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Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien
157,000 Jobs Added in January, 2013; Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch Dies; Suicide Bomber Strikes in Ankara, Turkey; Geraldo Rivera Announces Possible Run for U.S. Senate; Will Hyundai Score with Super Bowl Ad?
Aired February 01, 2013 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back everybody. Some breaking news to get to. We have got the monthly jobs running out. Christine Romans has been s listening with her earphones in. What did they tell you?
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It looks like the unemployment rate is essentially unchanged at 7.9 percent. The government is calling it essentially unchanged but last month was 7.8, we expected it to drop a little bit. The number of jobs created in January, 157,000 jobs created.
O'BRIEN: That's lower than originally expected.
ROMANS: Lower than forecast. And again, we have 9,000 government jobs lost, so you still have this issue where the private sector is creating jobs but the government is still shedding jobs, so overall private sector created 166,000 jobs.
Soledad, big, interesting revisions to the end of last year. In December, the jobs number was revised up to 196,000 jobs created in December, that's about 41,000 more than we had thought. November also revised higher, 247,000. I'm going to double check that, 247,000.
O'BRIEN: It was 247,000 and what originally did they say it was?
ROMANS: They said 161,000. So lots of revisions for the whole year coming out. I'll double check the last two but it looks like some more momentum in the end of the year to hiring than we had thought.
O'BRIEN: Can I ask you a question about these revisions, when there's a big gap between the original estimate, the forecast and the actual number and months later we get the revision, why is the revision often such a big gap?
ROMANS: That's a good question. The government goes out, they have two different samples, household sample surveys, and they sample, they survey companies and people who hire. And then they go back and they seasonally adjust, tweak that data and going back and looking at other data. It is of course a sample. You can't get out there and survey every single different company. I'm going to look at the major worker groups because this is interesting to watch. The unemployment rate for adult men, 7.3 percent, adult women 7.3 percent, teenagers 23.4 percent. That's been a real problem, this youth unemployment, because if you don't have a job at the beginning of your career, it sets you back. That first step is incredibly important.
O'BRIEN: And just under 14 percent, but they say that's not changing very much.
ROMANS: And that's so sad to say, it's simply unchanged at 13.8 percent unemployment. But 13.8 unemployment is much too high for a worker group. So we have structural issues still to address. I would call this, Soledad, I would call this a modest growth in the labor market. I would there was a pickup at the end of last year but we're seeing modest growth in the labor market.
O'BRIEN: Christine, thank you for breaking down the numbers.
We're going to get right back to the other story we're following, breaking news this morning, one person killed, several others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara. A Turkish embassy guard was killed in the blast.
I want to get right to Jerusalem where Ivan Watson is standing by. What is the latest you're hearing on this, Ivan?
IVAN WATSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad, we've just heard from the governor of Ankara who was standing side by side speaking to journalists along with the U.S. ambassador in Ankara, and they both said that this was a suicide bomber, that the bomber appeared to die in the blast. A Turkish guard working at the gate in the embassy was killed in the past. And the U.S. ambassador said there was one other person wounded and is he praying for that person's speedy recovery.
So the authorities now saying this was a suicide attack. It happened a little bit more than two hours ago, outside the well-fortified and well protected U.S. embassy in Ankara. Questions will now turn, Soledad, to who could have carried out this kind of attack. It's not the first time that a U.S. diplomatic mission has been attacked in Turkey, which is a close strategic and regional ally of the U.S. government, in 2008, six people were killed in Istanbul, when the U.S. consulate there was attacked by gunmen.
There are a whole host of groups inside Turkey that carry out acts of political violence, bombings, attacks. There's a local guerrilla war going on in the southeast of the country, and of course the burning Syrian civil war on Turkey's border to the east.
O'BRIEN: That's a lot, Ivan Watson, thank you.
Chris Lawrence is at the Pentagon today. Of course this is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's last day. John Kerry is supposed to be sworn in later this afternoon. How is that transition handled? CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: What a way to start a new posting. You're right, this was Secretary Clinton's last day in office. Secretary Kerry after being sworn in today was going to start work Monday, but now it's likely he will get a jump on that job and dive right into the situation in Turkey.
The U.S. has been intensely involved back and forth with Turkey recently, primarily because of what's going on next door in Syria. State Department officials were just in Turkey a couple weeks ago meeting with Syrian opposition groups, seeing some of the refugee camps. A Turkish diplomatic official was just here in Washington within the last week or two and there were plans for higher level talks including the Secretary of State coming up in the next month or two.
O'BRIEN: Chris Lawrence for us, thank you.
Let's get to some of the other stories making news. John Berman has got that.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR, "EARLY START": Thanks, Soledad. Just as Washington is reacting to the explosion outside the embassy in Turkey, CNN learned of a plan to carry about more attacks on U.S. targets, this time in Africa. A senior U.S. intelligence official tells Barbara Starr that there is a desire to carry out more attacks against U.S. and western interests in North Africa. Threats are coming from multiple Al Qaeda groups in that region. One of the alleged plotters is the man behind the recent gas refinery attack in Algeria.
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch has died. He passes away early this morning of congestive heart failure. Koch was elected mayor in 1977. He served three terms, he served four terms in Congress and a judge on "The People's Court" as well. And of course Koch sat down on CNN with Piers Morgan on January 8th, this year, just a few weeks ago here in New York, and he talked about his own tombstone. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST, "PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT": When you look at your own grave, something very few people ever do, Mr. Mayor, what do you think when you look at it?
ED KOCH, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: I want to tell you, I'm secular but I believe in god. I believe in the hereafter, I believe in reward and punishment, and I expect to be rewarded. God gave me a very good hand to play over my 88 years. I have no regrets.
MORGAN: What have been your greatest achievements and your --
KOCH: Being mayor of the city of New York. You know, here I am, 22 years out of office, I walk down the street. People who were eight years old when I was mayor know me. The motto that I had, "How am I doing?" Everybody knows that, and I first uttered it in 1969. New York, the people have given me so much. On my gravestone I say I fiercely love the people of the city of New York. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: That was a perfect look at Mayor Ed Koch, sums it all up there, and that was a few weeks ago. Koch had been hospitalized with fluid in his lungs and moved to an intensive care unit yesterday. Mayor Ed Koch was 88 years old.
A dramatic announcement by the Catholic Church in response to the police sex abuse scandal. "The Los Angeles Times" says that Cardinal Roger Mahoney who led the L.A. archdiocese from 1985 to 2011 has been removed from public duties. Santa Barbara Bishop Thomas Curry will also step down. The church says it has released several confidential files showing how Mahoney and Curry discussed hiding cases of molestation from law enforcement. Roger Mahoney was a huge figure in the Los Angeles area for decades as well as in the American clergy.
O'BRIEN: This story never goes away for Catholic Church. How many times have we covered this iteration of this story in the Catholic Church? It's just so disturbing and troubling.
Still ahead this morning on STARTING POINT, does Geraldo Rivera have a future in politics?
And Hyundai will have five ads to air during Super Bowl Sunday. Coming up the vice president of marketing for the company will show us one of them. You're watching STARTING POINT. We're back in a moment.
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O'BRIEN: He's had his own talk show, uncovered Al Capone's vault, it ended up being empty. But what about the senator from the state of New Jersey? Geraldo Rivera revealing he could run for office in 2014. Listen.
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GERALDO RIVERA, TALK SHOW HOST: I've been in touch with some people in the Republican Party in New Jersey. I am truly contemplating running for Senate against Frank Lautenberg or Cory Booker in New Jersey.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Howard Kurtz is the host of CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES" and the Washington bureau chief of "The Daily Beast", and Lauren Ashburn is contributor for "The Daily Beast" and editor in chief of the Daily Download. Nice to have you both with us.
HOWARD KURTZ, CNN HOST, "RELIABLE SOURCES": Thank you.
O'BRIEN: Shocking, not shocking?
LAUREN ASHBURN, CONTRIBUTOR, "THE DAILY BEAST": Come on. This is a guy just crazy enough to do this. He opened Al Capone's vault on TV, there was nothing in it. It was a live special. He's been married five times. KURTZ: You're holding that against him? How many times you think he should be allowed to be married?
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KURTZ: I like Geraldo, but he's not going to run. Can you imagine the 30-second ads against this guy? Here he is drawing a map in the sand in Iraq of U.S. military plans, boom. Here he is getting his nose broken by a Neo-Nazi on his daytime talk show. The videotape vault has a lot more than Al Capone's vault.
WILL CAIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: None of them might have the impact you might think.
ASHBURN: Here is the interesting thing is that New Jersey has someone pretty outspoken and I think Chris Christie could eat him for lunch.
O'BRIEN: Choice for U.S. senator, it only looks at Senator Lautenberg and Cory Booker, and 30 percent say they'd support Lautenberg, 51 percent for Cory Booker. So from that we can extrapolate a Geraldo Rivera/Cory Booker battle to the end.
KURTZ: He says he'll run as a Republican. He may be a FOX News commentator but he's very liberal on immigration, the five wives, and so, you know, maybe that's the only available route.
O'BRIEN: Liberal on marriage?
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BERMAN: It's a very hard state to run as a Republican right now. Obama won by 18 points this last election there so go for it, Geraldo.
RYAN LIZZA, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think we're looking at the another empty vault here.
O'BRIEN: Good line. If that is the case, what is the motivation.
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CAIN: Why is he doing this? Maybe his contract is up at FOX.
ASHBURN: That's what I was thinking he's -- future option, sorry.
KURTZ: He's on his radio show he says, you know I'm think about this, I'm getting older. I probably would like to be a United States Senator. But come on even Geraldo can't think that this is going to happen.
CAIN: You know I want to pick up what John said. There is a tendency among those in the punditry class and Washington, D.C. class to laugh these moments off as silly. And William F. Buckley once said I'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty who are elitist who sometimes think they have to be a career politician. It's not necessarily an endorsement of Geraldo but non-politician -- (CROSSTALK)
ASHBURN: You still have to be somebody who knows something about the law and who is somebody who --
KURTZ: Lauren, he's a smart guy. That's not his problem.
ASHBURN: What?
CAIN: What are you saying about Geraldo
ASHBURN: No, I'm just saying that this is not a guy who had been in politics. This is somebody who wants the fame and attention and the adoration to come to him.
KURTZ: All right, do you want to know what the Apple research is? He wrote a book called "Exposing Myself", a lot of which has to do with all the women he's been.
BERMAN: But that's getting the jump on the gun though, to get it out of the way before you get into politics.
O'BRIEN: You know that means no one can really bring it up when you do the debate.
BERMAN: Exactly.
KURTZ: Preemptive strike again.
O'BRIEN: Come on. I don't know. I don't know. I think I have to say, terrifyingly I kind of agree with Will on this. I don't know that this is just a ploy. I think -- I mean, I disagree with the Harvard elites part. I think you're totally wrong on that.
CAIN: You want to be governed by elites. OK.
O'BRIEN: What's wrong with that?
ASHBURN: I'm thinking about this right? I'm thinking about this - hey, everybody, who is listening to me what do you think? You know and then it gets everybody involved, with this big trial balloon.
KURTZ: And he's got to raise money, I mean, the things you have to do in politics.
BERMAN: (INAUDIBLE) is you know who has thought a lot publicly about running for office before is Donald Trump. I mean, we've been through this kind of thing before.
O'BRIEN: Yes and how did that work out?
KURTZ: Yes how did that work out.
O'BRIEN: The two of you scare me. All right you guys thank you very much Lauren and Howie. Appreciate it.
Coming up next a first look at another Super Bowl ad. We'll tell you what you're going to see from Hyundai this year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come back when you have a team.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. You're watching STARTING POINT. After all the controversy over the lip synching of the national anthem at the inauguration, Beyonce makes a star-spangled statement with this.
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BEYONCE, SINGER: And the home of the brave -- the brave.
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O'BRIEN: Then she drops the mike. She does it a cappella, she doesn't need the band after all, she's like, see people? As I said, I can sing. She says she's going to absolutely sing live at Sunday's halftime show and I do think they usually like to have a backup taped.
BERMAN: And she says they do it every time, right?
CAIN: You have a lot to say on this, right?
LIZZA: Well. poor Beyonce. I mean, everyone knows she can sing and she can justify herself. I mean, it's ridiculous.
O'BRIEN: It's a free concert for the media; they loved it.
CAIN: I can't imagine there's more to say about Beyonce's lip synching. However, I do know that somebody at this table did think it was a little bit of a big deal that she lip synched at the inauguration.
BERMAN: I never said it was a big deal.
LIZZA: You said that Obama should be impeached over it.
BERMAN: I said -- I said no one should be impeached, she should be allowed to continue to sing, I -- but I do think she should allowed to say that perhaps, you know, you would prefer your singers to be live.
LIZZA: No, I actually --
BERMAN: It doesn't make me a hater. Everyone is out there oh, like, haters, Beyonce actually can sing. Of course Beyonce can sing. That was my whole point. I'd love to see her sing.
O'BRIEN: John Berman, hater, of course, not just to the Super Bowl. CAIN: I like the dropping of microphone. Eddie Murphy, sexual chocolate.
O'BRIEN: I know, I know.
LIZZA: If there's going to be a public event and these people are going to be put out here singing --
O'BRIEN: Oh stop, stop it, no, we don't care. She can sing.
Let's move on. I want to talk about this Hyundai ad; it's going to be in the actual Super Bowl running five of them actually in the game. This one is called "Team". Watch.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, give it back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come back when you have a team.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here, take off.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gather your new team, the seven-passenger Santa Fe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Steve Shannon is the vice president of marketing for Hyundai. Some of the team members: Jaeden Lieberher and Matthew Royer (ph) and Benjamin Royer (ph) and Dusan Brown and Ethan Munk (ph) and Lance Butler (ph) all joining us. Nice to have you with us, guys.
Let's start with you, though, Mr. Shannon. How much -- what is the message that you try to get out when you create your ad. We spent the week running a number of ads. Clearly family and humor I would imagine is what you're focusing on.
STEVE SHANNON, VP OF MARKETING, HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA: Yes, good morning Soledad. It's great to be with you and great to be back with my team. We had a very simple message for this commercial. We have at Hyundai a new seven-passenger Santa Fe and wanted to get that simple message across and we felt what better way than to do this wonderful little commercial with these terrific guys and it shows what the Santa Fe can do to help you assemble your team. In their case their team to take on the local troublemakers.
O'BRIEN: The local boy. All right. Well, Jaeden Lieberher is the hero kid. So Jade let me ask you a question. This ad is going to be seen in front of millions and millions of people who are watching the Super Bowl. Is that a little unnerving for you?
JAEDEN LIEBERHER, ACTOR, SUPER BOWL AD: It's awesome, but, uhh, it's going to be a little scary.
O'BRIEN: How was it -- yes, keep going.
LIEBERHER: But I'm excited.
O'BRIEN: Yes?
LIEBERHER: But I'm excited.
O'BRIEN: Wonderful. So let me ask a question of Dusan Brown. He plays the fire rescue kid carrying somebody out of the building. Tell me about the shoot. How this all went? Have you done a number of commercials before or are you a just long time actor or was this really exciting and a new experience for you?
DUSAN BROWN, ACTOR, HYUNDAI AD: Well, I've done a lot of commercials and this wasn't anything new for me. I knew that I had to come and do what I needed to do, so I pretty much just went in there and I did what they told me to do.
O'BRIEN: Well, it is a really cute and funny ad and I know the folks at Hyundai have made an ad for us as well, I want to play that for everybody. Let's roll that.
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O'BRIEN: El jefe.
BERMAN: You got that right, baby.
CAIN: Chuckles, Chuckles.
O'BRIEN: Christine Romans, the technician. Richard Socarides as the muscle and the loose cannon Ryan Lizza.
Back to you, Steve, for a final question. What will be success for you on, do we still have him? What will be success for you on your Super Bowl Sunday is that everybody is laughing at this ad or what will make you feel like you have done your job?
SHANNON: Yes, well we certainly want them to be entertained, but we certainly want them to learn a little bit about our vehicles, so each one we think has both an entertaining, fun aspect but it also tells you a little something about our Santa Fe or our Sonata, let's say. We want the company to be a little more likeable and that always helps.
But I think to the point you just raised the film you just showed it's a big social media game now. It used to be just about doing great commercials in the game which you still want to do but there's a whole ability to leverage social media as we just showed with "Find Your Seven", which is a program we're doing with Facebook that allows people to create their own team of seven and be our guests at next year's Super Bowl.
O'BRIEN: I'm not putting any of those folks in my seven-passenger Hyundai.
CAIN: You could use one of those.
O'BRIEN: I could totally use one of those, I need one of those but you guys are not invited to come along. Final question, who is rooting for the Ravens?
SHANNON: They all are.
LIEBERHER: Yes, all of us are.
O'BRIEN: I like it. I like it. All right, guys, thanks for being with us.
Steve we appreciate the commercial that you guys did for us. Thanks so much.
SHANNON: Great. Nice to be with you.
O'BRIEN: You bet. You bet. CNN's going to be live on the eve of Super Bowl XLVII with kickoff in New Orleans, a CNN Bleacher Report special. That's hosted by Richard Nichols and Ernie Johnson. That's on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
We have to take a short break. We're back in just a moment.
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O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody.
Want to show you some new pictures. This is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaving her home in Washington, D.C., heading to her last day at the State Department where she will no doubt be dealing with the explosion of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara so we're going to be following that for us as well as she heads in for her last day and John Kerry begins his first day at the State Department.
LIZZA: You have to say right up until the end she is dealing with serious issues and that sort of ensures that security around the world in our embassies are one of the hallmarks of her tenure at State.
CAIN: This morning we've been talking about the possible suspects. We talked about Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, also talked about al Qaeda, worth remember that the suspects in Benghazi bombing fled to Turkey after that bombing.
O'BRIEN: There are lots of suspects in this.
Thanks guy, appreciate it. Have a great weekend. Want to get right to "CNN NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello. It begins right now. Hey Carol.
