peers feel appreciated.

CAMEROTA: Good stuff.

PEREIRA: Good kids, good hearts.

CUOMO: And in no small irony, they are now both fighting off the ladies! I'm sure.

Time for the news from the Newsroom with Ms. Carol Costello -- everybody's favorite Valentine.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Is it Valentine's Day still?

CUOMO: Every day! You have red on.

COSTELLO: That's true. Good, I like that.