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CNN 10
Hillary Clinton Faces Questions Over Benghazi Attack
Aired January 24, 2013 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. Senate, the U.S. Secretary of State and an attack on the U.S. facility in Libya -- put all that together and things can get intense. That`s exactly what happened on Capitol Hill yesterday. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee helps make U.S. foreign policy: how the U.S. interacts with other countries. Yesterday, that committee had a hearing on last year`s terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. A U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed in the attack. Some senators asked if the attack could have been prevented, or if the response could have been better. At times, the mood of the hearing was angry.
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SEN. RON JOHNSON, (R ) WISCONSIN: Again, again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests, and then something spraying out of that, an assault spraying out of that. And that was easily ascertained that was not the fact ...
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. STATE SECRETARY: But -- but no ...
JOHNSON: And the American people could have known that within days, and they didn`t know that.
CLINTON: With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans ...
JOHNSON: I understand.
CLINTON: Was it because of the protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night they decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.
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AZUZ: The State Department is responsible for U.S. officials and U.S. facilities in other countries, like the one in Benghazi, Libya. Secretary of State Clinton has taken responsibility for how her department handled the attack, but at least one senator said Secretary Clinton`s answers during yesterday`s hearing were unsatisfactory.
It`s not the most famous ceiling in the world, we`d nominate the Sistine Chapel for that. It is a high one, though. $16.4 trillion. It`s U.S. debt ceiling, which is the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow. It`s one of the checks and balances in the U.S. government. Before World War I, Congress had to give approval each time the government borrowed money. That would have become really time consuming during the war, when a lot of borrowing was going on to pay for it. So, in 1917, Congress just sat an overall limit and basically said, don`t go over that. It`s never really stopped the government from borrowing, though. The reason -- every time we`ve gotten close to the limit, Congress has just voted to raise it. We are at that limit again now, but yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to allow more borrowing, at least until May. If that passes the Senate and the president signs it, you can expect the next debate at the next deadline.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today`s "Shoutout" goes out to Mr. Fletcher and the students at Williston Central School in Williston, Vermont. Good luck with that current events game.
Now, who wrote the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner": was it Benjamin Franklin, Francis Scott Key, Betsy Ross or john Philip Sousa? You`ve got three seconds, go.
During the war of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote the words that will become America`s national anthem. That`s your answer and that`s your "Shoutout."
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AZUZ: Oh say, can you see controversy? If you watched Monday`s presidential inauguration, you heard Beyonce sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." But did you see her sing it live? You might have heard about this accusation already. Was Beyonce live or was she lip-synching. We are going to play an excerpt, a clip from that performance for you right now. Check this out.
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AZUZ: So, live or lip-synching? The U.S. Marine Band, which provided the accompanying music said it`s not in a position to know for sure. The owner of the company that ran the audio board, said I don`t think it`s a question that I should answer. And Beyonce`s representatives aren`t saying anything. It`s not unheard of for singers to use recordings, every inauguration performer does a pre-recorded back up just in case. But the other singers at the inauguration sang live. So, this is where the controversy and Beyonce`s critics come in. If she did lip-synching, why did she do it and why won`t she say so? Here`s another question people are asking, does it really matter?
If you`ve got an opinion, we want to hear it, go out blog, cnnnstudentnews.com. Tell us what you think.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this legit? Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times in a row?
This is true. Armstrong won the tour seven straight times, but those titles were later taken away.
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AZUZ: It was because he was accused of cheating by using drugs, and he later admitted it. It bets the question, why do people cheat? Steph tweets that people do it to help pass a test, but eventually it becomes a habit. Helen thinks it`s because there are difficult situations and can`t think of a better solution, even though there always is one.
Carol Costello has some other ideas.
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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We`ve become a nation of cheaters, because cheaters win.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ, YANKEES PLAYER: I did take a banned substance, and, you know, for that I`m very sorry and deeply regretful.
COSTELLO: But Alex Rodriguez still gets to play for the team that boasted DiMaggio and Ruth and hold on to his $275 million contract.
BRUCE WEINSTEIN, THE ETHICS CITY: Sometimes people who realize they won`t be punished if they do something wrong, will go ahead and do something wrong. So there have to be consequences to the behavior for there to be a change in the behavior.
COSTELLO: Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading, but she and her inmate crochet poncho bounced back with the TV show and a successful line of products for Macy`s. Cheaters never prosper? Right. Watch TeenHollywood.com.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you ever consider cheating ?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honestly, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I would. I would most definitely consider cheating.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, who doesn`t.
COSTELLO: These kids inadvertently promoted a Hollywood movie about cheating on your SATs. The star? Scarlet Johansson.
SCARLET JOHANSSON: I have an idea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to steal the answers to the test?
COSTELLO: Fantasy? No. I can`t count how many news stories I`ve done on kids cheating. Look at the word -- cheater. It`s awful. But educators say many students would rather cheat than fail.
This young woman who asked us not to use her name or university, was a cheater.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And a lot of students, they feel very stressed and pressured, and they kind of get cornered and they trap themselves -- or they mentally trap themselves and they feel like they have no other way out. So then they cheat.
COSTELLO: That brings us back to Lance Armstrong. This what makes you wonder. Did he cheat because he felt stressed or pressured or cornered, or did that come later, when the money and the prestige started rolling in. Carol Costello, CNN, Atlanta.
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AZUZ: Before we go, we want to talk about a news story out of Florida. You might not have heard too much about it, but Jeanne Moos says it`s generating a lot of buzz.
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JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We`ve seen a bug make a cameo ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow! It`s a giant invasion of a giant pug!
MOOS: On the weather channel and a spider that seemed ready to hitch a ride on the space shuttle. But what happens when a bee meets a drone? Make that a lot of bees swarming the drone equipped with the camera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, over 100 bees.
MOOS: They ended up being put to music in "Flight of the Bumblee-Bees" naturally.
It happened when WPEC`s operation manager, Carl Pugliese sent up one of the station` drones to get video of a West Palm Beach Mall being demolished. Instead, the drone got attacked by bees. Carl is on the ground swatting, watching the video stream live over his iPhone.
CARL PUGLIESE, CBS12 NEWS OPERATION MANAGER: So, I`m sitting there going like this with the bees, and look it up and there`s a bunch of bees and I look in my iPhone, and I mean when you see the video, it looked like, you know, Star Wars. I mean I had all these bees coming at the mother ship.
If you think of the press as being sort of pest you`d like to swat, imagine how bees would react to a news drone?
After all, a drone buzzes, to bees, it must be ...
PUGLIESE: The mother bee of all bees, basically.
MOOS: One even landed directly on the lens.
PUGLIESE: He`s sitting there trying to sting the lens at the same time.
PUGLIESE: As Carl started to bring the drone in for a landing, he got buzzed, so he jumped at his vehicle, the bees followed him in, and he had to open the door to get them out. Calling a swat team.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
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AZUZ: I can`t believe she used the swat team pun before we could, losing an opportunity like that really stings. If you are afraid of bees, maybe that video should come with a swarming. So, there`s something that`s bugging us. Why did the drone take on all the bees at once? It should have handled them in sections. We were worried we might bumble some of those puns. But I think I`m pulling them off just fine. It`s time to fly, we`ll be back tomorrow. I`ll see you then.
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