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CNN NEWSROOM

Unemployment Holds Steady; Finding the Next Treasury Secretary; Investors Eye New Jobs Numbers; Push to Revive Violence against Women Act; Interview with Representative Gwen Moore of Wisconsin; Chavez Fighting "Severe" Lung Infection; 155,000 Jobs Added in December

Aired January 4, 2013 - 09:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: I hope justice is found in this Steubenville, Ohio, case and finally the fact that you ate squirrel this morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I did.

BALDWIN: Nice work, Berman.

BERMAN: We'll leave the week on that note.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know you were eating squirrel.

BALDWIN: Yes, it was squirrel.

BERMAN: No squirrel in my teeth, we're going to move on now.

BALDWIN: "CNN NEWSROOM" with Carol Costello begins right now.

Carol, good morning.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I -- good morning, Brooke.

BALDWIN: It's not Carol Costello, it's Victor Blackwell.

(CROSSTALK)

BLACKWELL: Yes. Just a little bit of difference, just a little bit. No squirrel in the teeth. I was going to jump in there but I just got this good job so I'm not going to make fun of you, John.

Good morning both of you.

BALDWIN: I like him.

(LAUGHTER)

BLACKWELL: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, pork, promises and priorities. Sandy victims finally, finally getting their due today, and it cannot come soon enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a good 40 percent of the exterior walls that are covered in mold.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't have anyone to remove it and we don't have the -- yes, and we don't the finances to be able to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: As Washington doles out billions, we examine where the money is really going.

New details about Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. He's reportedly battling a severe lung infection. And now some Venezuelans are worried about his condition and it may be worse than officials are letting on.

Plus, a new year and a new gaffe from Vice President Joe Biden. The latest, an afternoon swearing in ceremony for new senators. We'll have the audio you will not believe.

Plus this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This sure is a crazy way to draw attention to dot co domain names from GoDaddy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who won't notice a hot model in body paint?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: True. She stands out like a hot new dot co.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They definitely get you noticed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Super Bowl ads getting super racy. But this year you'll see a twist.

NEWSROOM starts right now.

Good morning, I'm Victor Blackwell sitting in for Carol Costello.

We begin with the pulse of the economy. Minutes ago the Feds released the latest jobs numbers, 155,000 jobs were created in December, not enough to push down the unemployment rate from its revised level of 7.8 percent. Now we're covering all the angles from the politics to the ripple effect.

Let's start with Christine Romans and what the numbers mean.

So 155,000 new jobs, Christine, that's up a bit from November, but still pretty average, right?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it shows that businesses are hiring just enough workers to absorb new entrance into the labor market, people graduated from college, people who are coming into the country for the first time, just holding in there but not enough to bring the unemployment rate down so steady as she goes the -- let me show you some of the places where you're growing jobs because the average now for the year is about 153,000 a month for last year 2012, that's pretty much on par with what it was the year before so moderate hiring I would call it.

I would call it a labor market at the end of the year that was treading water. Here's where you're seeing growth, health care. Again and again, Victor, we see health care jobs, another 45,000 in the end of the year. Food services and drinking places, apparently people were being festive. At the end of the year they were going out and having dinner and arguing about the fiscal cliff apparently because that's where you were seeing people add jobs.

Manufacturing added some jobs and so did construction and that construction jobs growth was most likely tied to the post Hurricane Sandy recovery in the northeast, but there's also a little bit of housing activity happening and that's something that's probably playing out here as well.

Long-term unemployed still 4.8 million, Victor, that's going to be a problem for this administration and the new 113th Congress, that's about 39.1 percent of the unemployed or what they call long-term unemployed so that's still a real problem, trying to figure out how to get people back into work, not necessarily just extending unemployment benefits again and again. You got to get some jobs created there for those folks -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right. Christine Romans thanks for that analysis.

President Obama waking up in Hawaii this morning but the economy will hold at least some of his attention today and not just because of the jobs report.

White House correspondent Dan Lothian joins us from Honolulu. What is the spin thus far from the White House? What are they saying about this report?

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, we're still waiting for official response from the White House, but we can expect a similar reaction to what happens when other job reports have come out in past months and that is that look, the economy is now adding jobs, jobs are not being taken away, that the economy is moving in the right direction, but that there's a lot more work to be done.

We've heard the president talk about how he's not going to rest until every American who wants to work is able to get a job. We also expect that they will talk about how the actions that the president has taken continue to help the struggling economy, and that's why the president is trying to do things like provide relief for middle class Americans, so again we're waiting for official reaction from the White House but we expect that they'll say some good news here, but still a lot more work to be done.

BLACKWELL: And more work they have to do is to find a replacement for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, expected to leave at the end of the month. What is the administration saying about this search for his successor? They must be racing the clock now. LOTHIAN: That's right, they are. I mean this is crucial role that they to fill, you have the debt ceiling, a battle coming up, there are other economic matters that have to be dealt with over the next few months and so it's important for the president to make this selection, we expect that the president will be making some announcements as early as next week.

We reached out to the Treasury Department yesterday, a spokesperson telling me that Treasury Secretary Geithner will be around, around the inauguration, and that they won't talk exactly about the timing of his departure until a successor is named but no doubt, this is a crucial Cabinet position that the president is mulling over while here on vacation in addition to some others as well, such as the CIA, and the defense department -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: Dan Lothian traveling with the president, thank you for joining us for that.

Let's see how the markets are reacting to the jobs numbers. Alison Kosik at the New York Stock Exchange.

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good point.

BLACKWELL: Good morning. Alison, are investors taking this addition of 155,000 jobs as good news or bad news?

KOSIK: Actually, Victor, you know, it's more like eh, you know, investors are seeing it as it's not good, it's not bad either. You know, stock futures right now are sitting pretty much flat to slightly -- they were sitting flat to slightly lower before the report but as soon as these numbers came out, the Dow went up 20, not a huge response, a few reasons why for this.

You know you look at that 155,000 figure, it's about what everybody expected. You know, some were hoping for better after yesterday's strong ADP report but overall this is what -- you know, pretty much people expected.

Now what's interesting when you look at this report, a lot just hasn't changed from November to December and the same goes for the year. You look at how many jobs were added in 2012. It's about the same as 2011, 1.8 million jobs were created in 2012 and 1.8 million jobs were created in 2011, so it's flat there. You see the jobs market really just moving sideways.

The unemployment rate for December didn't change from November, the number of people unemployed, that didn't change between the two months, the number of retail jobs, that didn't change, and long-term unemployment, that didn't change either so you get the idea not much movement happening here.

Dow futures moved up, though, about 20 points, looking at a bit of a positive open -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right. Alison Kosik from the New York Stock Exchange, thank you. Key new provisions hold up a vote on the Violence against Women Act. We'll speak to one of the bill's cosponsors about its chances for passing and her own history with sexual violence.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: An update this morning on Malala, the Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban, has been released from the hospital.

Malala was campaigning for girls to get an education when she was shot in October, and has been getting life-saving medical treatment in Britain. Malala is expected to continue rehab at her family's temporary home there. The 15-year-old is expected to have major reconstructive surgery in the next few weeks.

There's been a lot of talk about Superstorm Sandy aid, that bill didn't come up for a vote in the last session of Congress. But another very important piece of legislation also never came to a vote, the reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act.

Wisconsin Representative Gwen Moore is a cosponsor and also a victim of sexual violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. GWEN MOORE (D), WISCONSIN: I'm reminded of a time that I got into an automobile of a man I thought was a personal friend to go get some fried chicken, and he pulled in behind some vacant buildings, raped me, choked me, almost to death, and when I went to the hospital, I was encouraged by an advocate -- this was in the 1970s, long before there was a Violence against Women Act, long before there was a Rape Shield Act. And I took him to court, and indeed I was on trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And that is the passion with which Representative Moore argues for this Violence against Women Act reauthorization, and she joins me now from Capitol Hill.

First, Congresswoman Moore, thank you for sharing your story and thank you for speaking with us today. This act includes additional protections for the LGBT community, illegal immigrants, Native American tribes. Why didn't this come up for a vote? Is it specifically the additions of those three elements that stopped this from getting a vote in the House?

MOORE: Absolutely, Victor. That's the reason. The Violence against Women Act has always been bipartisan, but this time because of these practices from the advocates, from people in law enforcement, they saw the need to expand this to communities of color, to Native Americans, to the LGBT community, and young women who needed protection on campuses. And in particular the U Visas, the immigrants and the Native American women became so contentious that people in the House just couldn't see themselves clear to pass it.

And it's a shame that we're at this point because now we have to start all over in the 113th conference. And -- Congress. And it's a shame because this bill had some very, very hard times getting through the Senate committee structure and certainly we're going to -- we're very concerned about whether or not we're going to have these particular communities ignored.

You look at Native Americans, for example, there is a report put out by the Justice Department on the declamation of services, 52 percent of women -- of crimes committed on tribal lands were not prosecuted by federal prosecutors, which have jurisdiction there. Sixty-seven percent of those were sexual assaults and domestic violence. And we're very concerned about the sequester and further cuts that will impair our ability to protect these vulnerable women.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk specifically about the Native American community, because I know that that was one of the portions that was most contentious in the House version and getting this passed or the lack thereof. There was this Cole and Issa compromise. Because the problem here with Native American community specifically is they have their own tribal law. And you cannot prosecute a non-Native under tribal law. So this would give them an opportunity to send it back to federal court.

Would you have accepted that compromise to get this passed?

MOORE: Well, the details of the compromise are not known to me. What is known to me, Victor, is that we have intelligence about people who literally have dragged their victims to tribal land to commit these heinous crimes, these sexual assaults and battery, because they know they can't get prosecuted on tribal lands.

These tribal lands have become a veritable -- you know, free land for sexual assault, non-Native men know that they can do this with impunity, and so I think it's extremely important to give tribal courts some jurisdiction, very narrow, just as it relates to domestic violence, in these matters, because we see and law enforcement sees that that is where the true gap occurs.

And I of course get a lot of correspondents from women who talk about their problems and there is a clear, clear gap in enforcement, and somehow men seem to know that. This is one of the particular areas where there is.

BLACKWELL: Very quickly because we're running out of time, it was a struggle in the Senate, but eventually you got Republican women to sign on and vote for this, 68 members of the Senate voted for it. And there was even some bipartisan support in the House.

How confident are you or optimistic that this will be renewed now in the 113th?

MOORE: Well, you know, we're going to keep working at it. I'm certainly going to keep working at it.

There are more women in the Senate now. There is a greater number of Democrats in the House, and we're going to keep working at this. And thanks to people like you, Victor, to keep this problem visible before the public. We just cannot have the male-dominated House of Representatives stop and help in protection for women.

BLACKWELL: You think it's specifically for an insensitivity to women?

MOORE: I think so. I mean, you know, I'm reading a letter from Chris, you know? And she feels like I do, lucky to be alive. You know, her husband, even after two court orders, was able to beat her, burn her house, kill her children's pets in front of them, and he went to jail once, but got out, he was still allowed to have joint custody after all of these events.

BLACKWELL: And --

MOORE: And yes, there's an insensitivity to the plight that many, many -- hundreds of thousands of women face and women die every single day because of domestic violence.

BLACKWELL: Representative Gwen Moore of Wisconsin -- thank you so much for speaking with us today.

MOORE: Thank you, Victor.

BLACKWELL: And we'll take a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Hugo Chavez is battling a severe lung infection just weeks after cancer surgery. And now, some are worried his condition is worse than officials are letting on.

CNN's senior Latin American affairs editor Rafael Romo joins me now.

And the Venezuelan government are not really saying a lot. Like we were just talking during the break, they've never even confirmed what type of cancer he has.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: That is exactly right, Victor. Venezuelan authorities have yet to disclose specifically what type of cancer President Hugo Chavez is suffering from.

But last night, a top official said the socialist leader suffered respiratory failure -- the clearest indication yet his condition is more serious than previously thought.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO (voice-over): President Hugo Chavez' medical condition remains a closely guarded secret in Cuba. But across the Caribbean, Venezuela is teeming with speculation.

EDWIN RODRIGUEZ, VENEZUELAN VOTER (through translator): Sometimes it looks as if the president is well, other times not so much. Honestly, we don't know what to believe, what the truth is, and what's a lie. Everybody's living in uncertainty.

ROMO: The Venezuelan president left his country for cancer surgery in Cuba on December 10th. He hasn't been seen in public since, but the Vice President Nicolas Maduro has talked about complications and that worries many Venezuelans.

CARLOS SALGADO, VENEZUELAN VOTER (through translator): Chavez is a strong man and a fighter. His party is not my party but as a human being, one can't wish somebody else something bad.

ROMO: Jorge Arreaza, the Venezuelan science and technology minister, also the president's son-in-law, has been trying to quell the negative speculation.

"The medical team has explained to us that President Chavez's condition remains stable but within a delicate state," Arreaza posted on his Twitter account.

ROSE ROJAS, VENEZUELAN VOTER (through translator): Sometimes it's people themselves who start the speculation, saying things that are not true. We just have to be patient and wait.

ROMO: But patience is running out for the Venezuelan opposition. Leaders say the Chavez government owes Venezuela an accurate assessment of the president's health condition.

RAMON GUILLERMO AVELEDO, VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER (through translator): Our demand for the truth is elementary because when a patient is a head of state who has just reelected for a new term, there are implications that affect the entire nation.

ROMO: The highest Roman Catholic authority on Venezuela is calling all political leaders to follow the law if a succession plan is needed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO: Chavez was reelected in October to another six-year term in office and is supposed to be inaugurated next Thursday. But government officials haven't indicated if he will be able to attend his own inauguration, which may have to be postponed. The Venezuelan constitution also spells out a succession n path that may be used if the president is officially declared permanently absent. That's the official term that the constitution uses -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: Permanently absent, but still keeping the title and then moving through to his successor.

I could not imagine if that were to happen in the U.S., what the follow-up would then be.

ROMO: I mean, if you look at the situation the president left for another country, he has cancer, that much we know. We don't know what kind of cancer he has. And in the meantime, you have the Venezuelan people wondering what's going on and this state of the inauguration date, next Thursday, is coming up soon, and nobody really knows if he's going to be actually able to be physically present there.

So there's so much questions, so much rumors flying around. It's just a very difficult situation for Venezuela.

BLACKWELL: All right. Rafael Romo, senior Latin American affairs editor, thank you.

Director Oliver Stone is best known for his movies. But he's also known as an open supporter of Chavez. He even made a film about the Venezuelan president and his influence on the country. Stone will join Suzanne Malveaux at noon Eastern today to talk about his relationship with the president. That's only on CNN.

More Americans use Google than any other search engine. But does the web giant have an unfair advantage? Its competitors think so. But the FTC has a different opinion.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Twenty-six after the hour now.

Let's check your top stories:

For the first time, the White House is sharing this image. It's President Obama being briefed on the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. Until now, the White House has not shown any photos of the president on the night of September 11th.

Terrorist killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. The White House is offering no account of what the deputy national security adviser is telling the president in this photo.

A woman who herself was the target of a gunman is planning a trip to the scene of another national tragedy. Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is planning on visiting Newtown, Connecticut, today. Giffords resigned from Congress last year, so she could focus on her recovery after being shot in the head during an event with voters almost two years ago.

Could former Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank soon be called Senator Barney Frank? Well, Frank's last day as a representative in Washington was yesterday. But Frank told MSNBC he's willing to go back temporarily to work on the financial crisis and replace John Kerry, if Kerry leaves and becomes secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARNEY FRANK, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: February, March and April are going to be among the most important months in American financial --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you're considering?

FRANK: If I -- yes, no, I'm not going to be coy, it's not anything I've been good at. I told the governor that I would like frankly to do that because I would like to be a part of that. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So, we'll see what happens there. And after a two-year investigation, the Federal Trade Commission says Google is not in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. Competitors had complained the world's largest search engine engaged in unfair business practices. The FTC disagreed.

Google still faces a similar investigation in Europe where the antitrust laws are much more stringent.

All right. Back now to today's top story: the jobs report. And let's dig deeper into this morning's numbers.

Let's we bring in Jeffrey Rosensweig. He's a professor at Emory's University Business School.

Jeff, what do the numbers tell you? We know 7.8 unemployment, we know 155,000 jobs added in December but take us inside.

PROF. JEFFREY ROSENSWEIG, GOIZUETA BUSINESS SCHOOL, EMORY UNIV.: Yes. First thing to think about is the stock market didn't move too much. It's about what's expected.

On the other hand, let's remember, it's good news because it's one more month on top of about four years, where every month we've created jobs, when you think about the situation we were in, the Great Recession.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

ROSENSWEIG: And it's a good amount of job creation. It's fast enough that when you look at the total population growth, we're getting there, just not fast enough.

BLACKWELL: Just not fast enough for people who are looking for a job. Yesterday, we got good numbers from the auto industry. The big three plus Toyota all saw gains in December.

Which industries, which sectors have seen some of the gains?

ROSENSWEIG: Well, first of all for the people out there listening that are parents or grandparents or unemployed people, health care is still the place where we create jobs every month.

Do you no he that we were losing 800,000 jobs at the worst part of the great recession? We still have more jobs than health care each month than the month before, and we saw a big jump in health care jobs again.

But you get at something deeper when you mention the autos. Manufacturing created a lot of jobs, and we have been creating on net manufacturing jobs for a few years now, and it adds up to a lot.

In other words, manufacturing jobs are coming back to the U.S. We outsourced a lot of jobs to Asia. We're in-sourcing some manufacturing jobs back. The U.S. can compete. That's huge good news.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it's certainly good news. There was a time when one of those jobs you could support your family, send a kid off to college and now some of the jobs are coming back. Whether they'll support an entire family anymore, we'll see if that happens.