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NEW DAY

Gates Faces Down Critics; Car, Truck Of The Year To Be Announced; Major Data Attack

Aired January 13, 2014 - 06:30   ET

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


CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up on NEW DAY: Dennis Rodman is speaking out again. The former NBA star has new comments as he's getting ready to head back to America. Remember, he had nearly a week in North Korea. Why he says he did nothing wrong.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY.

John Berman is here once again for a look at some of the headlines this morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much, Kate.

Well, following breaking story this morning, the FAA investigating how a Southwest Airlines jet with 121 passengers on board somehow landed at the wrong airport in Missouri, instead of touching down in Branson, last night. The pilot mistakenly landed seven miles away at a tiny county airport, on a runway nearly half the size of Branson's. The plane touched down safely. We're still waiting for an explanation from Southwest about how this all happened.

CNN has exclusively learned a federal investigation will be launched into a major tourism push in New Jersey following hurricane Sandy. The $25 million campaign featured Governor Chris Christie and his whole family despite less expensive options that would not have included them. Critics argue the governor benefited in an election year, and this, of course, follows last week's revelations that Christie staff has organized a traffic jam, the kind of political payback.

French President Francois Hollande's partner and the really de facto first lady maybe released from the hospital today. She was admitted Friday amid allegations that Hollande has been having an affair with an actress who appeared in one of his campaign videos. Rumors of an affair had been circulating for months.

Breaking overnight, a strong earthquake north of Puerto Rico. The 6.5 magnitude tremor came early Monday morning local time, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was in the Atlantic Ocean, about 60 miles northwest of San Juan. There are reports of minor damage, but no tsunami warnings were issued.

CUOMO: Six-point-five.

BERMAN: Still big.

CUOMO: Yes, no joke, no joke. Thanks for that, John.

We have a developing story for you as well this morning. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is firing back at critics. In his first public comments about his new memoir, which remembered blasts the White House, Gates is standing firm, chiding the president for lacking passion on Afghanistan, even as some fellow Republicans are now taking him to task.

CNN's Jim Acosta is live at the White House -- Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

You know, Robert Gates kicked off a media blitz for his new book over the weekend. He's going to be signing books this week at the Pentagon, doing talk show appearances all week long, all in a neck brace from a recent injury that he suffered. And if you think Robert Gates is shying away from controversy after the excerpts from that book came out last week, guess again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): No regrets from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates --

ROBERT GATES, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's an honest account.

ACOSTA: -- as critics pounce on his new memoir, "Duty," a tell-all that reveals he had little confidence in President Obama's support for the war in Afghanistan. Gates said in an interview with CBS's "Sunday Morning" that while he admired the president, he believed Mr. Obama was only focused on getting out of Afghanistan.

GATES: It's one thing to tell the troops that you support them. It's another to work at making them believe that you believe as president that their sacrifice is worth it.

ACOSTA: It doesn't get any better for Vice President Joe Biden, who according to Gates planted seeds of doubt in the president's mind about military commanders.

GATES: Where I had a particular problem with the vice president was in his encouragement of suspicion of the military and the senior military with the president.

ACOSTA: Detractors claim Gates put out his book too soon, just two and a half years after leaving the pentagon while President Obama still has three years left in office and U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan. Even some of Gates' fellow Republicans argue he should have waited to issue his scathing critique.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: If I would have given him advice, I would have waited.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: My preference would be that people refrain from righting these things until the president is out of office.

ACOSTA: As he kicks off a TV tour, Gates doesn't plan on staying quiet, even if it means weighing in on 2016 and whether Hillary Clinton would make a good president.

GATES: Actually, I think she would.

ACOSTA: As for Biden?

GATES: Well, I suppose to be evenhanded, I would have said, I suppose he would.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: As for the prospect of returning to government service, Robert Gates is saying, no thanks. That is why he says he was so candid in the book -- Chris and Kate.

BOLDUAN: You can be sure of that part, at least. That's for sure.

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Jim.

ACOSTA: You bet.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY: retail giant hacked. The personal information of millions compromised. Now, the CEO of Target is speaking out, but does he even have a clue of how it all happened?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CUOMO: Welcome back.

Breaking overnight: Dennis Rodman coming home and speaking out again. The former NBA star left Beijing after spending nearly a week in North Korea, telling CNN he loves America and that his controversial visit to the rogue nation was misrepresented and misunderstood.

Let's bring in Anna Coren live from Beijing.

What was the reaction?

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chris, it was an emotional Dennis Rodman here in Beijing today. Obviously, a controversial trip and it seemed the pressure had seemed to really get to him. He spoke to one of our producers before he was confronted by the media pack and he said that he was sorry he wasn't able to do more for American missionary Kenneth Bae, who's imprisoned in North Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DENNIS RODMAN, FORMER NBA PLAYER: I'm sorry about what's going on in North Korea, by certain situation. I'm not God, I'm not an ambassador, I'm no one.

COREN (voice-over): A slightly different tone from Dennis Rodman, arriving at Beijing International Airport after almost a week inside North Korea. Initially not wanting to talk about his trip, then within minutes, he couldn't resist.

RODMAN: I haven't done anything wrong. Nothing wrong. So, I don't know why people are saying that, well, Dennis Rodman this, Dennis Rodman that. It's not about me.

COREN: Rodman believes his efforts inside this reclusive country have been wrongly represented and unappreciated, insisting his basketball diplomacy has been a success.

RODMAN: I just went over there to show the world the fact that we can actually get along in sports. That is it.

COREN: Members of Rodman's team have also spoken out in defense of the controversial visit.

CHARLES SMITH, FORMER NBA PLAYER: I think I'm astute enough to understand the dynamics, especially collecting monetary dollars from North Korea, no. We did not get paid from North Korea at all.

COREN: NBA commissioner David Stern told CNN that money motivated.

DAVID STERN, NBA COMMISSIONER: They were blinded by the pay day.

RODMAN: Happy birthday to you --

COREN: Rodman's visit featured many bizarre moments, and his profanity-laced interview with NEW DAY's Chris Cuomo.

RODMAN: I don't give a rat's (EXPLETIVE DELETED) the hell you think!

COREN: The outburst igniting a fire storm of criticism, especially after Rodman's seeming justification for Kenneth Bae's imprisonment.

RODMAN: Do you understand what Bae did?

CUOMO: Yes.

RODMAN: Do you understand what he did in this country?

CUOMO: What did he do? You tell me.

COREN: Rodman later apologized for that comment and the whole episode.

As Rodman heads home, the debate over the trip's purpose continues, while the safety and future of detained American Kenneth Bae remains uncertain. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Well, Kenneth Bae is still in North Korea. No sign from the regime if or when he will be released.

As for Dennis Rodman, he is on a plane to the United States but he says that he may return to North Korea, Chris and Kate, as early as next month.

BOLDUAN: We're sure we'll be hearing about it then.

Anna, thank you so much for that.

Let's talk about the weather now. Let's go back over to Indra. Looking at some rain here, there and everywhere?

PETERSONS: Yes. I mean, it's good. We have rain here, but just think about the pattern here. We're very warm in the west, and this is supposed to be the rainy season. They're continuing to be dry and this is bad news. Again, they're supposed to be getting rain. They're going to be looking at strong winds coming up in the next several days.

Notice those humidity expect to go down to the single digit, and for that reason, the higher concern for fires are going to be out there. Red flags warnings out west. Meanwhile, in the east, yes, we are getting the rain. You can't complain. You know that's a good thing, but it doesn't mean the temperatures are going to be backing up. Just a little bit each day. I mean, this is not a big deal.

There's a couple of degrees each day as a couple of cold front make their way through. The reason for it, yes, rain. A couple of cold fronts are making the way through. So, yes, some showers are going to be making their way through at the same time. Today, starting around the gulf and then by the evening, extending kind of into the Ohio Valley.

Overnight, that makes its way into the northeast. And kind of watch this low developed. It makes its way up along the eastern sea board. So with that, the bulk of the rain actually stays offshore. So, all you're going to be talking about is some kind of gloomy conditions and cool temperatures out there.

Just keep in mind, you get a little bit of a breather tomorrow night only to have another cold front and another cold front behind it. So, that's kind of a trend for the week. But kind of bad news. I mean, we have some rain that's good for us. Dangerous out west if conditions continue to get worse. And we only get rain out west kind of January and February. If you don't see it now, bad news.

BOLDUAN: All right. Thanks, Indra.

PETERSONS: Sure.

CUOMO: We need the rain. We need it all. It's part of the season,

BOLDUAN: (INAUDIBLE)

CUOMO: Keep your chin up.

All right. Let's take a break. Coming up on NEW DAY, remember how Target had all that information hacked? Good thing it was just limited to only one store? No, it wasn't. More companies are suddenly becoming vulnerable. Why? The CEO of target is speaking out. We're going to tell you what he has to say or not say.

BOLDUAN: Also ahead, we're going to show you a teacher who could rival Justin Timberlake on the dance floor. It is our "Must-See Moment."

CUOMO: That's my move right there.

CUOMO: Welcome back. It is "Money Time." Stocks seem to be stuck in a funk, especially after that terrible job report number on Friday. Chief business correspondent, Christine Romans, is in the CNN Money Center with a look at what's in store today. It looks like NASA over there, Christine.

(LAUGHTER)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: I know.

CUOMO: You must know everything.

ROMANS: We know everything. It's all right here, and I'm going to tell you what it means. Look, the shock of that jobs report still lingering, you guys. The Dow now set for its fourth straight decline. And all the major averages are down, so far, this year. The 2014 declines, they're not huge, but it's not something you usually see. Historically, stocks tend to rise at the beginning of the year.

Now, this could be a very big day for General Motors. The automaker might sweep the car and truck of the year awards at the Detroit auto show today. GM owns two of the three finalists for the car of the year, the Corvette and Cadillac CTS also going up against the Mazda Three in that category. GM Chevy Silverado is gunning for the truck award. So, it could be a good day for GM.

Are you looking to buy the domain name hiphopmarijuana.com? Too late. Two Seattle residents have bought that one and 200 other internet domain name that have to do with pot. They're hoping to resell them at a profit now that it's legal in Colorado. They say they've already got inquiries (ph) from California to Australia. Capitalism at work.

(LAUGHTER)

BOLDUAN: I'd say so, Christine. All right. Thank you.

So, talking about money, we'll talk about a huge security breach at retailers. Another retailer is now reporting a credit card breach at the stores. Neiman Marcus is saying a database of customer information has been compromised. This comes after Target found that hackers stole information from more than 100 million customers. That's 70 million more than the company originally reported. Now, the CEO of Target is speaking out in a new CNBC interview. Here's a little bit of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGG STEINHAFEL, PRESIDENT, CEO, AND CHAIRMAN OF TARGET: I was devastated. I mean, how could this happen to Target? I'm personally very sorry that this whole event even happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining us now with the latest on the investigation into these hacks, cyber security expert and president and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, Scott Schober. Scott, thanks so much for coming in.

SCOTT SCHOBER, PRESIDENT & CEO, BERKELEY VARITRONICS SYSTEMS INC: Thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: So, is -- I want to get your take, but as we've been reading into this latest hacking report, there's still a lot of information that needs to come out about what happened in the Neiman Marcus case. But you have these two hack, these two security breaches that happened around the same time. Is there any way you think these two could be linked?

SCHOBER: Yes. Very high probability that they're linked. And in fact, there's probably going to be other retailers that they come out with too that they're going to be disclosed and that have been hacked as well very likely.

BOLDUAN: You know, look at this -- it seems that this is -- this isn't the first and last time that this is going to happen. Why this is happening so much? And how can it get to the point where you're now talking about Target, it could be upwards of 110 million customers affected?

SCHOBER: Yes. This is huge. It's unbelievable how many people actually were hacked in this case. And if you think about it, how did it happen? It's really the security standards. They're very lax. If you look at Europe, if you look at Canada, they've implemented chip and pin technology, which is basically an embedded microchip on our credit cards.

And it's much, much safer, more secure, and it's encrypted. So at the time of purchase, you're not swiping and just taking information off the mag strip. It's rather communicating encrypted. So, none of that information can be pulled down at the point of sale terminal, which is exactly what happened in the case of Target and most likely the same thing with Neiman Marcus.

CUOMO: So, it's interesting. You're not saying that, oh, you know, the hackers are just better. They're just beyond the capabilities despite our best effort. You're saying best efforts aren't being made yet. SCHOBER: Yes, exactly. The technology that they're using right now with credit cards in the U.S., specifically, is decades old. And it's not that secure. And that's a very big concern. It should be a concern for consumers, and the reason is they haven't spent the money such as banking institutions and other areas where they should do that.

BERMAN: We just heard from the CEO of Target. He sounded surprised that this happened. What do you make of that? What does that make you think when the CEO of a company that just got breach like that sounds surprised?

SCHOBER: It surprises me, I guess, a little bit. I'm a Target shopper as well. Really, priority one should be consumer data, keeping that protected. Certain things they did wrong there certainly allowing that to get hacked, but even more concern probably is the trust factor. Why did they not come out sooner and let the consumers know that there was a hack.

They're required by PCI compliance to do that, but it still took a number of days in both instances with Target and even the second hack there before they actually started revealing. And they only revealed bits and pieces of some of that was erroneous, then they corrected it. They said it wasn't the pin data for debit cards and they said it was.

It wasn't the actual security code on the back, but then it was. So there's a lot of conflicting things. So consumers start to say, what do they have? They have everything on me. I don't know what to do? Should I even shop? So what does everybody doing now? They're very hesitant. I was in Target the other day and I think I counted about five or six people on line in front of me.

It was empty. It was like a ghost town in comparison to normal, because people are nervous. People are using cash instead of taking out their credit card.

BOLDUAN: Another big surprise is that simply the target CEO in this interview also said that they still don't know the extent of really what happened, which is really -- it's amazing after what they said they investigated and jumped on it right away, and month later --

CUOMO: You can't investigate what you don't understand and it seems like that's what you're saying, Scott, is that they haven't made it their business to be in the secure transaction business the way, perhaps, we see online more so. And until they do that, they're going to be vulnerable.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHOBER: -- a lot more money there, that's for sure, on security.

BOLDUAN: Scott Schober, thank you, Scott.

SCHOBER: Thank you for having me.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. BERMAN: It is time now for today's "Must-See Moment." There is always that one teacher who earns the cool points with all the students, but this teacher at a high school in Brooklyn really breaks the mold. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. OK. The teacher -- Oh!

BERMAN (voice-over): He's keeps on going. That's (INAUDIBLE) Central Catholic High School teacher, Mikee Cetera (ph), perfectly executing a series of classic breakdance moves. Even Chris Cuomo is surprised at that. Obviously, the students are surprised and amused as well. It was recorded all on camera. That back spin is phenomenal! That is phenomenal.

BOLDUAN (voice-over): That was the reaction from the guy behind the camera.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: By the way, next year at that high school, Calculus 2, electric boogaloo.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO (voice-over): And then of course, after this, he was suspended (ph) for inspiring students.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN (on-camera): You guys are --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: It's nice.

BERMAN (on-camera): It's all good.

BOLDUAN: On fire.

CUOMO (on-camera): I've missed that back in the day.

BOLDUAN: I would love to see you attempt it now.

(LAUGHTER)

CUOMO: Coming up on NEW DAY, right state, wrong airport. That's not good. More than 100 passengers had to finish their trip by bus after their plane landed miles from the actual intended destination. Wait until you hear about the landing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)