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Bush Keeps Up New Strategy To Take On Trump; Immigration Fueling Cruz-Rubio Fight; Reviled CEO Facing Securities Fraud Charges; FBI And U.S. Marshals Join Search For "Affluenza" Teen. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 18, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Moments ago, we listened to and watched my interview with Republican presidential candidate, Jeb Bush. His attacks now squarely aimed at Donald Trump. Make clear he's not backing down from what we saw at the debate, taking on the frontrunner directly.

Here to discuss CNN's senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson, and Washington bureau chief for the "Dallas Morning News," Todd Gilman. Todd, by the way, has covered Ted Cruz for years. Remember that in about a minute and a half.

Nia, I want to start with Jeb Bush. You heard him talking to me last night. Clearly eager to go after Donald Trump whenever he can, he did it in the debate, the super PACs now running ads. I think we are going to see more of that going forward.

Why do you think the Bush campaign thinks this is the strategy that can turn things around for him?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: It's funny. They sort of tried this before, right, it didn't work very well. They are very much thinking that the establishment wants to see someone take on who many people think is a bully. That's what he's doing. He's not only doing that, he's clearly going more media appearances as well.

Right after the debate he was on our air talking to our folks, talking to you last night, although dodging questions that you asked him and not very skillfully, telegraphing his strategy there, which I think in some ways suggest that he's not as nimble a politician as he needs to be. We've seen that kind of impact so far.

CAMEROTA: Now let's talk about Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. We'll remember that Todd has covered Ted Cruz for years. They've continued their argument. It started at the debate this week, about whether or not Ted Cruz ever supported legalization of the 11 million to 12 million undocumented migrants who are here. He says he never did. Marco Rubio says he did support legalization. So listen to what they said on the stump yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SENATOR MARCO RUBIO (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, he's going to have a hard time. He's not told the truth about his position in the past on legalization.

SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I oppose amnesty. I oppose citizenship. I oppose legalization for illegal aliens. I always have and I always will. And I challenge every other Republican candidate to say the same thing or if not, then to stop making silly assertions that their records and my records on immigration are the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Todd, is Ted Cruz telling the truth that he always opposed legalization?

TODD GILMAN, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "DALLAS MORNING NEWS": He really should have stopped before he said I always have and I always will. He hasn't always opposed legalization. There was an episode in 2013 when Rubio was pushing the gang of Eight Comprehensive Reform Bill, which was something that Cruz can and all the migrant opponents can paint as amnesty.

When Cruz did say, here's an amendment, this would be great. It would bring people out of the shadows. There's this way back machine that all of the researchers on Rubio's staff can dip into and pull out quotes where Ted Cruz said he supports legalization. Legalization is different from citizenship.

Cruz has been consistent in opposing citizenship. It's a major problem for Rubio in a Republican primary that he has supported a path to citizenship. There's a major difference between them.

CAMEROTA: We have that way back machine also. It's called videotape. Hit play. Let's do that now from 2013.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: I don't want immigration reform to fail. I want immigration reform to pass and so I would urge people of good faith on both sides of the aisle, if the objective is to pass common sense immigration reform that secures the borders, improves legal immigration and allows those who are here illegally to come in out of the shadows, then we should look for areas of bipartisan agreement and compromise to come together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So here's the thing, Nia. Even if you concede that Marco Rubio is winning this battle over whether Ted Cruz did or did not support legalization at some point, even if Rubio is right and Cruz is fudging things with this, doesn't Cruz win the war here in a Republican primary campaign, particularly in Iowa by discussing immigration at all? Again, with the Republican primary electorate, isn't this the biggest vulnerability for Marco Rubio? [07:35:08] HENDERSON: I think that's right. He's certainly trying to muddy the waters a little bit there as Cruz said in our debate. But you've got people like Rush Limbaugh, like Jeff Sessions, like Steve King, these are kind of lions to conservatives. They're coming out and backing Cruz and saying that the real important

issue here is that Rubio stood next to Chuck Schumer and backed amnesty and Cruz was on other side of it.

They're going to make it as black and white as possible because they know that to a lot of conservatives, particularly in Iowa and the southern states as well, what they call amnesty is a nonstarter for a lot of those voters.

CAMEROTA: Todd, Cruz wasn't on the other side of it. What he said, that was his support of his bill for legalization. That wasn't a poison pill as he's now claiming.

GILMAN: It was a poison pill. Cruz is either fudging now or he was being terrifically disingenuous then. Really, he's doing both. It's vulnerability on both sides. Rubio is clearly vulnerable because he has supported and came out in your debate the other night and continues to be in support of a path to citizenship.

Cruz is vulnerable. This is where Rubio is really getting him because in fact he has been playing the game in the Senate just like everybody plays the game in the Senate. He has been disingenuous. It was a poison pill or it's been something that has flip-flopped.

Rubio is very effectively using this to show that Cruz is not the purest that he presents himself to be. He is using this episode to not just be about immigration, but to be about the Cruz brand of authenticity.

BERMAN: It's interesting seeing two such skillful politicians and campaigners at the top of their games going after each other right now. We will watch this play over the next few days.

Meantime, there's somewhat of a scandal in the Democratic side of the race right now. The DNC has suspended access for Bernie Sanders presidential campaign to Democratic data held at the DNC. Why?

It's complicated but what happened here is that a Sanders campaign staffer actually accessed some data that should have been privileged only to the Clinton campaign. The DNC found out about it.

They suspended not just the staffer -- the Sanders campaign actually fired this guy. The Sanders campaign can't access the DNC data at all. How much of a problem is this for the Sanders people?

HENDERSON: It's a problem because in some ways it goes against the Bernie Sanders brand. He is supposed to be a new breed of politician, very much differentiating himself from Hillary Clinton, who kind of in his view and the view of his supporters are playing the old game of politics, sometimes dirty politics.

And this kind of smashes at that, I mean, this is in some ways it's not quite a fest, but this is proprietary data that the Clinton campaign has paid for. That's where the millions of dollars goes to, gathering this data.

And there you have a Sanders staffer, at least one, accessing it so it's a problem in that way. It's also a problem for the DNC that they don't have a better protector of the data that this data breach was so easy.

It's also a problem for the Bernie Sanders campaign, not only for brand, but the fact that he can't access this data at this crucial moment of the campaign.

CAMEROTA: And very quickly, Todd, is this permanent? They're not going to let the Sanders campaign access voter data base for the rest of this campaign?

GILMAN: It sounds as though the DNC just wants reassurance that this problem has been taken care of, that the ill-gotten games have been discarded and probably this will get patched up. The party is there to provide data on a level playing field. They don't want cheating. You're not supposed to peek at your neighbor's math test. Everybody knows that. We got to play by the rules here.

CAMEROTA: Got it. Todd Gilman, Nia-Malika Henderson, great to see you guys. Thanks so much.

He angered the country when he jacked up the price of an HIV drug 5,000 percent, but now that CEO finds himself in deeper trouble. We'll look at the case against him for alleged securities fraud. That's next.

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[07:43:22]

CAMEROTA: Martin Shkreli, you might not know that name, but you know the story. He is the drug company CEO who infamously hiked the price of an AID and cancer treatment drug by 5,000 percent. He is out on $5 million bond this morning because he was arrested on securities fraud charges.

Those are not related to the price gouging, but rather to Shrkeli's previous business practices. Joining us to discuss this case is CNN senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning.

CAMEROTA: We all remember this scuzzy guy --

TOOBIN: That's the technical term.

CAMEROTA: Who price gouged people at their most vulnerable and hiked up the cost of this most important drug. Now what's up with him?

TOOBIN: It's weird because this is a completely separate scuzzy transaction. CAMEROTA: Shocking.

TOOBIN: Before he bought these drug companies he was involved in a couple of hedge funds. The short version is he basically was taking money out of these hedge funds that was supposed to be for the business, lying to the people who were the investors, and putting it in his own pocket or using it for his own purpose.

CAMEROTA: That's not allowed?

TOOBIN: Not so much, no.

CAMEROTA: Wow. He's unscrupulous on many levels. Did he ever get in trouble for the price gouging?

TOOBIN: Not yet. That's why this has become a political issue because the government in most cases is simply powerless to control the price of drugs and it's very difficult to set up a system where companies can prosper and do what companies do and charge what they need to justify their investments.

[07:45:04]But also make those drugs affordable that's why his case has been such a lightning rod especially for the candidates on the Democratic side.

CAMEROTA: My producer is yelling in my ear that I should keep using the word allegedly. Don't we know that he hiked the price? He hasn't been convicted of price gouging.

TOOBIN: That's where you have to keep the two cases separate. The hedge fund thing is an alleged crime. He is just charged. He's not been convicted. He has definitely raised the prices on all these drugs.

But what makes that case so interesting is that it's not at all clear that there's anything illegal or improper about that. The system may allow that.

The question there is, you know, my mentor in journalism, Michael Kinsley, also used to say, the scandal isn't what's illegal, the scandal is what's legal. The scandal may be that it was legal for him to raise the prices that much on these drugs.

CAMEROTA: I want to shift gears and talk about another major justice issue that's gripping the country, that's gun control.

TOOBIN: Right.

CAMEROTA: President Obama has vowed to make much of 2016 a focus -- to focus on gun control. He recognizes that he can't do it through Congress or Congress has showed very little interest in tackling some of this. He's vowing executive action. What can the president do about gun control?

TOOBIN: The one thing he appears likely to do is there's something that is referred to often as the gun show loophole. Is that when individuals sell guns at, say, a gun show, they don't have to do background checks. If you are a business, you're in the business of selling guns.

You have to do background checks. What the president apparently is going to do is expand the definition of what's a business. And basically try to include more of these private sellers in the group of people who have to do background checks.

The question is, does the president have the legal authority to do that or does he have to get Congress to expand the definition of background checks?

CAMEROTA: What's the answer?

TOOBIN: I don't know. First of all, he hasn't done what he said he's going to do so we can't actually test it. It will wind up in court and a court will have to decide does he have the executive authority.

Now it's certainly true that he has some executive authority to make these definitions, but he can't define gun seller in the way -- in a way that contradicts the actual law. That's going to be the argument. I just don't know how that will be resolved.

CAMEROTA: After these mass shootings, there's often a cry for a ban on so-called assault rifles. I say so-called because gun rights enthusiasts say what makes something an assault rifle? That's a political term.

They're all semiautomatic. You pull the trigger, a bullet fires out. One is black and looks scary and one is brown and you go hunting with it. Let me show you a poll.

This is an ABC News poll for this week, a support for banning so- called assault weapons, 53 percent of Americans oppose that ban, and 45 percent would support it. Can the president do anything on that front?

TOOBIN: That almost certainly not. That would require an act of Congress and Congress is not -- is certainly not inclined to expand control of assault weapons. One of the most amazing things in American politics, in the early '90s when President Clinton passed the Brady Bill, which did limit assault weapons, 80 percent of the country supported banning or restricting assault weapons.

Look at it now. It's more than 50 percent oppose. The anti-gun control position, notwithstanding what we've seen so much in terms of all these shootings, has gained ground in recent years.

CAMEROTA: How do we explain that?

TOOBIN: I think a lot of it has to do with the National Rifle Association and other gun rights supporters saying the only cure for a bad guy with a gun is a good buy with a gun. Whether you believe that or not, they certainly say it a lot.

The Republican Party has embraced the idea that the second amendment to the constitution guarantees a very broad, individual right to bear arms. That was something that the Supreme Court never said until 2008.

So the constitutional argument, which always has a certain resonance in the United States, is an important one. It's a big one now and they now have the Supreme Court on their side.

CAMEROTA: Jeffrey Toobin, always great to get your perspective on all of this. Thanks for being on NEW DAY.

What's your take on this hot topic? Tweet us @newday or post your comment on facebook.com/newday -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals are joining the search for the so-called affluenza teen, Ethan Couch. He received probation for killing four people in a drunk-driving incident. We'll have the latest on the search, next.

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[07:54:01]

PEREIRA: The FBI and the U.S. Marshal Service are now joining the search for Ethan Couch, the Texas teen who has gone missing while serving probation for a deadly drunk driving incident that he caused.

At his sentencing, his defense team said Couch suffered from affluenza, that his wealthy parents didn't teach him right from wrong. Couch and his mother went missing after a potentially incriminating video surfaced. Our Randi Kaye has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look closely at this video. That young man with the blond hair may be Ethan Couch. And if it is, he could be in big trouble. That is because Couch is on probation and isn't supposed to be drinking alcohol. Two and a half years ago at 16, Couch drove in a drunken haze, crashed and killed four people.

Someone posted the video on Twitter earlier this month and the county DA got wind of it. They went to talk to Ethan Couch about it, but it seems he disappeared. His probation officer hasn't heard from him in days and no one knows where he is.

[07:55:12]UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hate to say I told you so but I told so.

KAYE: The county sheriff wanted Couch locked up back in 2013 but one defense witness changed that.

(on camera): In one of the most bizarre defense strategies we've ever heard of, attorneys for Couch blame the boy's parents for his behavior that night all because of how they raised him.

A psychologist and defense witness testified that the boy suffered from something called "affluenza," a lifestyle where wealth brought privilege and there were no consequences for bad behavior.

(voice-over): The so-called "affluenza" defense touched off outrage around the country after all Couch's blood alcohol was three times the legal limit and four people were dead.

But the court bought it. Couch pleaded guilty to intoxication, manslaughter. But instead of going to jail, the judge sentenced him to alcohol rehabilitation and ten years' probation. His father agreed to pay half a million dollars for his son's pricey rehab digs. Victims' families were horrified.

ERIC BOYLES, LOST WIFE AND DAUGHTER IN CRASH: We had over 180 years of life taken, not lived, but 180 years of future life taken and two of those were my wife and daughter.

KAYE: ABC News obtained these deposition tapes from one of the victims' civil suits against Couch. Listen as Ethan Couch's mother admits letting her son drive illegally.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You understood if this at any time he was under 16 he was never to be driving by himself?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nevertheless you allowed that behavior to happen, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When is the last time you recall disciplining Ethan for anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't remember.

KAYE: And now the authorities think Couch might have fled the country with none other than his mother. The boy's attorney would not discuss the case. If authorities do find Couch, a judge will decide if he violated his probation.

A sheriff spokesman says Couch is allowed due process adding cases are not prosecuted or revoke order modified based on hearsay or based on a grainy video that we can't identify someone in. This time Ethan Couch could end up behind bars for a decade. Randi Kaye, CNN, Miami.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: You know, I spoke to the sheriff last night and he says his one hope right now is that Ethan Couch will always wonder, will always look over his shoulder thinking that someone might be there to capture him.

PEREIRA: Let's hope an adult comes to their senses and ends this and brings him in.

BERMAN: Shocking to think that an adult might be involved in him being on the run right now. CAMEROTA: And so it's so sickening to revisit the steps of how they got to that tragedy.

PEREIRA: We're going to talk with a father whose son was injured in that car wreck that Ethan Couch caused. We're also going to speak with a lawyer representing a man whose wife and daughter were killed in that accident. We're following a lot of news. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We will not be terrorized. We've prevailed over much greater threats than this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Paris terrorists communicated with each other using encrypted applications.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fiance, if there are changes we need to make we'll make them in the visa pram.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Bernie Sanders campaign admitting one of its staffers improperly accessed confidential voter information.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The battle between Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio intensifying.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a parent I started to feel impel to tell the story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do you think people in the NFL office feel about you these days?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good morning. It is Friday, December 18th, 8:00 in the east. Chris is off this morning. John Berman is with us. Happy Friday.

President Obama is expected to defend his ISIS strategy at the year- end news conference just a few hours from now. It will be carried live on CNN of course. The president is also reassuring the country that once again we are safe for the holidays.

PEREIRA: The president will then head to California this afternoon and meet with the families of the San Bernardino terror attack that. That visit comes after the arrest of a former neighbor of one of those attackers. Federal agents charging Enrique Marquez with conspiracy to support terrorism.

We begin with CNN senior Washington correspondent, Joe Johns, who is live at the White House for us -- Joe.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela. The president has one more opportunity to make his case on why the country is on the right track when it comes to ISIS and international terrorism. He is going to have his last news conference of the year here at the White House at least it is expected to be that.