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New Day Saturday

Germany Sending Intel Team to DC; Thousands March to End Mass Surveillance; Instagram Permits Gun Sales Online

Aired October 26, 2013 - 09:00   ET

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

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: And thank you for starting your morning with us. MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN ANCHOR: We have much more ahead on our next hour of your NEW DAY which starts right now.

PAUL: If you're just joining us a hearty hello to you. I'm Christi Paul.

MARQUEZ: And I'm Miguel Marquez. It's 9:00 on the East Coast, 6:00 out West. This is NEW DAY SATURDAY.

PAUL: And this just in to CNN we want to share with you. We are learning that Germany will send a team of intelligence officials to Washington very soon. The U.S. ally obviously furious over reports that the NSA eavesdropped on German chancellor, Angela Merkel's phone calls.

CNN's Jim Boulden is on the phone with us from London. Jim what have you learned

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, so German officials have confirmed, as you say, German intelligence officials will be heading to Washington very soon to meet with their counterparts which you would imagine would be NSA and possibly people in the White House to deal with intelligence. Now this goes along with what the chancellor told us a few days ago in her press conference. When Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she wanted to have meetings in Washington by the end of the year.

So it sounds like the meetings have been set up and will be happening in a mater of days. And as you said, Germany has been very, very unhappy with the revelations that had been coming out, not just in the last week, which were allegations of possibly U.S. monitoring her personal mobile, her mobile phone. The cell phone of the chancellor, but also just the widening area of surveillance of personal data here in Europe.

So the second thing we have learned and has been confirmed is that - and this was sort of talked about a little bit yesterday at the EU summit, was that Germany along with Brazil will be looking for some sort of U.N. resolution and some kind of thing but a U.N. resolution to deal with private data and personal data (INAUDIBLE) of data by intelligence organizations.

(INAUDIBLE) but I think it's just an idea they want to be have this taken to the U.N. level (INAUDIBLE) which is quite significant, I would say.

PAUL: All right. Jim Boulden, thank you so much for the update. We're really grateful. Take good care.

MARQUEZ: Yes, and all of this happening as thousands of people are expected to march on the National Mall in Washington in just a few hours. They want an end to the controversial surveillance program.

CNN's Erin McPike joins us now from Washington. Erin, a lot of fallout over NSA surveillance, yes?

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Miguel. And as you said, there is this big rally planned for the mall today. We are expecting thousands of people. They will hand over half a million petitions to Congress, calling for an end to this very deep, sort of mass surveillance. That's all about the personal liberty side of it. But the administration is also dealing with a lot of this concern over the spying into our allies like Germany specifically. And I want to play for you something that (INAUDIBLE). She's the spokesman for the State Department said yesterday about this and sort of the angst it's causing our allies. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESWOMAN: It's no secret over the last few months series - these unauthorized disclosures of classified information have, of course, led to criticisms of our intelligence activity by many of our friends and partners. It's created significant challenges in our relationships with some of our partners and has been, of course, a public distraction as you even saw over the last couple of days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCPIKE: Now, President Obama has said that he's ordered a review of our surveillance capabilities, because the administration says "We want to make sure that we're doing the sort of surveillance because we need it and not because we can't." Miguel.

MARQUEZ: Well, that seems to be the big point here. Could all of is this lead to some sort of grand bargain where amongst friends they agree to be more open and share intelligence and have sort of a new level of intelligence sharing?

MCPIKE: Well, it's clear that that administration has expressed some level of remorse. So clearly there will be meetings with these German officials. We'll have to see where that goes but I would point out to you that just last night, Hillary Clinton, who is, of course, the former secretary of state, was speaking at Colgate University and she has actually did say that there needs to be a broader conversation about this. She said we want to make sure that we're going up to the line as far as surveillance is concern but not going over the line. So we will probably see some more talk about this in Washington in the coming days.

MARQUEZ: Erin McPike in Washington, thank you very much. PAUL: More talk on exactly where that line is probably. Speaking of Hillary Clinton, three political events in just one week. That is the kind of schedule that does not help calm down those Hillary Clinton in 2016 rumors. Last night the former secretary of state spoke to a global forum at Colgate University in upstate New York. She criticized Republicans for their recent shutdown tactics in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Now recently in Washington we've seen what happens when politicians choose scorched earth over common ground. When they operate in what I like to call an evidence- free zone with ideology trumping everything else. It's not only how that makes us feel here at home, the entire world watches how we make our decisions surprisingly closely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Now, billionaire financer George Soros is donating $25,000 to the Ready for Hillary. The group wants Clinton to run for president, of course. It has no official ties though to the former secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, thank you to each and every one you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Senator Ted Cruz is in Iowa this weekend for the third time this years. And that is fueling speculation that he is eyeing a potentially White House run. He sounds like he's on campaign trail, what do you think?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Growth is foundational to every thing else, every other college we have, whether it's unemployment, whether it's the national debt, whether it's maintaining the strongest military in the world. If we have growth, we can do all of it. The way we're going to stop Obamacare. The way we're going to get back to economic growth is not going to come from Washington. It's got going to come from elected officials in Washington. It's going to come from the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Of course, he won't say if he's running for president. But he's admitting a few other things such as his dream job. Being the starting point guard for the Houston Rockets. He also loves movies, video games but hate avocadoes.

MARQUEZ: I love avocadoes.

PAUL: Just so you know.

MARQUEZ: Shocking. Shocking!

In New York, high end department store barneys is under fire after two African-American shoppers came forward with allegations of racial profiling. The shoppers say they were purchasers but were stopped and question by New York Police officers.

PAUL: Now one of the shoppers says she wants Jay-Z to get involved and back out of his holiday collection with the store. A change.org petition has been started urging the rapper to make that move. It's already garnered more than 4,000 signatures. For its part, I want to let you know, Barneys has apologized and called the incident "unacceptable."

MARQUEZ: And firefighters raced to one of the most iconic stores in New York. Amazing video here. Fire broke out at Macy's flagship store in Herald Square, New York City's midtown flames erupted in the building's basement last night, sending smoke billowing into the store. Macy's was evacuated. The fire was put out. No one was hurt. The cause of the blaze is under investigation and I hope it won't affect the parade for Thanksgiving.

PAUL: I would hope not. You know, it's probably the last price to think about buying a gun but did you know that you can purchase a firearm on Instagram. Yes, the social media site. We're going to get to the bottom of this with our guest.

MARQUEZ: Plus a former Florida congressman criticized for comparing the Tea Party to the KKK but he's sticking to his words.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARQUEZ: It happened again this week. A 12-year-old boy opened fire in at middle school at Sparks, Nevada. He killed a teacher, wounded two students and turned the gun on himself. One boy who got shot talked to CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Before I got shot, I'm like, Please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me. I looked at him. He raised it and he shot me in my stomach.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And he didn't say anything to you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He didn't say anything. I'm like, please don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me. He raised it. Boom, shot me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: The federal law enforcements told CNN the boy got the gun from his parents and they could face charges now. Getting your hands on a firearm, it's easier to do so these days. Gun sellers are using Instagram, in case you didn't know, this is according to a story first reported by the "Daily Beast," by the way that sites such as Ebay and Craigslist, they barred the gun sales, just so you know.

MARQUEZ: Let's talk to John Lott, president of the Crime and Research Prevention Center and author of the book "More Guns Less Crime" and Mark Glaze, executive director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns which counts 1,000 (INAUDIBLE) from across country in both political parties as members. John, why use Instagram to sell a gun? Aren't there plenty of other ways out there?

JOHN LOTT, PRESIDENT, CRIME AND RESEARCH PREVENTION CENTER: Just as you can go and put something on a bulletin board or some place else, the issue is people are going to be talking about background checks here. You know the issue is people are going to talk about backgrounds checks here. The background check system is complete nuts. I mean virtually everybody who gets stopped right now is a law-abiding citizen.

Well over 99 percent of the people who are stopped are law-abiding citizens. You know, if we're going to fix this problem, first of all we have to make sure that the people we're going to be stopping with these background checks are going to be criminal. But the issue is even more complicated than that. That is the people who benefit the most from owning guns are basically poor individuals who live in high crime urban areas particularly minorities.

And if you want to go and raise the cost of them getting guns by making it so that they can't go to gun shows or other ways of doing it, or imposing the taxes and fees, you know, in many states it's hundreds of dollars now in Maryland or 500 plus dollars to go and get a gun in DC. You're basically, you're pricing out of the market those individuals who most need it for self defense is my concern.

PAUL: OK.

LOTT: Is that unless you go and try to deal with the problems of the existing system, simply trying to go and extend it to other ways that people go and buy guns is just going to disarm law-abiding citizens more than solve the problem.

PAUL: OK. Let's take this down, Mark, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, by the way, has no specific policy against firearm sale. So is selling a gun on Instagram, is it legal under federal and state laws?

MARK GLAZE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR., MAYORS AGAINST ILLEGAL GUNS: Well, it's legal as long as the buyer and seller are complying with all of those laws, but we know all too often they are not. Look, there's nothing wrong with selling guns online. It happens every day and it should be easy and efficient the way selling anything else is. Professor Lott and I agree on that. But it also has to be safe because we're not talking about selling packs of gum here. And unless websites have the proper procedures in place to make sure that the people who are buying and selling are not criminals, domestic abusers or other people who are already barred from law from having those guns, then they shouldn't be in that business. That's the reason that Craigslist and a number of other websites have just decided not to be in the business. MARQUEZ: So Mark, should Instagram be then be banning the photos of guns, ban conversations about guns in total?

GLAZE: No, not at all. Look, I don't think any of us want to be in the business of banning photographs, much less banning commerce but what they have to do is recognize that when people are able to completely anonymously buy and sell guns, when a large number of people in this country are not allowed to own those firearms, they can simply go on Instagram and buy a gun from a private seller who has no obligation to perform a background check and may not want to, that they are inevitably putting guns into the wrong hands. And that is not the answer into the crime problem in this country.

PAUL: OK. So John, let me ask you, who polices this at the end of the day? When it's over the internet? When it's on social media like this?

LOTT: Well, we have the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. At the federal level you have different state police and local police that go and enforce these rules. If people in 17 states, if you have any transfer of guns between private individuals, if they go and do it without going through a background check there, that's a crime. They can go and get arrested for those things.

But the issue here, we have to realize, is that there are costs and benefits from these types of rules that are there. That we all, everybody wants to stop criminals from getting guns. But the problem is extending the current system before you get it fixed is almost entirely going to stop law-abiding good citizens who may need those guns for self defense.

GLAZE: Not true.

LOTT: And so the trade-off is how many criminal - go and read the annual report. In 2010, the last year that we have data for. There were 76,000 initial denials. Of those 44 were prosecuted and 13 convictions. Thirteen out of 76,000. It's not because President Obama is not trying to enforce the laws, it's because those are false positives. When the president says two million prohibited people have been stopped from buying guns because of background checks that's simply false. What the correct terminology should be is there are two million initial denials. It's like the late Senator Ted Kennedy, five times he was stopped on flying, because of the no-fly list.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: OK.

GLAZE: Look, I got to tell you, John, you're wrong on any number of the facts you've cited. Let's put that aside for the moment. What we know is that a background check takes two minutes and then an overwhelming majority of people feel totally comfortable going through that and think that it's not too high a price to pay.

LOTT: Eight percent (INAUDIBLE) three days.

PAUL: I'm sorry, gentlemen, we just ran out of full-time. But we thank you so much for letting us listen to what you have to say today and taking the time for us. Thank you.

Mark Glaze, executive director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns and John Lott, president of the Crime Research and Prevention Center. Thank you both.

LOTT: Crime Prevention Research Center.

MARQUEZ: Thank you, gentlemen.

Al Gore, he was out and about talking about drug addicts shooting up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL GORE, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: You know, junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and legs give out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: The former vice president was making an analogy. Wait until you hear what he was comparing it to.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: Happy Saturday to you. (INAUDIBLE) and politicians are usually so polish with what they say. Maybe?

MARQUEZ: Sometimes.

PAUL: Every once in a while there's a little misstep, a little slip.

MARQUEZ: Or they say it intentionally. Take for instance, former Congressman Allen Grayson, the Florida Democrat is unapologetic senator. He's unapologetic about an e-mail sent out to supporters. Here it is.

That is a burning cross you'll see there and the cross is being use to spell out the words Tea Party. In his e-mail Grayson says "That is the ultimate Tea Party Republican desire, to bring about the end of days. The Republican Party has become the largest suicide pact in history, and I hope they don't take us with them."

PAUL: Some racist comments made by a North Carolina politician meanwhile may have cost him his job. Don Yelton resigned from his position as a Republican Party precinct chair of (INAUDIBLE). The move came after Yelton talked to "The Daily Show" where he made this comment about his state's new voter ID laws.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON YELTON, FORMER GOP PRECINCT CHAIR: If it hurts a bunch of college kids who is too lazy to get up off their bohonkas and go get a photo ID, so be it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

YELTON: If it hurts the whites, so be it. If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks, that want the government to give them everything, so be it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Oh, so if you missed it, here it is. "If it hurts a bunch of college kids too lazy to get off their bohonkas, and go get a photo ID, so be it. If it hurts the whites, so be white. If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it."

MARQUEZ: Wow. (INAUDIBLE) reaction to him was the best. He actually asked him, you know we can hear you and you are being recorded.

PAUL: Oh, my goodness.

MARQUEZ: So, you know, the Keystone XL pipeline. Al Gore says it's a little like crack. "This should be vetoed." He said. "It's an atrocity. It's the threat to the future." And went onto say this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORE: And you know, our addiction to these high intensity dirty carbon based fuels, you know junkies find veins in their toes when the ones in their arms and legs give out. We are now at he point where we're going after these ridiculously dirty and dangerous carbon based dirty fuels. And we've got to stop it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUEZ: Stop that metaphor.

PAUL: Yes, let's just stop it right here. "New Day Saturday" has more to come right after this. Stay close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAUL: So glad to have you with us. You know, students at (INAUDIBLE) High School are expected to honor Colleen Ritzer, the Algebra teacher who was killed at that Boston area (INAUDIBLE) this week. Students tell us the football team is going to wear pink tonight, her favorite color, in her memory, and we're learning more about what's going to happen next to the murder suspect, 14-year-old Philip Chism.

MARQUEZ: CNN's Alexandra Field is in New York. Alexandra, how are people coping with things up in Danvers?

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Miguel, they're coping the best they know how. Calling hours for Colleen Ritzer, a beloved math teacher will be held tomorrow night. Her funeral is on Monday, and while students grieve the loss of this 24-year-old teacher whose body was left just outside the high school, the students there tell us they're also trying to wrap their head around how a fellow classmate, a 14-year-old freshman Philip Chism could be charged with her murder.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COLLIN BUTLER, JUNIOR AT DANVERS HIGH SCHOOL: Yes, pretty much just shocked. You know. Just trying to return to some sense of normalcy, you know.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Did you know Miss Ritzer?

BUTLER: Yes, I had her in class for a little bit. She was real nice teacher. I think we all loved her.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FIELD: That was CNN's Pamela Brown there asking that question. You saw that there. The students were back to class on Friday. Police say Colleen Ritzer was attacked with a box cutter in a second floor bathroom inside the school while the school was back open. That bathroom will be closed indefinitely. Christi and Miguel.

PAUL: All righty, Alexandra Field, thank you so much.

MARQUEZ: And coming up at the top of the hour. The doctor's mistress takes the stand. He's accused of drugging and drowning his wife. But is gypsy a motive for murder?

PAUL: More on that trial.

Plus, scared of pit bulls until she rescues one. You're going to meet the woman who carried (INAUDIBLE) down a mountain after he was shot and left for dead. We'll tell you about that. It is a happy ending, I'm happy to tell you.

I know you've heard of twerking.

MARQUEZ: I have heard of twerking actually. I'm aware of it.

PAUL: Have you twerked?

MARQUEZ: I have twerked. I can twerk. Let's not discuss that.

PAUL: It's too early in the morning.

MARQUEZ: The dance was around long before Miley made it popular.

PAUL: In (INAUDIBLE) county, Washington though, there are some schools that are having students sign to no twerking contract if you want to attend a home coming dance.

What's interesting is the students don't seem to mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was OK with it. I understood why.

JOELY MANNING, SENIOR: It's one of those things like school, like how you have to get a permission slip to watch a movie in class or like something along those lines. It's one of those things, I guess.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: Taking it with a grain of salt. Thank you for watching today. We are going to see you back at the top of the hour. We're not done yet.

MARQUEZ: But first, a negotiating stalemate in Washington. Nothing a pawn breaker like (INAUDIBLE) a hardcore pun can't handle. He'll join Christine Romans next on "YOUR MONEY." And that starts right now.