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NEW DAY

Michelle Obama Versus Congress; Rove: Clinton "Old And Stale"; Inmarsat Releases MH370 "Handshake" Data; Diet Soda Better Than Water For Weight Loss

Aired May 27, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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


JOHN KING, CNN HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Does this have to be a fight? You get from some of the critics, Jonathan, this is big brother, why is Washington telling kids what they can and cannot eat. Her argument is, look at the obesity statistics, look at type ii diabetes statistics. We need to do what we can. You know, 97,000 public schools in this country, this is a way to directly impact health.

JONATHAN MARTIN, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": She has chosen this issue to be her legacy issue. That's why she is so passionate about it. There are some folks in Obama's orbit who say perhaps half seriously that perhaps she could run herself one day for something. She obviously denies that, laughs at it. This is the kind of thing you can see her passion, when it does come to a policy side.

KING: At 2:00 this afternoon, we'll see how aggressive she is, how partisan she is when she makes that statement. You mentioned somebody who might be first lady and then think about running for something else, there's a book coming out from the former secretary of state and the former first lady and Hillary Clinton, reported in "Politico's Playbook" this morning. She says this in the author's note, talk of America's decline has become commonplace, but my faith in our future has never been greater.

She also says, if you're a Washington insider expecting a lot of dirt that's not what this book is about. It's about her vision at the State Department. Before we talk about it now we talked last week about Karl Rove, who was suggesting perhaps that she had a brain injury. Now he says that's not what he meant. He does say that Hillary Clinton is going back to the future.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: In American politics, there's a sense that you want to be new, that you don't want to be too familiar, you want to be something flesh, you don't want to be something that's old and stale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Very vague there but old and stale?

MARGARET TALEV, "BLOOMBERG NEWS": Yes.

KING: Ouch. TALEV: I mean, gee, do you see a theme here possibly? I mean, really. I think that women's groups are going to be paying increasingly more attention to the way he tries to frame her because when you say old and stale right after you accuse somebody of having permanently injured their intellectual capacity when they fall down, you're really are trying to paint a picture and see if it sticks. He's doing it carefully in outlets that are either supposedly off the record where they happened or they're friendly audiences. This is not by accident.

MARTIN: No. In fact, I talked to him last June, almost a year ago exactly, for a story I did about how the Republicans are going to try to frame her as yesterday's news. He was saying some of the same things then. This had been a longstanding plan of the Republican Party for over a year now to try and frame her as yesterday and whoever their nominee is tomorrow, assuming it's going to be someone who is in her his or her 40s.

KING: What if their nominee is a guy named Bush. Karl Rove is the architect for George W. Bush. This has been a sibling rivalry from time to time with George W. and Jeb Bush. Can't you make the same argument then if Jeb Bush were to run? Going back in time there to the other dynasty? How is Jeb Bush different from Hillary Clinton?

MARTIN: That's going to challenge they have and I think a lot of the strategy is predicated on nominating someone from the next generation. But you're right, if Jeb does get in the ring it does nullify the whole legacy, you know, line of attack. Part of the -- I think the strategists have recognized it does take away an important weapon.

TALEV: Completely switch gears and pretend that never happened. For now Rove is betting that it's not.

KING: In politics, not so dirty little secret, Team W. and Team Jeb, tension from time to time. Let's move on to another dirty little secret that is not so secret. Margaret is just back from an all- expenses paid trip to Bagram. You were in the secret pool that went with the president when he went over to see the troops in Afghanistan Memorial Day.

A White House pool reporter, Scott Wilson, asked the White House for a list of people who would be briefing the president. The military grave the press aide the list and the media then distributed that list and it had the name of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan on it, which is a major faux pas. Could completely undermine if not significantly undermine this gentleman's career. What happened?

TALEV: That's right. It was indeed the mistake of the military on the first part for providing a list they had been told was going to be released publicly and White House's mistake for furthering it. To Scott's credit he did see what happened, but only after he forwarded the list for the first pool list.

The press pool that covered this was brought into an actual spread where the president was given a briefing where everyone had name tags in front of them. I'm not sure if he had a name tag with the cameras on. These things move so quickly most of us who was there was not aware of what happened until it already happened.

KING: Valerie Plan who knows something about being outed back in the prior administration. She tweeted yesterday, astonishing, the White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan. Is this a second term mistake, tired military person in Afghanistan?

MARTIN: It does strike me as when it rains it pours. This guys are going through a rough patch and feel good event to go in and support the troops, they can't even do that without something going wrong.

KING: Among the Memorial Day festivities that we were watching, one included the vice president of the United States surrounded by bicycle guys. We are going to have a funny in a minute, but first an important policy from the vice president and I do find this important. When Joe Biden says he's keeping an eye on a problem in the federal government, guess what, he usually kicks to make things happen. Listen here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: That is sacred obligation and we're behind right now. The VA is having problems and we've got to get to the bottom of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Pretty candid statement there, low key in his tone. He has ambitions me might run for president. If he's worried about the federal government he will pick up the phone with the secretary and say, are you on top of this? What are you doing?

TALEV: He will express the sort of personal regret that anybody has when you're in the government and this is going on. I think that's to the administration's credit.

MARTIN: He served, too, abroad, so he's personally familiar with the war.

KING: So it's good for him to talk about it publicly. On that, let's watch this funny moment. Watch Joe Biden closely here. He's a devout Catholic here. One of the speakers introducing him suggests that he might have further ambitions. Keep your eye on the vice president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At some point in the future Joe is going to run for president again and so we --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You got to love him.

TALEV: He always says always assume the microphone is on.

MARTIN: Yes. Who is the guy in the bike --

KING: He's Joe's running mate. Biden and that guy 2016. You got to love that.

MARTIN: The cross is great.

KING: Margaret, Jonathan, thanks for getting up.

We have another funny as we get back to New York. I don't know do the Cuomo brothers have a boy band because Martin O'Malley, thinking about run for president. Look at him here. Standing on the street in Annapolis just in case this presidential ambitious things works out, trying out for another job there. Kate, can you play the banjo?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: No, my brother-in-law can. Can you play the banjo, Chris?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Hell, no, I can't play the banjo.

BOLDUAN: I can see a Cuomo brother.

CUOMO: Cuomos don't banjo. We're Italians.

KING: Albany kids on the block. How do we do that?

BOLDUAN: I love that. I'm going tell the governor when I see him today, John. That was great idea.

KING: I like it. I like it.

BOLDUAN: What would you play in your boy band?

CUOMO: Tambourine, triangle.

BOLDUAN: And you're trashing this banjo?

CUOMO: I could play the drums.

BOLDUAN: What would Andrew play?

CUOMO: Andrew would play security.

BOLDUAN: You're head of the drums.

CUOMO: He would be security.

BOLDUAN: All right, see you later, John. Thank you.

Coming up next on NEW DAY, satellite data from Flight 370's final moments, it has finally be made public, but is there something missing? We're going to talk to the CEO of Inmarsat, the company behind the data, live.

CUOMO: Plus, why do they call it diet soda if it's not actually good for dieting? And is it even better than water? Is anything better than water? There's a new study that is going to raise some eyebrows. We will give you the, wait for it, skinny.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CUOMO: All right, so one of the big stories this morning is that the Malaysians and Inmarsat have finally released the raw data from Flight 370. Many are not satisfied, saying crucial information like the formula used to plot 370's flight path is still missing.

So let's discuss this with someone who can certainly answer the questions, Mr. Rupert Pearce, the CEO of Inmarsat. Mr. Pearce, thank you for joining us. The main proposition is you put out this data. What do you believe you put out and why do you think it should be satisfying?

RUPERT PEARCE, CEO, INMARSAT: Well, I think the first thing that needs to be said, Chris, is decisions to put out information from the air accident investigation is a decision made by the Malaysian government as a leading country in the investigation. We're very, very happy to support the publication of the information overnight. And we hope that that allays a lot of fears from the families of loved ones on the flight in terms of the investigation activities.

What's gone out today are the raw data communication logs over our network. So it's all of the information that we have that passed between our network and the plane during the fateful hours when the flight was lost, so it's everything.

We put everything out there that -- in terms of the communications between our network and plane itself or, more specifically, our antenna on the plane that was communicating with the network at regular intervals ready to do business to move data.

Even though in terms of the cockpit we believe that the data communication system is switched off. So there's nothing else we can provide in terms of those data communications logs.

CUOMO: OK. So let's take on the two major points of pushback. You referred to timing and saying that this was the Malaysian government that needed to say they wanted to release it. They, as you know, had put it on you and said if you want the data, go to Inmarsat. So was the Malaysian government essentially throwing you under the bus or was there some confusion between you and this country as to who was in control of releasing the data?

PEARCE: Well, it's very clear that Inmarsat is a contributor and a participant in the investigation and subject to confidentiality to the investigation, to the authorities running the investigation. And the only person who can make a decision to release data that is the subject of that investigation is the leading country.

So there's always been Malaysia's decision to do that. I would stress that we have always been extremely happy to put out all of our work, all of our materials to be made public so they can look at it and form their own judgment.

CUOMO: The second point of pushback is that without understanding how you used the data to arrive at your conclusions it is more difficult for third parties to come in and assess a different or more effective way to use the data. Why did you not provide your analysis for a point of transparency if not completeness for the request?

PEARCE: Well, what we provided is all the data that we have available from which we could derive a model and an analysis. In fact, what's going on within the investigation is they've looked at the composite materials, all sorts of information from different sources having nothing to do with Inmarsat, for example, radar data.

It's also been subject to a number of different models that are constructed from the ground up by different experts working within the investigation process, which, as we said on numerous occasions, broadly agree with our conclusions and our own model.

There's nothing particularly proprietarily unique with our model and the data. They can put their own models together and provide their own conclusions. So I think providing the foundation for those models is what's been the key step today.

CUOMO: But that's not what is wanted, what they want is your model, your analysis, so they can understand how you arrived at the conclusion. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to put that out there from a point of confidence in your own conclusions and transparency.

PEARCE: We have absolutely no problem putting our model in the public domain and that is a decision for the leading country to put out there. It's clearly information, materials, and workings that we've contributed into the investigation so the proper decision making around that lies with the Malaysian government.

CUOMO: Have they told you not to put it out and have you asked to put it out?

PEARCE: I don't know the answer to that question. We're happy with full disclosure. We're happy putting everything -- all of our workings and material out there for people to have a good look at and contribute to.

CUOMO: You know the answer to the second question, which is have you asked the Malaysian authorities to allow you to put it out because you say you want transparency and certainly this is what people want to see.

PEARCE: Well, we would be perfectly happy to put that model out. What we've been asked to put out, to agree to so far have been dissemination of the raw data, log of communication data across the network, which is what came out today. There's obviously a lot more information inside the investigation team, different models, different working, variety of different information that go to create a three- dimensional picture of what may have gone on. So it's clearly possible to make further disclosures. What we got together is all of the data communications that Inmarsat has.

CUOMO: Trust the suggestion that if you were to put out your model, it would go a long way with the families and interested third parties in assessing the conclusions arrived at potential other avenues of analysis. Please let us know when you've made that request to the Malaysian government so that we can follow up with them and see how they won't allow you to if that's their response.

PEARCE: Well, obviously our hearts go out to the -- those of the 239 people who loved ones and the families and friends of those who appear to have been lost on this aircraft. It's not lost on us that these people need to find closure and any information they can get hold of is valuable to them. And we continue to work with a large team support the investigation team in moving things forward.

CUOMO: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Pearce for coming on. Please, let us know when that request is made so we can push this forward. Thank you -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up next on NEW DAY, a new study suggests drinking diet soda may be better for losing weight than drinking water. Is it too good to be true? Medical experts are weighing in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: All right, if you are a diet soda drinker, trying to lose weight, there is a new study could maybe give you hope. The study is funded by the beverage industry that showed people who drank diet soda lost more weight than those who did not including those who drank water alone. Might not be that simple.

Here to tell us more, Elizabeth Cohen and Dr. Roshini Raj, a physician at NYU Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at NYU. Let's get beyond the headline. Scroll down. Tell us the ins and outs of the study. Who lost what and where?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They did the study, Michaela, because of indication if you drink diet soda it will make you crave sugar and you'll even eat more and gain more weight. Let's put it to the test. They took 300 people overweight, diet soda drinkers and split them in half. Half were allowed to keep drinking diet soda, half were not, no more soda for you.

These people started out around 205 pounds. After three months, the diet soda drinkers lost 13 pounds and those told not to drink diet soda lost 9 pounds. Why? Something magical about diet soda? That's not the answer. The answer, they think, because when they gave up the diet soda they started craving something to make them happy, basically. They liked their diet soda. So instead, they maybe drank juice or maybe ate chocolate or did something else that overcompensated.

PEREIRA: Dr. Raj, how they conducted the study is important, too. If any diet they were on, exercising, a lot of things we don't know.

DR. ROSHINI RAJ, PHYSICIAN, NYU MEDICAL CENTER: Right. We know for both groups they were given a program where they were educated about the exercise and portion control, all of these things, but we don't know what they ate and how many calories they consumed. So the water group, you can't have non-nutritive sweeteners or the artificial sweeteners in beverages.

PEREIRA: A lot of ways to cover up -- RAJ: Even the older studies that Elizabeth mentioned, maybe there is a connection between diet soda and weight gain were longer term studies with more patients or subjects in it. Still, I think the data is kind of scanty, at best, for both sides of this equation. Bottom line is diet soda is not the key to weight loss or weight gain. Look at your overall picture of what you're eating in total and how much you're exercising.

CUOMO: Isn't diet soda bad for you?

PEREIRA: The long-term effects --

COHEN: In the long term, it changes your metabolism and your body gets all of this sweet stuff, it's not actually sugar. Your body doesn't know what to do with it, might not be so great for you. This is scanty, we don't know. Doctors disagree. Be empowered and make your own decision. If you're a diet soda drinker and it works for you, keep drinking it. If it doesn't work --

BOLDUAN: How much is moderation?

RAJ: Keep everything in moderation. I don't think ten sodas a day, diet or otherwise, are good for anyone. I really don't. Two or more, I think if you're keeping it to two or less, probably won't make a big difference.

BOLDUAN: The first thing they go for in the morning and --

PEREIRA: Two's a lot. Two diet sodas a day --

COHEN: I know a lot of people -- chug them down.

CUOMO: Should we even call it diet soda?

COHEN: It does have calories.

CUOMO: But it doesn't necessarily make you lose weight. I think, their own study shows that.

RAJ: It's certainly not going to -- there's nothing in the soda that's going to cause you to lose weight, but it may cause you to not eat other more high calorie foods or drinks.

COHEN: Replacing it. The thought when the sodas came out years ago. Instead of drinking a regular soda you're going to drink a diet soda.

CUOMO: Why is it "so bad"?

COHEN: Less calories.

CUOMO: When they reassess, we did it with cigarettes and different foods. Can't put things on certain boxes how you describe a food, diet soda, why is it diet? Well, I won't drink regular soda. That's not good enough. I think it's misleading.

PEREIRA: Dr. Roshini Raj, Elizabeth Cohen, always a delight to have you both here.

CUOMO: Now I crave one.

Coming up on NEW DAY as I drink my diet coke, details emerging about the 22-year-old man responsible for the murder of six students. This story is painfully familiar. So what do we do about it? We have experts here weighing in on what the fix is and what warning signs were missed this time.

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