Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Cruz's Canadian Birth; Stock Futures Down; True Crime Saga Captivating the Nation. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired January 06, 2016 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:33:07] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You want to talk a little birther or you don't want to talk about it?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm happy to ask our guests about the latest on the campaign trail, yes.

CUOMO: All right. Good. A hedge, but I'll take it. So it's back. It's not about President Obama this time. It's about Senator Ted Cruz. But it does involve one common, huge factor, Donald Trump. This time Donald Trump is making obvious suggestions that Cruz being born in Canada could be a problem for the party. Here this morning to discuss, CNN political commentator and Jeb Bush supporter Ana Navarro, an CNN political commentator, former Reagan White House political director and Donald Trump defender par excellence Jeffrey Lord.

I would like to put up a tweet that really initiated this whole kerfuffle, if we can.

JEFFREY LORD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Here we go.

CUOMO: Here is the tweet, that is not in response to a question, no. This is Ted Cruz's response, which Alisyn loves because it's Fonzie jumping the shark in his leather.

CAMEROTA: And I'm going to show this a second time during this segment because I love it so much. It's -

CUOMO: There's Tom Bosley. He liked it. So - there's - there's Richie.

CAMEROTA: So did Richie.

CUOMO: He was - he was driving. He was the most at risk. So this was Cruz's response, which was to say, this jump the shark, this is old story, it's not real. Legal experts would agree. Donald Trump's tweet is what I want to see, please, which proceeded all this.

CAMEROTA: I can read it for you.

CUOMO: Please do. I'm being censored.

CAMEROTA: "Republicans are going to have to ask themselves the question, do we want a candidate who can be tied up in court for two years? That'd be a big problem." CUOMO: All right, it's not a tweet. This is what he said to "The

Washington Post." So, Jeffrey Lord, this was not in response to a simple question where he was dismissing it. He was initiating. He was fomenting. A few months ago he said Cruz's citizenship was not an issue. Is this a dirty tactic?

LORD: No, it's not a dirty tactic. Again, Chris, when you have an actual sitting member of Congress threatening a lawsuit, this is fact. That's all he's saying. Donald Trump himself did not question his citizenship. Donald Trump simply said that there will be people out there who will challenge it. And that is a fact.

[08:35:10] CUOMO: Donald Trump would never have taken grace as any type of source for an opinion unless it also somehow helped him against Cruz. Fair point?

LORD: Yes. All you have to do - Chris, there was another challenge to Ted Cruz by liberals to keep him off the New Hampshire ballot. It failed, but they challenged him on just this basis, that he was not qualified to be president citizenship wise (ph).

CUOMO: Yes, it failed. It failed. It failed.

LORD: It failed. Of course.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

LORD: But the point is - the point is, there was a challenge. There are going to be nuts out there who do this. Good Lord, people sue, as I said before to somebody, they'll sue over what kind of toast you got in the morning. I mean they'll sue about anything.

CAMEROTA: OK.

LORD: Of course there's going to be some craz-o (ph) that will do this.

CAMEROTA: So does that mean, Ana, that presidential candidates should talk about any of these sort of fringe notions?

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, no. No other presidential candidate should get into the midst of this. let this crossfire be all about Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Four months ago Donald Trump did not feel threatened by Ted Cruz. The bottom line is, look, I'm not a fan of Ted Cruz. God knows I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. But Ted Cruz is surging in Iowa. He's checking off all the boxes. He's got the evangelical support. He's got important endorsements. He's on a bus tour of over 30 cities. He's got ground troops. He's doing very well in Iowa. And Donald Trump, who's been leading for all these months, not only nationally but in Iowa, I think is feeling the pressure and thinking this guy might actually beat me in Iowa in the caucus, which would be the beginning of the debacle for - for him.

CUOMO: But this isn't about the motivation. We - we get what the motivation is. NAVARRO: So he - you know, last week we heard him - we heard him question wither a Cuban could be an evangelical, which is absolutely ridiculous. As somebody that has lived in Miami for over 35 years, I can tell you that, yes, Cubans can be evangelicals. Evangelicals, Donald Trump, come in all sorts of colors, sizes and shapes.

CUOMO: And as - as we know from being in Cuba recently covering the pope, the Catholics are taking a hit from an insurgency of evangelicals down there. But that's beside the point.

NAVARRO: All over Latin America. All over Latin America.

CUOMO: This is about how you fight. This is about how you fight. There's no question that when I'm threatened by you, in politics especially, let alone at this desk, I will come at you, but it's how you go at somebody that's the issue.

CAMEROTA: Yes, except that Jeffrey has never even allowed that Donald Trump feels threatened in Iowa by Ted Cruz. So and -

LORD: Well, look, look, look -

CUOMO: Well, that would be a matter of fact, as you like to say, Jeffrey.

LORD: Alisyn - Alisyn, any candidate who's - any candidate who's leading always has to keep an eye over their shoulder to the competition. What goes on here is completely normal. If Donald Trump didn't exist and somebody else were the front runner, they would be doing the same thing.

CUOMO: Who says?

LORD: This is what happens. And let me add one quick thing here. I think that all of this is about to be superseded by the big story you've been reporting this morning about North Korea and the hydrogen bomb. President Clinton, of course, who's now out there on the trail for Secretary Clinton, assured this country in 1994 that he had things under control and they were not going to get a nuclear - a nuclear weapon and now here we are today with this. And this ties in directly to Donald Trump and the Iran deal et cetera. So I think this - this story we're talking about is going to disappear pretty - pretty quickly.

CUOMO: Good.

LORD: Because of this news from North Korea.

NAVARRO: I actually don't. I think we - I think we just saw the beginning this week of tremendous friendly fire. Cross fire amongst the Republican primary candidates. We're seeing it in New Hampshire amongst Chris Christie and Marco Rubio and John Kasich and Jeb Bush. We're seeing it in Iowa between Trump and Cruz and Rubio. And so, you know, I think it's the beginning. And you know what, Jeffrey, I'd like to think you're right. I would like to think that some actual serious foreign policy issue would supersede these political skirmishes, but we haven't seen that happen in the last nine months. I'm not holding out hope.

CUOMO: But - but that's why - look, but, frankly, that's why, as Jeffrey and I have been banding about this morning, that's why we're bringing this up. We're not bringing it up to fan the flames. We're bringing it back to shut it down because there's no legitimate legal basis for testing Cruz. Yes, the proposition is a little awkward in terms of its history of jurisprudence, but we're doing this to shut it down, not to fan the flames.

CAMEROTA: Well, except that Donald Trump himself brought it up again on a different morning show -

CUOMO: That's right.

CAMEROTA: This morning to talk - to say that there is a possible legal basis. So let's listen to this for a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voice-over): I want to beat him on its own merit. I don't want to have a thing like this happen. I will say, though, the Democrats, if they bring a lawsuit on it, I mean you have to get it solved. I would like to see Ted do something where maybe he goes in a preemptive fashion into court to try and get some kind of an order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK, Ana. So that, again, is Donald Trump saying not me, the Democrats might have an issue with this.

NAVARRO: Yes, yes, you know, yes, the baseball broke the window but it wasn't me. You know, it's like the little kid that says, you know, mom, it broke.

CUOMO: It was me with a baseball -

NAVARRO: It - you know, he doesn't - he doesn't say I broke them (ph). He's being very subtle. But what, obviously, he's - it's a dog whistle, what he's trying to say to the folks in Iowa is, hey, there's problems with this guy. He's not like us. Do you really think he's an evangelical? Remember, he's Cuban. And now he's Canadian. You know, by next week, he'll be talking about how Texas is going to secede from the union and, you know, he's going to be Texan. So, yes, I think he's trying to bring up questions about Ted Cruz because Ted Cruz is surging.

[08:40:20] CAMEROTA: There you go. Ana, Jeffrey, thank you very much, both of you, for being here this morning.

LORD: Thanks, guys. Thanks, Ana.

CAMEROTA: We'll talk again soon.

Michaela. MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so we have some breaking news. Stock futures sharply down ahead of the market open. So is it going to be another rough day for investors? Is that situation out of North Korea fueling jitters? We're going to bring you a live report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: All right, breaking news, stock futures down sharply ahead of the market open. What's fueling this decline? Chief business correspondent Christine Romans, do you have answers for us?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, North Korea adding to the gloom. You already had a very gloomy situation in global markets. And, quite frankly, when you say North Korea and h bomb in the same sentence, that is something that really gets investors nervous. So we're looking here at European markets that have been worsening. Asian markets are now closed. And when you look at Dow futures, I can tell you, 283 points lower they are right now. So you're going to get probably a triple digit decline. Most likely a triple digit decline when the market opens because of all of this uncertainty around the world.

I'll tell you what markets like. They like peace, they like certainty and they like profits and economic growth. And all of those things at the beginning of the year looking a little more uncertain.

[08:45:03] It's been a tough week. I mean, look at this, you've lost 544 points since the end of last year in the Dow Jones Industrial average. So certainly starting the year on a very grim note. North Korea, Alisyn, just adding to all of that.

CAMEROTA: OK, Christine. Thanks so much for explaining all that to us.

Here is an incredible story. When Jake Olson lost his eyesight in 7th grade he thought his creams of playing football for USC were sidelined, but he refused to give up. CNN senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more in this week's "Turning Points."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jake Olson doesn't look at football like his teammates. In fact, he can't see the game at all. The long-snapper for the University of Southern California is blind.

JAKE OLSON, BLIND USC LONG-SNAPPER: When I was 8 months old I was diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer called retinal blastoma. When the doctors found my cancer, it was completely taking over my left eye. The greatest fear is the cancer spreading through the optic nerve to the brain.

GUPTA: To save his life doctors removed that eye. Jake endured chemotherapy and laser treatment to save the right one, but the cancer kept coming back. OLSON: After about eight times of that happening, you know, the

doctors finally said, listen, there's - we've pretty much exhausted all treatment options.

GUPTA: Jake was 12 when he found out he would lose his other eye. But former USC head coach Pete Carroll heard Jake's story. He knew the boy was a huge lifelong fan and invited him to meet the team.

OLSON: That team was there for me in my darkest hours. It is something that I will always be grateful for.

GUPTA: Despite losing his eyesight, Jake played football in high school.

OLSON: A lot is just feel.

GUPTA: Last year he brought that talent to USC as a walk-on player for his beloved team.

OLSON: I went in to play football with the mentality that I had nothing to lose. Life is unfair. It's taught me to keep fighting.

GUPTA: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Love it. How do you not love that story? Good for him. We'll keep following him, too.

All right. Let's take a break. We want to talk to you about the documentary series when we come back. People can't stop talking about it. The creators of "Making a Murderer" are here live and guess what? They have a hint about a storyline that you may not have seen coming.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:01] PEREIRA: It was a documentary ten years in the making. Now the new Netflix series "Making a Murderer" has become a true crime phenomenon with a protagonist some suggest was wrongly convicted not once, but twice. In a moment we're going to meet the filmmakers. But first, more of the dramatic background on this incredible story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: Steve, everybody's listening. What do you want to say today?

STEVEN AVERY, "MAKING A MURDERER": I'm innocent.

PEREIRA (voice-over): It is the latest true crime saga grabbing national attention. "Making a Murderer" follows the case of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man convicted of sexually assaulting a prominent local woman back in 1985.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sheriff told the DA not to screw this case up. He wanted Avery convicted of his crime. PEREIRA: After spending 18 years in prison, Avery was released in 2003 when DNA evidence exonerated him of the crime. A series of damning news reports reveal police tampered with evidence to target Avery. Avery then sued Manitowoc County officials for wrongful conviction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I did tell him, be careful. They are not even close to being with finished with you.

PEREIRA: Two years later in the midst of his $36 million lawsuit, Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey are charged with the murder of 25- year-old Teresa Halbach.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Avery's blood was found inside of Teresa Halbach's vehicle.

PEREIRA: At trial his defense claiming law enforcement planted evidence to frame him, which the sheriff denies. But in 2007, both are convicted.

Today Avery remains in prison serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Over 400 thousand people now signing two online petitions seeking pardons for Avery and his nephew. But Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker saying Tuesday, he will not intervene.

GOV. SCOTT WALKER, WISCONSIN: Just because a documentary on TV says something doesn't mean that that is actually what the evidence shows.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA: The co-writers and directors of "Making a Murderer" join me now. Really a pleasure. Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, really a pleasure to have you.

First of all, petitions calling for justice for Steven Avery. Some 420,000 signatures right now. Have you been surprised by all of this attention?

MOIRA DEMOS, CO-WRITER/DIRECTOR, "MAKING A MURDERER": Sure. I mean we made this series to try to start a dialogue about this case, about the justice system.

PEREIRA: Well you certainly did, didn't you?

DEMOS: But you know, we had no idea that so many people would watch and be engaged and want to get involved.

PEREIRA: And some are saying I want to get involved by calling for him to be exonerated. Governor Walker has says he is not planning on intervening. What are your thoughts on that?

LAURA RICCIARDI, CO-WRITER/DIRECTOR, "MAKING A MURDERER": That is certainly the governor's prerogative. As Moira said, you know, we had just hoped that this would start a dialogue and people would feel drawn into the series and want to engage with it. Certainly, you know, we are surprised by the action people have taken and how quick this response has come. PEREIRA: Not taking away from the filmmaking at all, but do you think

the tone and tenor in the country right now, given the conversation nationally about police and police actions, do you think that is playing into part of the attention that this is grabbing?

DEMOS: I think that is a good point. I do think the timing of the release and what is going on in the world today does make audiences primed to some of the issues that come up in the series.

PEREIRA: I understand that earlier this week, a bit of a development, some breaking news with this, you were contacted by one of the jurors. What did that juror tell you?

RICCIARDI: Actually that juror contacted us prior to the launch of series.

PEREIRA: Okay.

RICCIARDI: So I believe the juror contacted us in November, some time after - there was a press release that there was going to be a series about the Avery case. And I think that's important to note because it wasn't as though this person watched the series and then, you know, had a change of heart.

PEREIRA: What did that juror tell you?

DEMOS: What this person told us was they believe that justice was not done. I think they actually used the words that zero evidence convinced them that Steven had committed this crime. They believed that he was framed by police. And when we asked them, okay, so why did you vote guilty? This doesn't make any sense. What they told us is that they feared for their safety.

[08:55:04] PEREIRA: What have you done with that information? I mean, will this impact the case? I understand you have a law degree. Am I correct?

RICCIARDI: I do have a law degree.

PEREIRA: Will it have an impact on the case?

RICCIARDI: My understanding of current case law in Wisconsin is that it is unlikely to -- I believe that the dynamics in the jury room outside, excluding outside influence, it wouldn't necessarily have an impact.

PEREIRA: I know that both of you are filmmakers and are used to the fact that there are going to be people who love your work and others that don't and criticism is coming from some sectors. People are raving about it. But there are critics. One of the criticisms is that it's too one-sided. That it sort of glosses over some of the actions of Steven Avery, that it essentially is a one-sided tool for the defense. What do you make of that? What do you say? What's your response?

RICCIARDI: I disagree with that. We never intended to have an impact on the actual events that are depicted in the story. We were there to document what was unfolding and to do our best to document that accurately and fairly.

PEREIRA: And at the end of the day, Teresa Halbach is dead and there is a family still mourning her loss.

RICCIARDI: Absolutely.

PEREIRA: Do you worry that some of this attention will take away from any sort of closure that family may get or that her murder may go unsolved, as far as you are concerned?

DEMOS: I do believe this may take away from their closure. I'm not sure closure is the best thing. If it is true that her murderer is on the streets, I think it is important that that murder be solved.

PEREIRA: This is a terrific effort. Ten years in the making. You even moved to Wisconsin to dig in on this. Really amazing. What a pleasure to meet you. Laura, Moira, thanks for joining us today on NEW DAY. Continued success to you both.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Michaela, what a fascinating case.

Thanks so much for watching us. "NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello picks up right after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)