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New Day

Son Plays Powerball Prank on California Nurse; Examining Donald Trump's Rise in the Polls; Unanswered Questions After Iran Detains U.S. Sailors. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired January 15, 2016 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:32:15] MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, all of that Powerball frenzy turned sour in California. A nurse was led to believe she was a newly minted millionaire but it wasn't so. You will not believe who was behind this horrible hoax.

Sara Sidner is live in Chino Hills.

I can't even bear this story. Yes, the face, it's so right. We all -- it's cringe-tastic.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's so true. This might go down in the annals of history as the worst prank a son has ever played on his mother. That's right. Her son.

Apparently sent her a picture said he had the winning ticket, so excited, guess what, you won, mom. Ands then it went fast from there. He may not have been expecting this. Because from there, the place where she works, she works as a nurse with the elderly, they decided to have a press conference and talk about this.

The whole place was so excited. And here is what the administrator had to say about the person who won.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID LEVY, ADMINSTRATOR, PARK AVENUE HEALTH AND WELLNESS: We were all talking about the Powerball and who would have thought the actual winner would be here at our facility. So, having her win -- it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: The only problem is it didn't happen to her. It turned out that it was a joke, a prank that her son played on her. I don't know what happen in that house. I'm afraid to know what happened in the house when she finally found out.

Still, the winner has not come forward. And that's not a big surprise. They have quite a while before they have to reveal themselves. Although I think in this state, their name does have to come out at some point. A lot of people will be trying to get their finances together to make sure that once they put that ticket in, they have everything in order before they come in front of the public and talk about the money that they won. But the real ticket was sold at this 7-Eleven -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Sara Sidner, hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.

He should change her name and move out of the country.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: That is horrible.

PEREIRA: You're the prankster. Too far?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: I have never done anything like that to anybody let alone to dear old mama.

CAMEROTA: That would not go over well.

CUOMO: I don't even know where it gets into your head that this is a good idea.

PEREIRA: This isn't funny.

CUOMO: This isn't, look, a rat's on the floor. This is somebody's whole life. That's funny. Look over there.

PEREIRA: That's cruel.

CUOMO: It's almost -- it's almost not even interesting to talk about. Wow, this is a weird thing that happened because it's so mean.

CAMEROTA: It is mean.

We have to figure out what was in his head. There's the real story.

CUOMO: You do not want to be that guy today. That's for sure. Even Mick is mad at him.

[06:35:01] That is a high bar. Camerota can get mad at anybody in a flash.

All right. Speaking of somebody else who can get mad in a flash, Donald J. Trump. He could spend the rest of his time on top and the proof was in what we saw last night.

However, let's take a look at the path. Where did he get to where he is? It's all about the moment for Donald J. Trump. He had some that could have doomed it but instead, they propelled it. We will look back and see that this, my friends, is no coincidence.

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[06:38:45] PEREIRA: Donald Trump launched his unconventional campaign seven months ago tomorrow. You might say it hasn't been the most humble campaign but somehow the bigger the shock factor, the more he becomes the Republican favorite.

John Berman is here at the magic wall with me, looking at this wild ride and how Trump strategies help him resonate.

We have an excellent graphic. Look at this. This is the seven months since he entered the race back in June. Each dot sort of represents his position in the polls. You can see it climb and climb and climb.

Let's go back to June and take a listen to how he started.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists and some, I assume, are good people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: That was the point that he started. What has he done to consolidate this lead?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This is a perfect example of what we've seen from Donald Trump again and again. He says something controversial. A lot of people think it's offensive but in a multi- candidate field with a lot of people running, there are enough people who say, hey, that's interesting to me, it strikes a chord. And he sells and sells and sells it again.

He did this last month in December, after the attacks in San Bernardino. Remember, he called for a ban on all Muslims. He said he doesn't want any Muslims entering the United States.

[06:40:02] And you can see a lot of people at that point said it's crazy, it's offensive, but after he said it, his numbers went up.

PEREIRA: Well, it's interesting. He's managed to fend off other candidates who have come after him, sort of poking the bear if you will. What has he managed to do here?

BERMAN: I'm old enough to remember when Ben Carson was leading in the national polls, back in November. It was neck and neck with Donald Trump. So, what does Donald Trump do? Donald Trump talks about Carson's biography, the complicated path when he said he was angry in his youth. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUM: I know it's in the book that he's got a pathological temper or temperament. That's a big problem because you don't cure that. That's like, you know, I could say, they say you don't cure, as an example, a child molester. You don't cure these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We saw it from Donald Trump for about a full week. He was doing the dramatic re-enactments on stage where he was stabbing himself in the belt buckle. You know, it wasn't the only thing that hurt Carson's campaign but he fed the discussion.

PEREIRA: We also know Ted Cruz has been one of the sources of his attacks. Last night, some of the fiery moments came from their a back and forth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Tribe, and numerous from Harvard, of Harvard, said there is a serious question as to whether or not Ted can do this, OK? There are other attorneys that feel and very, very fine constitutional attorneys that feel that because he was not born on the land, he cannot run for office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: He continues to hit hard about this. Whether he is a natural-born American -- I was about to say a natural-born Canadian, being born in Calgary, and if he is eligible to run. Do you think this is something voters are going to tire of?

BERMAN: Here's the easy answer to that question, if they do, Donald Trump will find something else to talk about. We've learned that again and again and again. Now, remember, just since December, in December Donald Trump was talking about banning Muslims. The New Year, he was talking about Bill Clinton's sex life. Now every day on the stump it's Ted Cruz was born in Canada.

And where are we right now? Take a look at the polls, the latest "Wall Street Journal"/NBC News poll, Donald Trump, look at that, in June 32 percent of people said they could support Donald Trump for the nomination in their wildest dreams. Now, it's up to 65 percent.

You have Republicans who said he'll never win saying, you know what, maybe he could. You even have some Republicans, Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush's press secretary, last night tweeted out, he think there's a 60 percent chance now that Donald Trump will be the nominee.

PEREIRA: So, you think going back to our poll here if I can, let me get rid of this, I think I can, going back to this, this is a snapshot of the last seven months, as of tomorrow. So, we know that things change vastly now, right? We're a few days away from the primary.

You think this is going to continue to --

BERMAN: Nothing has stopped it yet. Now, with some candidates in some campaigns, this would be a time when an opponent would drop research. Some negative story, to try to, you know, prick that balloon. With Donald Trump, all those negatives, all those stories, they've been out there for years. So, it's hard to imagine anything deflating his standing right now.

PEREIRA: John Berman, fantastic use of the magic wall. You get an A-plus.

Coming up, Donald Trump talks to "NEW DAY" about how he fared last night. He'll talk about his rivalry with Ted Cruz and his plan to win in Iowa.

Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: OK, on to another top story, Michaela, is Iran thumbing its nose at the United States? Americans are angry after seeing those videos of sailors in detention earlier this week. Will this poison any goodwill in the U.S./Iran relationship?

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[06:47:15] CAMEROTA: Three men arrested early this morning in connection with Thursday's terror attack in the heart of Jakarta. Authorities also say the alleged mastermind behind the attack coordinated it all from Syria instructing cells in Indonesia to carry out this attack. ISIS claiming responsibility that left two civilians dead. All five attackers on scene were also killed.

CUOMO: Authorities in Central Japan are investigating what caused a tour bus to careen off a mountain road on a trip to a ski resort. Fourteen people were killed, 27 injured. Officials say that bus company has a history of safety violations.

PEREIRA: New outrage in Chicago over just released video of a fatal police shooting from 2013. It shows 17-year-old car jacking suspect Cedrick Chatman running from two police officers when he was shot and killed. The black teen was unarmed. One of the officers can be seen on tape stepping on Chatman after the shooting. Those officers said they later feared for their lives. A judge ordered this video released after the city tried to keep it under wraps. Protests are plan for later today in Chicago.

CAMEROTA: El Chapo was not afraid he'd be caught while texting with Mexican soap star Kate Del Castillo. Officials say the drug lord trusted his own security protocols and thought those would keep him safe. They say he became infatuated with Del Castillo after she spoke out in 2012 publicly supporting him. The pair engaged in a string of flirtatious text messages which it appears ultimately led to his capture.

CUOMO: All right. So the sailor situation in Iran still doesn't make sense. We still don't understand what happened there to get these U.S. servicemen in trouble and how to see what Iran did. We have a distinguished U.S. general who's going to come on to talk about whether what Iran did was right or wrong and what the right response should be.

We also have Donald Trump ahead, talking to NEW DAY about how he fared during last night's debate and what he thinks about Ted Cruz and any rivalry.

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[06:52:41] CUOMO: What happened with these sailors in Iran in the first place? Well, first, it was politicized, right?

You heard from the people on the left -- not so much on the left, really on the right, saying Iran took these sailors. It was almost seen as an act of war. Then it was criticized that everything Iran did was wrong and the U.S. is weak and that's why this all happened. But it was never properly analyzed. So, let's do that now.

CNN military analyst, retired General James Spider Marks is with us.

It's good to have you with us as always, General.

Let's start with the first big unknown.

GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: You have your two boats, they're nimble boats. Maybe something happens, maybe something doesn't. But the unknown is wouldn't the military be in contact with these boats? Wouldn't they know what happened if one became disabled, that they were in the wrong place?

Why are these questions? Shouldn't they know all these things at this point?

MARKS: Absolutely. There should be situational awareness is what you call it, where you got an idea of where your assets, or your sailors are located, where your ships are located.

So, I would say, first and foremost, the command ship, wherever that existed, that was in the gulf at that time specifically for that mission had awareness that this ship, that one of the nimble ships was in distress and that it had a problem, and that it was closing, that it was trying to make a movement, that it was directing a ship or asset to get close to see what was going on.

The challenge, I would suggest at this point, there probably was distance between what that rescue vessel, whatever it looked like, might have been an aircraft, might have been a helicopter, Chris, in order to get a situation to get a little bit of a firsthand view of what was beginning on. There probably was a distance.

But these are standard operating procedures. The Navy does this better than anything else. So, what I think what this is a single incident, probably had an engine in distress and it kind of wander a little bit too closely to Iran and that's where we are right now.

Can't say that we were in territorial waters. Don't know the other circumstances.

CUOMO: Well, you did hear the sailor saying, whether they were under duress or not when he said it, but he said this is a mistake, we were in the wrong place.

When you look at what was done here, do you see that this as Iran doing everything wrong or is this something better than that?

[06:55:00] MARKS: Well, clearly, Iran overreacted. You didn't have to have the sailors in a position of distress. You didn't have to videotape that. That's almost taking advantage of a situation.

Look, you have a ship that's in extremis. Let's assume good. Let's assume there isn't a form of a larger challenge that we have here. Oh, by the way, the larger construct you've already talked about is a $100 billion deal that's in the offing. It's imminent. Iran is aware of that, down to the Iranian sailor level, the Iranian sailor level, not certain what they clearly know. This is the Islamic, the Republican guard that exists within Iran. They run the military.

So, I would assume there's quite a bit of awareness. They knew exactly what they were doing and overreacted and made this big media splash which could have been avoided. They didn't have to do that.

CUOMO: Do you think the reason the Iranians reacted so quickly in terms of releasing and being in contact with the State Department is because they're waiting on their $150 billion, do you think that's what this is about?

MARKS: I think that clearly -- yes, I'm smiling, Chris. Absolutely. That's the big elephant in the room at this discussion right now. Clearly, the Iranians were aware of that. Clearly, they wanted to get these sailors back.

Clearly, in fact, I would cynically say at some point, maybe the Iranian, the IRGC said, holy molly, what did we do? We captured two ships? No, we don't want to do that. Let's get these guys back. We've got this bigger issue here. We don't want to mess that up with this incident.

CUOMO: So, do you see this situation as a reflection of U.S. leverage or lack of leverage? If this deal, and getting the money back under certain conditions wound up creating this quick resolution in the situation, wouldn't that be leverage? Why are so many saying this is proof that the U.S. is weak because look how Iran messes with the U.S.?

Iran has been messing with the U.S. since I was born. That's nothing new. Do you say this as a good sign or a bad sign, at least in terms of how it ended?

MARKS: Yes, well, the result is a good result. Let's cut to the chase on that. And we're all -- we're all very, very thankful the sailors are back and unharmed.

But the leverage is $150 billion check we're going to stroke. Now, clearly, we're not stroking a check immediately. What we're doing is we're reducing and eliminating some procedures so Iran can have access to international trade more fulsomely and they can service their debt, et cetera. So, I get all that.

So, that leverage is our ability to facilitate Iran's ability to open up its doors. Hopefully, we can track that clearly and aggressively as possible, so that doesn't get out of bounds. But remember, at the end of the day, this is a nuclear deal that has to be very, very tightly controlled.

So, the result is positive. It's an unfortunate circumstance. The narrative could be wither American influence, of course, that's a very strong narrative that's out there right now during this election year. And this simple incident is unfortunate. But let's not make it more than what it is.

CUOMO: General Spider Marks, thank you very much. Appreciate the perspective as always.

MARKS: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: Huge showdown last night. The rains were up there, many were shining at their most bright. Who won? Who lost? There's a lot of news. Let's get to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are going to kick your rear end out of the White House come this fall.

JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need to unite behind the winner so that we can defeat Hillary Clinton because she is a disaster.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I'm president of the United States we are going to win this war on ISIS.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There was nothing to this birther issue.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can serve in office.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you see Ted Cruz as your biggest competition right now?

TRUMP: No, not really. I think it was a terrible thing to insult 20 million New Yorkers.

REPORTER: Text messages between El Chapo and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, "I'll take care of you more than my own eyes."

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to your NEW DAY.

The bromance between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz appears to be over. The Republican rivals going after each other face to face for the first time over the birther claims and whether New York values are good or evil.

CUOMO: All right. Donald Trump will be talking to NEW DAY about how he fared last night and how he plans to beat Ted Cruz. Who came out ahead in the debate? Where does the race go from here? Good questions. Let's answer them.

We have John Berman joining us now with a look at the key moments of the debate.

John, what did you see and hear?

BERMAN: Less than three weeks to Iowa, nearly two weeks to Iowa which is not nearly enough time to stay friends, if you're Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. And that's what we saw on stage last night -- energy and not good energy between these two front-runners.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (voice-over): In the race between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the current Republican front-runners, two things abundantly clear: it is truce off and game on.