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New Day
Putin Meets with Pope; Additional Troops to Iraq; New Cholesterol Drugs Nearing Approval. Aired 8:30-9a ET
Aired June 10, 2015 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:32:05] CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for the five things to know for your new day.
Number one, a source tells CNN a woman who works at a New York prison where two convicts escaped, she admits she planned to be the get-away driver, but Joyce Mitchell apparently got cold feet at the last minute.
The Texas cop who tossed a 14-year-old girl to the ground and pulled his gun on teenagers at a pool party, he has resigned. Former Corporal Eric Casebolt reportedly in hiding this morning after receiving death threats.
President Obama poised to send some 500 more military personnel to Iraq to accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. It comes after ISIS fighters seized control of Ramadi.
Washington, D.C., on high alert after a series of phoned-in bomb threats. The threats caused the evacuation of parts of the West Wing and on Capitol Hill. President Obama and the first family were not evacuated.
A rookie pitcher tossed in the first no-hitter of the Major League Baseball season. The Giant's Chris Heston did it Tuesday night against the New York Mets at Citi Field in a 5-0 gem.
For more on the five things to know, go to newdaycnn.com for the latest.
Alisyn.
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: OK, Christine.
Well, Russian President Vladimir Putin seeking a sympathetic ear from Pope Francis. He's set to meet this morning with the pontiff at the Vatican just a few hours from now. So what's on their agenda? CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson is live for us at St. Peter's Square.
It looks beautiful. What are they going to talk about?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We can expect Ukraine to be on the agenda. We can expect the plight of Christians in the Middle East to be on the agenda. Something of a tight rope for the pope to walk on with this one. Of course, President Putin comes here at a time when he's isolated from access to big international leaders. He was shut out of the G-7 just a few days ago. He's come to Italy to get sort of elevated on the global stage, meeting the pope.
But the pope has been criticized by Catholics in Ukraine, and they're about 4 to 5 million of them there, because the pope, when he last spoke about Ukraine, he talked about it as fratricide. And for many in Ukraine, they feel that the pope should have been much clearer, the Catholics in Ukraine feel he should have been much clearer, blaming President Putin and Russia for their involvement annexing Crimea and their involvement in Ukraine. So the hope is that he will take a tougher line. The reality is that the pope likes to be a peacemaker, likes to be in the middle and build bridges. And, of course, the pope knows if he wants to unite the Christians around the world, which he does, he really needs President Putin's support. President Putin really has a lot of the orthodox Christians - and there are about 225 million of them around the world. He has their ear. So the pope, in a way, needs President Putin as well. They have some commonalities. But on this issue of Ukraine, that's something where the pope's likely to be talking about building and peaking peace, Alisyn.
CAMEROTA: It will be fascinating, Nic, to see if the pope can persuade Putin. Thanks so much for that report.
[08:34:59] Well, does the U.S. have a winning strategy to beat ISIS. We will ask General Wesley Clark when he joins us next.
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[0839:07] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We don't yet have a complete strategy, because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis as well about how recruitment takes place, how that training takes place. And so the details of that are not yet worked out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: All right, well, that was President Obama on Monday admitting the White House strategy against ISIS is incomplete. Now, news out of the White House this morning that the president is considering sending hundreds more U.S. troops to Iraq.
Let's bring in retired General Wesley Clark. He's the former NATO supreme allied commander and a senior fellow at the UCLA-Burkle Center. He's also the author of "Don't Wait for the Next War."
General Clark, great to see you this morning.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), SENIOR FELLOW, UCLA BURKLE CENTER: Thank you, Alisyn. Good to be here.
CAMEROTA: All right, let's start with the news this morning that the president is considering something like 400 to 500 more troops to be sent to Iraq in some sort of training capacity. Is that a big enough number to change the direction of what's happening in Iraq?
[08:40:09] CLARK: I think if you send that number of troops in as training and you put them in the right place with the Sunni tribes, you can make an impact. And, Alisyn, what this is about is trying to do two things at the same time. Number one, we want to retard, slow down, ISIS and contain it and eventually crush it. But at the same time, we don't want Iran to take over Iraq and dominate the Middle East. That's not good for the United States or for our allies in the region.
CAMEROTA: Right.
CLARK: So there's a game being played inside the government of Iraq. Under Iranian pressure, the Iraqi government is refusing to provide full assistance to the Sunni tribes, even the tribes who might be willing to confront ISIS. And so the United States has been putting pressure on the Iraqi government and the United States is taking more and more direct efforts to arm and equip these tribes. And so that's what's going on.
CAMEROTA: Right.
CLARK: There's a law that's been held up in the Iraqi parliament that would create a national guard for these - in the province of Anbar for these Sunni tribes. The Shia militia are actually getting government support, even though they're militia.
CAMEROTA: Right.
CLARK: They're getting government support. The Sunnis saying, why aren't we? And there are some Sunni tribes that have always been opposed to the Shia dominated Iraqi government. These tribes are drawn toward ISIS because they see ISIS as an alternative. They may not agree with everything ISIS does or says -
CAMEROTA: Right.
CLARK: But they agree with it more than being dominated by Iran.
CAMEROTA: Well, they're -
CLARK: So the United States is trying to work a balancing act.
CAMEROTA: And therein lies the very complication, you've laid it out perfectly, which is the Sunnis are asking for help and the U.S., in fact the White House, has just said that it does want to work with the Sunnis and to help train the Sunnis, but it's complicated.
CLARK: That's right.
CAMEROTA: How will the U.S. vet the Sunni tribes to figure out what their true alignment is?
CLARK: Well, I think it's not just the Sunni tribes. I mean they - the Sunni tribes, some will rally to the government given the right support from the United States, but it's more about the Iraqi government. It's about how do you break the grip inside the Dawa (ph) party of the Iranian influence that is, Iran wants to play a game. What they would like to do is they would like to have the Iraqi government become a pure Shia government. They'd like to crush the Sunnis, marginalize them, use ISIS as a way to get the United States to fight against the Sunni extremists and at the same time use the Iraqi government to keep the legitimate Sunnis, let's say, out of influence inside Iraq. They want to dominate Iraq.
So this is a sort of three-way struggle.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CLARK: And it really comes down to, more importantly, a struggle inside the government of Iraq and especially inside the Dawa party -
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CLARK: Which is Prime Minister Abadi's party.
CAMEROTA: General, let's talk about what the president said yesterday where he admitted no complete strategy yet to fight ISIS. Why isn't there a strategy, since this has been going on now for almost a year?
CLARK: Well, I think there's a U.S. strategy, but it's not - when he says it's not a complete strategy, to make it fully operative you've got to have the cooperation from the partners on the ground. And the biggest partner that hasn't cooperated is the government of Iraq. Of course they would like it -
CAMEROTA: But what is the strategy? I mean when you say that you think there is a strategy, how do you define that strategy?
CLARK: Sure. Well, I mean, the objective is to contain and eventually destroy ISIS. You've got to go after both ISIS in Iraq and ISIS in Syria. But in the near term, what you've got to do is prevent the continuing encroachment of ISIS in Iraq. So they've just taken Ramadi. You've got to build up the Iraqi forces. You've got to support them. And the people of Iraq have to believe in their own government enough and their way of life enough to fight against ISIS. That's the problem.
CAMEROTA: Because, you know, the president was saying yesterday that part of why there's no complete strategy is because he's waiting for the generals in the Pentagon to present one. What's taking them so long?
CLARK: I think the generals are understandably reluctant to recommend putting U.S. ground troops in because if you Americanize this fight, you lose. It serves as a great big recruiting magnet. So the generals are sort of stuck on the problem of the politics of the Iraqi government. And to be honest with you, that's not a military problem. That's a problem for U.S. diplomacy and U.S. leadership.
CAMEROTA: Yes.
CLARK: So I think we have to take the generals off the hook on this. This is not a generalship problem. This is a national problem for the United States. And it's about whether or not we're going to be able to reduce the influence of Iran in the government of Iraq.
[08:45:12] CAMEROTA: Yes.
CLARK: And that's complicated, because we've still got the Iranian nuclear talks going on.
CAMEROTA: Absolutely. I mean, there's this whole chess game.
It's difficult.
CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for laying it out. General Wesley Clark, nice to see you.
CLARK: Thank you, Alisyn
CAMEROTA: We'd love to know what you think about all of this. You can tweet us using #newdaycnn, you can post your comment on Facebook/newday, you can find me as well on Twitter @AlisynCamerota.
Let's get over to Christine.
ROMANS: Thanks, Alisyn. If you suffer from heart disease, good news. The FDA is recommending the approval of new drugs that could change your life. We're taking a closer look.
And a quick programming note. CNN's new original series "THE SEVENTIES" premieres Thursday night at 9:00. Here's a sneak peek at the program that takes you through the decade of cultural evolution.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The '70s awakened us and polarized us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The 1970s saw the development of terrorism.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was bombshell after bombshell after bombshell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watergate scandal broke wide open today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I hear the 1970s, I think more. More hair, more naked people, more misbehavior.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The world is getting crazy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The culture evolution just kind of exploded in kind of fascinating chaos emerged.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because of what was going on, people came home and they wanted to laugh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want one picture taken with Archie Bunker and me. One, two, three.
(LAUGHTER) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a period of discovery for a lot of people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My only defense was, it was the '70s.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dynomite! (ph)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[08:50:48] CAMEROTA: Big developments this morning for the millions of Americans at risk of heart disease. An FDA panel recommending the approval of new drugs shown to drastically lower levels of bad cholesterol. These drugs could be more potent and carry fewer side effects than statins.
How do they work? Joining us to explain, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Morning.
CAMEROTA: Hi, Sanjay. Great to see you. So this sounds like a game- changer. Is it a big deal?
GUPTA: It is a big deal, there's no question. I mean, statin drugs have been around since the late '80s. They're an effective drug to lower people's cholesterol and we know people who have had heart problems, you lower your cholesterol, you reduce the risk of having more heart problems.
What the issue has been for some time is there's some people who just either don't respond to these medications or the medications give them too many side effects. So that's been the sort of goal for a long time, how do we take care of those people, and that's what this new class of drugs is really all about.
ROMANS: It replaces the statins that some people take and they can't really tolerate or people who couldn't take statins at all.
GUPTA: That's right. Because of side effects. The side effects are not small. You can get significant muscle pain. And if you have muscle pain, you're supposed to be exercising, that's what your doctor tells you to do, you can't exercise. People have complained of memory loss. So could this fill that option there for them?
CAMEROTA: So how do they work?
GUPTA: A lot of cholesterol lowering drugs work in different ways. What this does, it actually blocks a certain enzyme in the liver and makes the liver more able to absorb cholesterol and basically get it out of the system. The body can do a good job of regulating your cholesterol; both makes cholesterol and can get rid of cholesterol. But in some people, it makes it well but doesn't get rid of it well. This sort of tries to eliminate it from the system. ROMANS: Remind us why it's so bad to have high cholesterol and what
your levels should be.
GUPTA: OK, so this is really important. I mean, everyone knows cholesterol. We've been talking about cholesterol being bad and for the most part, it is. What it can do is it can start to clog up your arteries, essentially, because of a bad cholesterol known as LDL.
But what is interesting, Christine, I think this is a really important point, is that people who have high cholesterol but have never had a history of a heart problem, have no current heart problems at all, there's not a lot of evidence that statins are necessary for them. Who they're really necessary for is people who have high cholesterol and have had a history of heart problems.
There's a lot of people out there who are taking statin medications who probably don't need to be and are probably not getting any benefit from that.
CAMEROTA: Are they being harmed by it?
GUPTA: Well, you know, there can be side effects from these statin medications. Again, you know, if you're developing muscle problems, memory loss, people have been taking these medications for a long time, there could be problems with it. There's a lot of cost involved as well. This debate around this new class of drugs has sort of reinvigorated that whole thing as well. Do we overmedicate? And the answer is probably yes.
ROMANS: Let's talk about cost because if you cannot - Maybe you can save money on the statin side, maybe people are taking statins that don't need to be, but is this - Critically, this new drug combination is also expensive.
GUPTA: It's so expensive. First of all, it's an injectable as opposed to an oral pill. You would inject this maybe twice a month or once a month, depending on how often you needed it. Take a look at that number there. Up to $12,000 a year. I did the math on this. If you look at the people who would likely qualify for this under the current system, you're talking up to 150 billion a year for one class of drugs. We spent a lot of healthcare in this country, $4 trillion. Even by those standards, this is a lot of money. We're talking about one class of drugs, $150 billion a year.
CAMEROTA: Have we just given up on trying to control this through diet?
GUPTA: I haven't. I'm here on your show all the time preaching this stuff.
CAMEROTA: How do you lower your cholesterol through diet?
GUPTA: We know certain foods, foods that are high in saturated fats are going to lead to increased cholesterol. We know that sugar - people are surprised by this - but sugar actually has a translatable (ph) effect on your cholesterol. If you eat too much sugar, you can actually raise your cholesterol. In fact, some people will say if you put a big sugary soda in front of somebody and a cheeseburger, the sugary soda may in fact they have a higher propensity to increase your cholesterol.
CAMEROTA: Fascinating.
GUPTA: So yeah, I mean, diet, we should not throw in the towel on diet.
ROMANS: But both of them consumed together taste really good.
[08:55:00] CAMEROTA: It does.
GUPTA: I can see where your mind is at. In about six minutes you're out of here to get one.
(LAUGHTER)
CAMEROTA: Sanjay, thanks so much.
GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.
CAMEROTA: We have "The Good Stuff" next.
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CAMEROTA: Welcome back, everyone. Chris has left to go on assignment. We've gotten a major upgrade here with Christine and Sanjay. That's great. Great to have both of you guys for "The Good Stuff."
So listen to this story. When a Washington State firefighter ran into a burning home 17 years ago, he did not expect to find that nine- month-old girl inside. But he knew he found her just in the nick of time.
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MIKE HUGHES, RETIRED FIREFIGHTER: Another 20 seconds and it would have been a different outcome.
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ROMANS: Wow. 20 seconds.
CAMEROTA: Well, seven years ago, with the experience still fresh in his mind, he searched for that little girl and he found her. Dawnielle Davison, he found her on Facebook and they have stayed in touch since then and their worlds collided again Saturday at Dawnielle's high school graduation. Seated among family and friends in the audience was the man whose bravery all those years ago made that special day possible.
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[09:00:00] DAWNIELLE DAVISON, REUNITED WITH MAN WHO SAVED HER LIFE AS A BABY: I don't really know how to describe it. They're happy tears, just to realize that, you know, some things could have gone wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: That's beautiful.
ROMANS: How special.
CAMEROTA: That is so nice. Look at that.
